T M 22 (336)

Ashlee's class summary

A Picture of Dorian Gray is actually on Netflix for anyone that is interested in watching the movie. The book however, like normal, is a lot better than the book and goes into a lot of detail that the movie cannot go into.

--TQ

I found Wilde to be one of the most interesting nineteenth century writers we had so, right next to Brownings for me. "The Hariot's House" in particular really made an impression on me. I am not sure exactly why this is, but a do know that the beginning of the poem and middle could not exactly happen at least not to the naked eye. I feel like most of the poems we have read so far are based on what could be real encounters with society, whereas this poem might have just been Oscar Wilde's own dream. Several lines stand out in the poem for me to develop the idea that there are skeletons and non living things dancing to a waltz by Strauss.

3rd Stanza: Like strange mechanical grotesques, Making fantastic arabesques, The shadows raced across the blind.

Several things stand out to me here, firstly the dancers of the waltz are mechanical. Secondly the third line of the stanza could be interpreted in two ways for me. I am not sure in the nineteenth century they had shades aka blinds but the shadows could have literally be on the blinds, or the blind can sense their shadows/ presence.

Altogether the descriptions of the dancers: mechanical, ghostly, skeletons, wire-pulled automatons and black leaves. In general, I know this poem is about lust and how society at the time made it fake thus why we have skeletons dancing to Strauss. These skeletons are experiencing the fake lust but since the lust is not real, they are not real or it could be since the skeletons are already not real they can experience the waltz. To be honest, now thinking about it, t must be that first the skeletons are not real so then because of that they can experience the waltz because that would then mean that they are not real/fake so they can experience the lust which is also fake. Towards the end of the poem while these skeleton like puppets are dancing the presence of a girl "a love" approaches the house and hears the music. This is where my favorite part comes in, "Love passed into the house of lust. Then suddenly the tune went false," It took me a while to understand the ending of the poem, but I think that since the girl has love she cannot have lust too. But what confuses me is that she left her lovers side and entered into the house of lust, and then the house instantly became silent. But figuratively since she left the side of her lover and entered into the house of lust woulcn't that mean that she chose lust over love. Or since she already had love and knew what love was like she could never be like a skeleton who has lust. Because although it is fake and all over society like a epidemic, you just cant have both.It is the war against fake and real; real and fake and from what it looks like...the girls love defeated the fake, or dawn just came and between that and the presnece of the girl the dead stopped dancing. ~Jaclyn Petrow