著者

塚田 雄一

出版者

一般財団法人日本英文学会

雑誌

英文学研究. 支部統合号 (ISSN:18837115)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.3, pp.185-202, 2011-01-20

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This paper examines how the notion of homosexuality was formed in late nineteenth-century England, and how Oscar Wilde contributed to its formation, through an analysis of the discourse of Victorian sexology, the trials of Oscar Wilde, and Wilde's novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, while focusing particularly on the social and ideological background of the late Victorian period. In fin de siecle England, a growing fear of infectious diseases such as cholera and syphilis generated the idea that these diseases (and the people who carried them) needed to be purged in order to invigorate the British Empire, which was showing some indications of decline. Homosexuality, also known as "perverted sex," was listed among such diseases. The Victorian middle class believed that effeminate homosexuals were spreading corruption among "healthy" citizens and thereby debasing the masculine strength of the British Empire. The newly found science, Victorian sexology, provided a means to identify homosexuals in society by inventing new terms and theories to describe their sexuality, about which little was acutually known at that time. In this environment, Oscar Wilde was regarded as a poignant symbol of homosexuality, as he was significantly brought to trial and found guilty of gross indecency. The trials revealed how Wilde's sexuality threatened Victorian society. Wilde, with his homosexual activities, nullified two important boundaries that secured patriarchal society; not only did he threaten social distinctions by communicating with young men from the lower classes, but he also destroyed the barrier that safeguarded the Victorian household by committing a gross indecency while being the father of two sons. As such, the purge of Wilde the homosexual was significantly staged so as to maintain a "healthy" empire. Wilde's own writings echo the themes of his life. His novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, demonstrates the infectious nature of homosexuality. Through the representation of Dorian as a musical instrument that the wise elder Lord Henry plays, the homosexual state of being "infected by the elder" and ultimately "infecting the younger" (for Dorian himself also corrupts the youth in the second part of the novel) is examined throughout the novel. Moreover, the fact that this novel was citied in the trials as evidence of Wilde's crime (corrupting the "healthy" youth) and that it later served as a handbook for homosexuals suggests that The Picture of Dorian Gray itself was indeed an infectious, replicating presence in the same way as homosexuals were considered to be in Victorian society. Wilde thought a great deal of his aesthetic sense, and believed that he was leading the life of a decadent artist, free from the affairs of the middle-class society that he so despised. However, ironically enough, Wilde was in fact contributing to the British social purity movement by providing and reinforcing the representation of Victorian homosexuality in his trials and his novel in a way that mirrored how Victorian sexology attempted to theoretically characterise homosexuals in order to cure the disease of the empire.