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Since the early days of The Smiths up to Morrissey's most recent radio intervew on 'Desert Island Discs' where he chose the complete works to take to the island, the writings of Oscar Wilde figure prominently in any list of influences on Morrissey. There are others on that list too whose impact might be clearer when examining Morrissey the artist, so I wonder where we can see the parallels best. Another possibility is that traces are few, given the opinion that Wilde put in the mouth of one of his characters in '...Dorian Grey' who, ironically, was most definitely aiming to manipulate through his words:
From ch. 2 of Dorian Grey;
'"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral--immoral from the scientific point of view."
"Why?"
"Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His
virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an
actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly--that is what each
of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to
one's self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage
has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is
the secret of religion--these are the two things that govern us. And yet--"
"Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good boy," said the painter, deep in his work and conscious only that a look
had come into the lad's face that he had never seen there before.
"And yet," continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with that graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of
him, and that he had even in his Eton days, "I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to
every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream--I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we
would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal--to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it
may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial
that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body
sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure,
or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for
the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that
the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place
also..."'
To digress a little, Wilde's only novel set out to show that there are some alarming consequences lying at the end of this road. Most bizarrely to my mind, he repeated in his own life much of the Grey character's socially risky behaviour despite sketching in the book the horrific potential therein for social ostracisation and personal ruin. In this sense, the book is almost like his portrait, and in a limited way, upholds his view that life imitates art.
Of course he was, and is, much more than that to many people. In Morrissey's art, besides Cemetry Gate and his wit, is he evident? It's really serious!
From ch. 2 of Dorian Grey;
'"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral--immoral from the scientific point of view."
"Why?"
"Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His
virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an
actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly--that is what each
of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to
one's self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage
has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is
the secret of religion--these are the two things that govern us. And yet--"
"Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good boy," said the painter, deep in his work and conscious only that a look
had come into the lad's face that he had never seen there before.
"And yet," continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with that graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of
him, and that he had even in his Eton days, "I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to
every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream--I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we
would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal--to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it
may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial
that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body
sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure,
or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for
the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that
the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place
also..."'
To digress a little, Wilde's only novel set out to show that there are some alarming consequences lying at the end of this road. Most bizarrely to my mind, he repeated in his own life much of the Grey character's socially risky behaviour despite sketching in the book the horrific potential therein for social ostracisation and personal ruin. In this sense, the book is almost like his portrait, and in a limited way, upholds his view that life imitates art.
Of course he was, and is, much more than that to many people. In Morrissey's art, besides Cemetry Gate and his wit, is he evident? It's really serious!