Wilde's Debt to Tennyson in Dorian Gray

259 WILDE'S DEBT TO TENNYSON IN DORIAN GRAY By William Evans Portnoy (University of Wisconsin) A reading of the "Sibyl Vane" episode of Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray in relation to Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott" reveals striking parallels in the characterization, narrative line, and thematic substance of the two works.1 Both poem and novel depict a young woman who lives exclusively within the domain of her art. The "lady" views reality only through her mirror and weaves her "magic web with colors gay" (1.38)ι and Sibyl acts: "It was only in the theatre that I lived" (ch. VII),2 Each is enticed by her love for a handsome young man to abandon her art for the world of actuality, a transition which leads to her ultimate self-destruction. In addition to this general identity of plot and motif, moreover, this section of Wilde's novel is replete with verbal echoes and clear-cut reproductions of the phraseology and imagery of Tennyson's poem which reinforce the thesis of relationship proposed here. Tennyson emphasizes the lady's beautiful "song that echoes cheerly/From the river winding clearly" (11. 30-31)j similarly, one of Sibyl's outstanding characteristics is her musical voice. As Dorian tells Lord Henry Wottom "And her voice - I never heard such a voice. ... [it] sounded like a flute or a distant 'hautbois.' In the garden it had all the tremulous ecstasy that one hears just before dawn when nightingales are singing. . . . You know how a voice can stir one. Your voice and the voice of Sibyl Vane are two things that I shall never forget." (ch. IV) The poet stresses his heroine's isolation from mundane life, and aptly characterizes her as "the fairy/Lady of Shalott" (11. 35-36)j Wilde's narrator remarks that "through the crowd of ungainly, shabbily dressed actors, Sibyl Vane moved like a creature from a finer world" (ch. VII). Dorian had previously noted of Sybil that "she regarded me merely as a person in a play. She knows nothing of life" (ch. IV). In a similar vein, Tennyson reports that his lady has no immediate experience of life, but perceives it only at a remove, that is, through the "mirror" of her arti And moving thro' a mirror clear That hangs before her all the year, Shadows of the world appear. (11. 46-48) Even more reminiscent of this passage is Sibyl's declaration that before she met Dorian "the painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real" (ch. VII). In the same conversation she tells Dorian that "you freed my 260 soul from prison," a phrase which suggests the predicament of Tennyson's lady "imbowered" through a curse of her "silent isle" (11. 17-18).3 In Tennyson's poem a vision of the chivalric knight, Sir Lancelot, causea the lady to abandon her aesthetic isolation and thereby bring destruction upon herself, just as it is Sibyl's "Prince Charming" (her pet name for Dorian) who, as she avers, "taught me what reality really is" (ch. VII). In the same exchange the image of the mirror is once again evoked in Sibyl's exclamation that "you had brought me something higher , something of which all art is but a reflection" (ch. VII), Tennyson's lady decides to turn from her mirror to view the world of actuality with the avowal, "I am half sick of shadows" (1.7), a phrase echoed practically verbatim in this passage in which Sibyl refers to Dorian as her "Prince of Life"ι I have grown sick of shadows" (ch. VII). Finally, Dorian's reaction to the death which he knows himself to have caused closely parallels that of Lancelot to the death of the lady of the poem. In contrast to "all the [other] knights'' who "cross'd themselves for fear" (thus suggesting a kind of religious awe), Lancelot's reflection upon the lady's corpse is a primarily detached, "aesthetic" one ι But Lancelot mused a little space ι He said, "She has a lovely facet God in his mercy lend her grace. The Lady of Shalott." (11. 166-171) Similarly...