55 min
"Dancing Over the Abyss" - Kierkegaard's "Either/Or" and Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" Patterns of Manhood
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- Philosophy
In his unwieldy masterpiece, Either/Or, Kierkegaard posits two fundamental approaches to life: the aesthetic and the ethical approach. The aesthetic approach is characterized by a lack of commitment, and a corresponding flight from duty. The ethical life, by contrast, is defined by an embrace of commitment and the duties that attend it. In the character of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde presents us with a figure torn between the competing claims of these two perspectives. The disastrous squalor of his own life suggests that the choice between the aesthetic and the ethical is more apparent than real.
In his unwieldy masterpiece, Either/Or, Kierkegaard posits two fundamental approaches to life: the aesthetic and the ethical approach. The aesthetic approach is characterized by a lack of commitment, and a corresponding flight from duty. The ethical life, by contrast, is defined by an embrace of commitment and the duties that attend it. In the character of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde presents us with a figure torn between the competing claims of these two perspectives. The disastrous squalor of his own life suggests that the choice between the aesthetic and the ethical is more apparent than real.
55 min