Wagnerian Homoerotic Allusion in The Picture of Dorian Gray

This article analyzes Oscar Wilde’s Wagner-influenced texts within the context of his first trial in 1895. It does this through using the recently turned-up trial transcript, which illuminates how Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray was used as legal evidence for proving the author"s homoerotic tendency. However, instead of paying attention to things examined at the court, this article focuses on what was slipped from the criminal accusation - Wilde"s affection for Wagner"s music. Even though the passages employing Wagnerian subjects were excluded from the cross-examiner’s attention, this article proposes that they could avoid the censorship through concealing homosexual allusions conveyed in the musical themes. This suggests that Wilde’s aesthetic texts in fact made attempt at challenging Victorian sexual repressions, through secretly express things that were socially unspeakable.