Christa Giles

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˝imagination could provide a more than adequate substitute
for the vulgar reality of actual experience.˝ 20
The Sibyl Vane episode in The Picture of Dorian Gray
suggests the way in which the veneration of art, in the
aesthete’s view, supersedes life. For Sibyl Vane exists solely
within the domain of her art. ˝She regarded me,˝ Dorian
tells us, ˝merely as a person in a play. She knows nothing of
life.˝ 21 Indeed, it is because Sibyl speaks the words of
Shakespeare and becomes the embodiment of the latter’s
creations that Dorian falls in love with her. Ironically, when
she leaves the realm of art for life seeking what she
imagines is ˝something higher, something of which all art is
but a reflection,˝ 22 Dorian, her ˝Prince Charming,˝ rejects
her. Ultimately, it is Lord Henry’s view that ˝acting is so
much more real than life˝ 23 which prevails. Thus, Sibyl
Vane becomes less real than Ophelia or Cordelia. In the end
art triumphs, and Dorian perceives Sibyl Vane’s death in
purely aesthetic terms:
˝No,˝ said Dorian Gray, ˝there is nothing
fearful about it. It is one of the great romantic
tragedies of the age. … She lived her finest
tragedy. … When she knew its [love’s]
unreality, she died, as Juliet might have died.
She passed again into the sphere of art. … Her
death has all the pathetic uselessness of
martyrdom, all its wasted beauty. 24