The Picture of Dorian Gray enamoured of him. The Roman goddess of love then offers him eternal life with her in the Venusberg, and he accepts; yet, Tannhäuser becomes dissatisfied with life in the Venusberg, and returns to the harsh reality of the mortal world. After participating in a singing contest, Tannhäuser is censured for the sensuality of his art; eventually, he dies searching for repentance and the love of a good woman. About the literary hero, the author Oscar Wilde said, "in every first novel the hero is the author as Christ or Faust." As in the legend of "Faust", in "The Picture of
The Picture of Dorian Gray novel, the textual revisions to "The Picture of Dorian Gray" included a preface in which Wilde addressed the criticisms and defended the reputation of his novel. To communicate how the novel should be read, in the Preface, Wilde explains the role of the artist in society, the purpose of art, and the value of beauty. It traces Wilde's cultural exposure to Taoism and to the philosophy of Chuang Tsǔ (Zhuang Zhou). Earlier, before writing the preface, Wilde had written a book review of Herbert Giles's translation of the work of Zhuang Zhou. The preface was first published in the 1891