Paper short abstract:

We propose a structural analysis method to make a genealogy of pleasure in modernity and understand the logic of consumption that involves the body and sensations, placing them in the field of morality. We take as a material of analysis and reference the Portrait of Dorian Gray.

Paper long abstract:

We studied anthropologically the pleasure and sensations that underlie the industrial capitalism of the 19th Century. We contribute to a genealogy of pleasure, taking as reference the book "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde. We want to show how the capitalism created relations of power over the pleasure. For this reason, we propose a method that allow us think about the distribution of sensations in society and establish what is the role of experience in the production of pleasure. We highlight the modern thinking linked to XIX Century and reconstruct the morality that guides and regulates the obtaining of pleasure through experience.

We consider England during Nineteenth-Century as the principal place where the imaginaries of modernity were produced. These imaginaries were spread throughout the world by imperialism. Oscar Wilde`s book displays the problems that involved the new form of relationship between men and nature, with other men and with himself. Capitalism positioned the body and sensations in a central place where moral principles regulate the practice of pleasure. This regulation demanded a moral reorganization of the forms of work and economy. Thus, we revealed the new forms of hedonism of the upper classes that possessed the time of idleness and money. In this sense, we establish a relationship with the material world that produces a moral of consumption, which influences bodies and sensations to these days.