The Middle Temple

The Middle Temple, one of the four Inns of Court in London, appears in The Picture of Dorian Gray as a brief but significant marker of Basil Hallward's early life and his assertion of independence. It is mentioned only once, in the first chapter, when Hallward explains to Lord Henry Wotton the course of his life before he became a painter. His father had destined him for the army, but Hallward insisted on going to Oxford instead. After Oxford, his father made him enter his name at the Middle Temple, the traditional route to a career at the Bar. Hallward complied, but before he had eaten half a dozen of the required dinners—the formal meals that students must attend to qualify as a barrister—he gave up the Bar entirely and announced his intention of becoming a painter. The Middle Temple thus represents the conventional, respectable professional path that Hallward rejected in favor of art. It is one of several institutions—the army, Oxford, the Bar—that his father tried to impose on him, and that he cast off one by one. The brevity of his engagement with the law underscores the strength of his artistic vocation: he did not merely abandon the Bar after a period of study, but walked away almost as soon as he had begun. The episode also establishes Hallward's character as someone who has always been his own master, at least until he met Dorian Gray. The Middle Temple, in this context, is not a place where action occurs but a symbol of a life not lived, a path not taken. It stands in contrast to the creative freedom of the studio, the setting where Hallward is truly himself. The mention of the Middle Temple also connects Hallward to a broader social world of professional gentlemen, a world he has chosen to leave behind. His decision to become a painter rather than a barrister marks him as someone who prioritizes art over convention, a choice that Lord Henry, with his own contempt for conventional morality, would appreciate. The Middle Temple, then, functions as a shorthand for the respectable, rule-bound society that both Hallward and, in his own way, Lord Henry, have opted out of. It is a detail that enriches the portrait of Hallward as a man who has always followed his own instincts, and who will later find those instincts leading him into a devotion to Dorian Gray that he himself recognizes as dangerous and excessive.