i just wrote a whole post theorizing that the picture of dorian gray might have been inspired by hamlet and was checking something on wikipedia, only to realize wilde literally referenced hamlet multiple times in it. it's been so long since i read it that i fucking forgot. anyways what i'll say now is that i do not actually think basil & dorian and hamlet & horatio have much in common besides one being devoted to the other, which is not much of a narrative parallel anyway, since horatio's role as companion of hamlet is by necessity of being an audience stand-in for exposition while basil's love to dorian is one of the story's driving forces. it doesn't really make sense to focus on them when sibyl vane is explicitly compared to ophelia and james vane is to laertes. the fact that james waits years and ultimately never even gets revenge despite the comparison to laertes is also so interesting