The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde

by Oscar Wilde, Richard Ellmann (editor)

Although known primarily as the irreverent but dazzlingly witty playwright who penned The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde was also an able and farsighted critic. He was an early advocate of criticism as an independent branch of literature and stressed its vital role in the creative process. Scholars continue to debate many of Wilde's critical positions.

Included in Richard Ellmann's impressive collection of Wilde's criticism, The Artist as Critic, is a wide selection of Wilde's book reviews as well as such famous longer works as "The Portrait of Mr. W.H.," "The Soul Man under Socialism," and the four essays which make up Intentions. The Artist as Critic will satisfy any Wilde fan's yearning for an essential reading of his critical work.

"Wilde . . . emerges now as not only brilliant but also revolutionary, one of the great thinkers of dangerous thoughts."—Walter Allen, New York Times Book Review

"The best of Wilde's nonfictional prose can be found in The Artist as Critic."—Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Literary Criticism, Criticism, 19th Century, Philosophy

474 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1969

About the author

Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts.
Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. In his youth, Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, he read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.
Wilde tried his hand at various literary activities: he wrote a play, published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on "The English Renaissance" in art and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he lectured on his American travels and wrote reviews for various periodicals. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Wilde returned to drama, writing Salome (1891) in French while in Paris, but it was refused a licence for England due to an absolute prohibition on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.
At the height of his fame and success, while An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) were still being performed in London, Wilde issued a civil writ against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel hearings unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and criminal prosecution for gross indecency with other males. The jury was unable to reach a verdict and so a retrial was ordered. In the second trial Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials and is a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On the day of his release, he caught the overnight steamer to France, never to return to Britain or Ireland. In France and Italy, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.

Reviews

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a compilation made by Richard Ellis of all Wilde's literary criticism, and the best pieces remain the most familiar, i.e., "The Decay of Lying," "The Critic as Artist" and The Soul of Man Under Socialism -- essential reading for anyone interested in Wilde the artist or the man. I also found notable the review of Walter Pater's Appreciations with this moving defense of bias:

It is possible, of course, that I may exaggerate about them [i.e., Pater's books]. I certainly hope that I do; for where there is no exaggeration there is no love, and where there is no love there is no understanding. It is only about things that do not interest one, that one can give a really unbiassed opinion; and this is no doubt the reason why an unbiassed opinion is always absolutely valueless.

This bit of wisdom is, I believe, the key to the validity of faith and belief, whether in a person, a country or a religion.

In his excellent introduction, which is a succinct biographical essay, Ellis points out that Wilde, like Macbeth and Milton's Satan, saw merit in evil. It was a turning point in his life as an artist, as well as a man, when he ceased to flirt with crime as an esthetic pose and became a promiscuous lover of boys. And far from making excuses for his obsession, he identified it as evil, and accepted his suffering as fit punishment. The theme of The Picture of Dorian Gray can be seen as a precursor to his self-judgment.

The value of the earlier reviews and essays collected in this volume, in spite of their relative blandness, is the glimpse they afford of a very different Oscar Wilde before he crossed the line discussed above; a man who, behind his poses, was dedicated to goodness and nobility. Of course, as with all of us, the seeds of the future were present, and the following poem, "Helas!", written in 1881 was uncannily prophetic:

To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
With idle songs for pipe and virelay
Which do but mar the secret of the whole.
Surely there was a time I might have trod
The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:
Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod
I did but touch the honey of romance--
And must I lose a soul's inheritance?

[Julieta · Rating 5 out of 5]

shaking, crying, throwing up, gasping for air, punching a wall and swallowing every single page down my throat. hope this helps!

[tmc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect way to get me out of a reading funk… wishfully convinced we would’ve been friends in the same lifetime

[Adam Bregman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once you've read Oscar Wilde's plays, The Picture of Dorian Gray and his short stories, pick up a copy of The Artist as Critic, a collection of his critical writings assembled by Wilde biographer Richard Ellmann. Readers will discover in this volume some of Wilde's wittiest and most quotable writing. This book was an inspiration to me when I was a journalist and occasionally disparaging music critic and affirmed to me the importance of art criticism, be it music, literature or visual art, and whether blurb-worthy or scathing. Easily and often dismissed by both artist and layman, critical writing can be just as relevant and even more so than the subject being reviewed. Few, though, could pen opinions and metaphors that were as lively as Wilde's, for he was the champion smarty pants.

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to add this old time favorite. In "The Soul of Man Under Socialism", Wilde shows his theoretical power, and delineates his vision for a world free of unjustifiable labor and of the degradation of human beings as individuals in a productive society. His criticism of free market systems which exploit people, includes a much notable statement about how such conditions would turn art into a farce, and how they would ultimately debilitate the respectability and autonomy of artists and other creative individuals. He was truly ahead of his time. I am so glad I reread this with newer insights. I cannot wait to read it again!

[a.d. nox · Rating 2 out of 5]

he's a rambler for sure

[Vaish · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insightful study of the nature of criticism - the play-like style makes it more engaging and the main message (that criticism is as much an art as creation) is well articulated and particularly profound.

[Tim Vander Meulen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The views of Oscar Wilde are valuable only insofar as they correspond to a confused generation that loves art more than truth. His essays are valuable to the scholar who seeks an origin to modern literary thought. The time of the Romance was very strange, and although it produced many great novels that contain beauty, it was not without its flaws, and Wilde is no exception. I am keeping this book, but only as an object for my own criticism.

[Elsie · Rating 4 out of 5]

How can this have an average rating of 5.2?? I really like Oscar Wilde, but I never know if he means what he says (I know that's the point). This reminds me of my brother that way. I can definitely give .5 stars more for saying in the last paragraph that he disagrees with almost everything in the book. And I do think that socialism is the only way to really protect the individual. So.

[Negar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wilde's letters to St James's Gazette are hilarious!

[G.B. Gabbler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gabbler Recommends.