Month: February 2022

Seductive Secrets

When reading “The Portrait of Mr. W.H.” I could not help, but feel as if Wilde was describing himself in his deeply introspective analysis of Shakespeare’s sonnets addressed to Mr. W.H.. The way he described the feelings of Shakespeare and the brilliant muse of the proposed Willie Hughes was much too personal to be simple conjecture. The passion Wilde addressed this mystery with was not the passion of a man unfamiliar with the intricacies of the feelings he described. As we know, Wilde was a man whose passions lied with the male gender. I cannot help but feel, when I read this short story, that Wilde is desperately trying to give his audience a clear representation of his own artistic agony. Being infatuated with the same gender landed Wilde in prison for a few years. This piece, I believe, is a clear look through the window of the author’s soul. 

A controversial figure in his time, Wilde’s brilliance can not be ignored despite his tarnished reputation surrounding his sexuality. His words in this piece blur the lines between Shakespeare and Wilde until it feels like the author is just talking about his own experience. When reading this, I felt it was different from the other works we have read in class. To me, it read almost like a diary entry, lamenting his own not-so-secret love by transferring his obsession to researching the identity of another’s object of inspiration. 

He wonders why he spent so much time on this project, but matters of the heart do not make sense. Being led by your heart sometimes takes you down the rabbit hole, and that is a little of what we are seeing here. Mr. W.H. is a being of pure conjecture, but the author wholeheartedly believes him to be true during his period of infatuation with him. The moment he shares his research and ideas we see the narrator do a complete one eighty. Once his passion project was out in the open, all the love was lost. Here we can see the seductive nature of a secret, which may hold true in Wilde’s own sexual preferences. Because it was forbidden and dangerous a homosexual relationship might be more seductive to Wilde. His written work is a masterpiece of art bursting with beautifully crafted ideas and arguments, but his diverse portfolio and many of the arguments he makes begs the question of a lasting passion. He is a man diametrically opposed to the ordinary, and believes art is a technique that is ever evolving into something new and astonishing. Maybe Wilde himself was one of his works of art, dedicated to the ideal of astonishment. There is no question of his passion or his preference for the male gender, but upon further reflection of this piece and his life as a whole, Wilde is the culmination of all his contradicting ideals. Specifically, in this story about Mr. W.H. gives us a transparency to the author that we rarely get to see. Making art is a labor of love, despite loving in such a judgemental time, Wilde persevered to give us his truly beautiful art. 

Oscar Wilde and The Fallacy of Martyrdom

I really enjoyed the unique blend of fiction and literary criticism in “The Portrait of Mr. W.H.”. The reflections about the art of acting were really interesting, and I enjoyed learning a little bit about the history of British theater. The line that stood out most to me was when the narrator explains that, “Men die for what they want to be true, for what some terror in their hearts tells them is not true” (1201). This statement is situated at the end of the story when the narrator criticizes Erskine’s and Cyril’s deception by “the pathetic fallacy of martyrdom,” which refers to the fact that they believed that they were dying in the name of truth (1201). I thought that this critique of sacrificing life for belief could be ironic considering Wilde’s own history. This short story was written in 1889, which is about six years before Wilde would be unjustly imprisoned because of his sexual identity. I am no expert in this matter; however, from what we have discussed in class, Wilde had the opportunity to flee and avoid the stress of hard labor that most assuredly contributed to his death a few years after being released from prison. However, Wilde refused to escape and pleaded not guilty – even though his sexual relationship with men was widely known. In this way, one could view Wilde’s decision to stay in England and to be put on trial as an act of martyrdom for his family’s honor. There is no real way to know if Wilde wished to be heteronormative, but the phrase “what some terror in their hearts tells them is not true” is interesting in this context. Could this statement be a subtle reflection of Oscar Wilde’s struggle to accept his non-normative sexual identity? Wilde lived in a society that was obviously very anti-LGBTQ, so it would be easy to see how Wilde could be pressured to become ashamed of his identity and conceal it at all costs.  

The Happy Prince and Other Confusing Tales

Despite having spent a lot of time with The Happy Prince and Other Tales, I freely admit that each of the tales still puzzles me. The sort of irresolution we ended our class on them with feels maybe predictive of the irresolution I imagine I’ll feel even at the close of my thesis — almost more questions than answers. And I guess that’s some of their charm, that, like Wilde, they are a little elusive, seemingly random, but undeniably charming (I’m sure that’s a bit of a bold claim to make, but bear with me).  It’s difficult too to identify what exactly gives them that quality, if it’s the abundance of small details such that it’s hard to know what to focus on, or perhaps their less-than-satisfying ends. It’s just hard to make something tangible of them — hard, but not impossible.  

One element of “The Happy Prince” I’m still trying to understand are the religious details that come in at the very end.  God asks his angels to bring him “‘the two most precious things in the city’” (277) and he is brought the Happy Prince’s heart and the dead Swallow.  The Swallow is conferred into Paradise to sing eternally and the Happy Prince is restored to a city of gold.  They are clearly rewarded for their love, as they are brought together to God. The question is why God must bestow this reward, when for the rest of the story all that seemed to matter was the relationship between the Prince and the Swallow and the value they found in each other. This sort of religious quirk at the end of a tale happens again in “the Selfish Giant” when the Giant is brought into Paradise by a child Christ: “You let me play once in your garden, today you shall come with me to my garden which is Paradise” (285). This line in “the Selfish Giant” however, allows a much more direct explanation of why the Giant is going to Heaven compared to that in “The Happy Prince” — the children can now play in his garden because he has learned not to be selfish.  This direct line of reasoning doesn’t seem as critical in “The Happy Prince.” Perhaps it has something to do with the sacrifice of both the Happy Prince and the Swallow. While I don’t read their relationship to be wholly mutualistic, there is a sense in which they both died in the service of others — the Swallow to the Happy Prince and the Prince to his city and perhaps that granted them a place in Paradise. 

What is most curious about these religious elements to me is not that they simply exist, or even puzzling out why they exist. Instead what feels most key about them to me is that, though they are abrupt, they are not out of joint with the rest of the story.  While it is narratively confusing that God and his Angels appear at the end, it somehow doesn’t also feel wrong. It is as if on some level those elements just fit the story. I don’t have an explanation for why they fit, they just seem to, and it’s something I’m going to keep trying to explain as we keep thinking about Wilde this semester.

Searching for the Artist in the Art

I registered for this course never having read Oscar Wilde’s works, and my main association with Wilde was his queerness. My first introduction to Wilde was in the context of a critical piece on “the closet” and how “the love that dare not speak its name” is coded in literature. For the first few weeks, I could not help but look for clues to Wilde’s queer identity in all of the works we read, despite the fact that our modern understanding of homosexuality is anachronistic to Wilde’s time. However, it was only during Abby’s discussion on The Happy Prince short stories that I really recognized the complexities in looking for meaning, both personal and artistic, in Wilde’s writing. I’ve been reading Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney recently, and the same day we discussed Wilde’s short stories, I came across a passage that fit perfectly with some of the complexities of his authorship that we touched on in class. One of the four main characters of the book is an author who discusses the issues that arise with her growing notoriety. She asks:

 What is the relationship of the famous author to their famous books anyway? … what do the books gain by being attached to me, my face, my mannerisms, in all their demoralizing specificity? Nothing. It makes me miserable, keeps me away from the one thing in my life that has any meaning, contributes nothing to the public interest, satisfies only the basest and most prurient curiosities on the part of the readers, and serves to arrange literary discourse entirely around the domineering figure of ‘the author’ (Rooney 60).

While I do think there is value to studying an author alongside their work, this passage made me question how to read Wilde’s works without trying to find pieces of his personal life in them. Particularly in “The Portrait of Mr. W.H,” Wilde meditates on the relationship between two friends as the ultimate form of love describing, “the Platonic conception of love as nothing if not spiritual, and of beauty as a form that finds its immortality within the lover’s soul” (325). My first instinct was to read this passage as a hint of Wilde’s queer relationships, but when separating Wilde’s identity from this passage, it can instead be read as a reflection on sociology and how this platonic ideal of friendship was lost in Wilde’s time.

Dark Decadence

As I was reading the selection of poems for this week’s class, I found myself intrigued by how many darker poems were woven into the collection. With all the talk of beauty and art for art’s sake, it is interesting how many of these poems have more sinister undertones. “The Ballad of a Barber” ends with a murder and the subsequent hanging, “The Masquerade” imagines a world where people are forced to dance, and “Candlelight” contains “delicate flowers of death” (4). But the two poems that struck me the most were “The Dead Poet” and “Nihilism.”

“The Dead Poet” was written by Lord Alfred Douglas about the death of Oscar Wilde. I the thing that stood out to me about this poem is even though the language of the poem itself is describing the beauty of Wilde’s life, there is no part of the poem that doesn’t feel sad. Because of the title, and to some extent because of the last line (“And so I woke and knew that he was dead” (14)), the poems normally cheerful language takes on a somber, more desperate tone.

On the other hand, “Nihilism,” written by Lionel Johnson, does not use the same language strategies. Instead, this poem’s language is very abstract, and comes together in short lines, marked frequently by commas. This makes the lines really powerful, despite their abstractness (“of life I am afraid” or “The pausing from all thought!” (4, 10)).

Thought these two poems use different techniques, they both thematically touch upon the theme of death and our reactions to it. They are interesting to read write after the Happy Prince stories because while those stories have a certain playfulness to them that we read as the closest we had come to pure decadence, these poems do not have that same feeling. Death is a pretty strong opposite to playfulness, but it is also something all human beings, decadent or not, have to face.

Wilde and Thackeray

I am interested in Wilde’s idea in The Decay of Lying that Art imitates Life, rather than Life imitating Art.  In his essay, he claims that “Life is Art’s best, Art’s only pupil” (Wilde 983), and provides several fictitious examples of this.  The example I found most humorous was his reference to Becky Sharp of Vanity Fair, which was written by “great sentimentalist” William Makepeace Thackeray and originally published in 1848 (Wilde 984).  Wilde’s character Vivian describes that well after Vanity Fair was published, the governess who was a loose inspiration for Becky’s character “ran away with the nephew of the lady with whom she was living, and for a short time made a great splash in society, quite in Mrs. Rawdon Crawley’s style, and entirely by Mrs. Rawdon Crawley’s methods” (Wilde 984), following the exact trajectory of Becky after her disastrous marriage to Rawdon Crawley.  I find Wilde’s reference to Becky interesting because she was the ultimate liar.  A vicious social climber, she is cunning and seductive, and uses her intelligence to take advantage of wealthy men.  If art is lying, Thackeray’s biting satire is evidence of this.  It presents heavily exaggerated characters and weaves together their stories in a ridiculous manner. 

It is interesting to consider, then, how writers of Wilde’s time were turning away from Victorian literature.  Certainly, Vanity Fair is not an example of art for art’s sake, but Becky’s interest in all things beautiful and her desire to live a pleasure-filled life seems to align with the code of the Decadents.  Becky put on a show in society, masking her true background and creating a glamorous façade.  She reminds me of some of the characters in Wilde’s short stories, particularly Lord Arthur Savile and the Canterville ghost.  Lord Arthur creatively plots several murder attempts to maintain his position and relationship to his fiancée, creating a life based on deception and crime.  The Canterville ghost initially is interested in putting on masks to terrorize the Otis family and maintain his fear-based position of power in the household.  Their scheming and cunning for the sake of comfort cause them to act similarly to Thackeray’s Becky.

What Makes a Fairytale?

As we discussed The Happy Prince and Other Tales on Wednesday, I found myself drawn to the question “what makes a fairytale?” It’s a question I had not thought of before, mostly because I think that we learn fairytale stories when we are young and accept that the stories that we learned are fairytales. But as I thought about it further, I found that that explanation is unhelpful. For example, if asked whether Disney princess movies are fairytales, I would say no but many people would say yes. I would insist that they are adaptations of fairytales, not fairytales themselves, but if pushed I could only say that when I was a kid my parents read to me books of fairytales that told many of the traditional stories Disney used as inspiration for their films, so I consider those stories to be “true” fairytales, while someone who only watched Disney movies and did not read fairytales might say that the Disney films themselves are fairytales. “This is what I learned when I was a kid” is not a good enough justification for how to define a fairytale.

As I pondered this question, I came up with a variety of potential definitions. A fairytale has to have a Happily Ever After? Anyone who has read the Brothers Grimm know that’s not the case. A fairytale has a princess in it? Jack and the Beanstalk, the Three Little Pigs, and Little Red Riding Hood are only a few examples that show that’s not true. Perhaps a fairytale is simply a fantastical short story intended for young audiences. That is the most satisfactory definition I could find after trying to classify books I read as a kid into different categories and looking in various dictionaries to see what they had to say.

With that definition in mind, in order determine whether “The Happy Prince” is a fairytale, we must reflect on whether Wilde intended for children to read the collection. I think it is fair to say that they are short, fantastical stories. Birds and statues speak to one another; rockets are personified; giants exist. It is more difficult to determine whether the stories are directed towards children. We talked in class about how critics are divided on this question. Vyvyan Holland said that the stories are more poetry than they are fairytales, but other people have argued that Wilde wrote these stories for his own children. Ultimately, I think that stories can work on multiple levels. These stories are entertaining for children to read, and they can also appeal to adults, regardless of which group was meant to appreciate the tales. With that in mind, I think that it is fair to categorize The Happy Prince and Other Tales as a collection of fairytales.

Freedom through Lying

One of the questions we asked about “The Decay of Lying” was: Why did Wilde choose to use the word lying? Vivian found no value in Nature having anything to do with Art, but found that Art’s real aim was to lie. Why was this?

I think this relates to the ongoing conversation we have been having about the aspects of mystery and curiosity that enveloped Wilde. Lying is mysterious. It’s not straight-forward. It piques curiosity. And of course it is fun. 

Lying is something to do. Not only does it prevent boredom, but it contributes to Wilde’s dedication to creation at the hands of the artist. A good lie is personal, it is nurtured and shaped by the teller. And if it is successful, a lie is entertaining. It is the same as a great story.

At first when I read that the aim of Art was lying, it didn’t make sense to me. But, the more I think about what lying really means, the more I see how Wilde loved and appreciated a good lie. My favorite thing about lying that relates to Wilde is that lying can be pointless. Lying for no reason, only for entertainment, even if just for one’s self. That makes me think of “art for art’s sake.” There is no reason, you simply lie to make something, to create. And like art, it can turn out good or bad. 

I think this also relates to “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime.” The reason the party was thrown in the first place was out of Lady Windermere’s boredom, and her boredom contributed her to bringing Mr. Podgers as entertainment. His form of entertainment was lying, and he could do it well. The lie he created was so effective that it was the catalyst for the creation of the rest of the entire story. 

It also made me think of the ideas of freedom that we discussed with the imagery of birds in “The Happy Prince.” What if, since Wilde couldn’t be straightforward about his personal identity most of the time, lying was his form of freedom? As we have speculated about in class, I believe that Wilde wore a mask a lot of the time to prevent having to explain things about himself that he didn’t want to. The truth would, and did, take away his literal freedom. So, lying could’ve been a way for him to have the freedom to construct and live in the world the way he wanted to.

Wilde and The Tempest

I noticed that Wilde referenced The Tempest in The Decay of Lying. This struck my interest because The Tempest seems to reflect some ideas of the decadent movement. 

In The Decay of Lying, Wilde describes Shakespeare’s career as one that gradually steers away from focusing on style and opts instead for realism and freedom. He reminds the audience that “it is working within limits that the master reveals himself.” He then states that “we need not linger any longer over Shakespeare’s realism” before calling The Tempest the “most perfect of palinodes.” However, it is unclear in what way Wilde sees The Tempest as a palinode. While it could be interpreted as a palinode of the realist work described earlier, it could also be interpreted as a palinode to his stylistic work. I am more inclined to believe the latter based on the contents of The Tempest and Wilde’s view of art, though the organization of this passage could suggest the former. The Tempest switches between verse and prose depending on who is speaking. Caliban even switches between the two depending on his audience. In this way, Wilde could be criticizing Shakespeare for failing to work within a limited structure. 

Though Wilde may be criticizing this work, I find it interesting that this is not the first time we have seen him reference The Tempest. In the preface to Dorian Gray, which we read on the first day, he states, “The nineteenth-century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in the glass.” In The Tempest, Caliban can be read many ways, but one interpretation of his character is that he represents raw human nature. With this interpretation, the line is read as humanity seeing themselves accurately in realism and despising what they see. 

While Wilde references The Tempest in these two works to make slightly different points, I find it fascinating that he has referenced it twice given the way that The Tempest could tie into the decadent movement. In The Tempest, nature is subordinated to magic and illusion as the powerful Prospero uses his magic (which could simply be interpreted as education) to conquer the island. Other characters fantasize about finding an untouched island to mold and fashion it to their liking, while Caliban, who is described as animalistic and inherently earthy, is constantly held captive by someone else. While it is certainly not the only interpretation, The Tempest can be read as a story about man’s dominance over nature. This certainly seems to be a central part of the decadent movement, which subordinates nature to man to the point that it bends at the will of art. Overall, I found this continued reference fascinating considering Wilde’s view of the relationship between nature and art.

American Stereotypes

What struck me the most about Wilde’s “The Canterville Ghost” was how aggressively American the United States Minister’s family was. One of the funniest bits in the story in my opinion was the childrens’ names, with the eldest named Washington, the daughter named Virginia, and the nameless twins called the Stars and Stripes. Wilde brought up American stereotypes in this story that I didn’t even know existed, such as when the family discussed the importance of the city of Boston and how they thought that the New York accent was much more pleasant than the London drawl.

When I first read the story, I thought the family being American was just a way for Wilde to make some jabs at Americans and comment on how their disposition is so different from British people’s. However, after reading “The Decay of Lying,” I think there are more layers to Wilde deciding to make this family American.

In “The Decay of Lying,” Wilde comments on, “The crude commercialism of America, its materialising spirit, its indifference to the poetical side of things, and its lack of imagination and of high unattainable ideals” (1081).

All these traits that Wilde mentions in “The Decay of Lying” are present in the Otis family, including the “crude commercialism,” which comes up when the minister name drops name-brand stain remover and lubricant. This leads me to believe that instead of being a family that exhibits some American stereotypes, the Otis family is a stand-in for all of America.

Believing in ghosts and hauntings requires a bit of imagination and fancy, but since the Otis family is American and is indifferent to poetics and has no imagination, they initially don’t believe a ghost is haunting Canterville. Even when the ghost is proven to be real, they are almost indifferent to the ghost’s attempts to scare them, except for when Washington and the twins torment the ghosts. The ghost and the family are in an odd sort of limbo with the ghost unable to leave and the family not being affected by the ghost. It is only when Virginia listens to the ghost that the situation is resolved. She is able to sympathize with him, listen to the prophecy, and walk with him to the Garden of Death. She isn’t indifferent to poetics and imagination which is why she is able to lead him out.

The Ameican family is able to survive because of their Americanness, unlike the British inhabitants before them. However, it’s Virginia’s combination of American ideals and being open to imagination that fixes things.