Professor David Peimer
Oscar Wilde: Satire, Irony, Brilliant Wit
Professor David Peimer - Oscar Wilde: Satire, Irony, Brilliant Wit
- Okay, so we are going to dive into Oscar Wilde, and I’m going to just say it direct. The two pieces I’m going to look at of of his work, in particular, “The Picture of Dorian Grey,” the novel, and the one play of his “Importance of Being Earnest,” which in my personal opinion are two of the most remarkable pieces of literature written in English, coming out of the UK for many, many, many decades, years, and so on. And I want to try and suggest today why it is so relevant for us, and how it can speak to us in the 21st century, not only England, but you know, far, far beyond. And why in particular it’s these two works that for me really stand the test of time. And that really not only resonate, but I think help us to give us insights into the various cultures, obviously England, but the various cultures we live in all across the world. I’m not going to deal much about his life, ‘cause I know Trudy dealt with his life and the trial with Queensberry and Lord Alfred Douglas, or Boysie, as he was known, and the trial and homosexuality and all of that at the time. I’m just going to mention it just as a quick reminder, but I’m not really going to go into his life 'cause I know she dealt with it wonderfully the other day, and rather spend the time looking on these two works. And also I want to show a few little clips from the Stephen Fry film, because not only do I admire Stephen Fry enormously, I think he’s really one of the most intelligent, creative, wonderful actors, writers, and public intellectuals, or just human beings. The humanity of the man is fantastic. But aside from that, it’s his portrayal in and what he says about Oscar Wilde, and his portrayal in the film, which I’m sure many people know and have seen. Okay, so we’ll dive in.
These are three pictures of Oscar Wilde, and you can see, pretty short life, 46 years. And then he died, we think of meningitis in Paris in 1900. And on the left, on the left of the screen, you can see that’s an advert for him. He went twice to America and Canada, and gave speaking tours, hugely popular. And this is one of them, just an advert for one of his tours, a poster, English renaissance in English literature today. And you know, and so on. Hugely popular, not only through the plays, but as what we would call today, a celebrity public intellectual. In his day, of course we wouldn’t use those words. And enormously popular giving lectures, talks, in the US, in Canada, throughout the UK, and just such a renowned public figure. Okay, and then of course, in conjunction with looking at the play, and the one novel, to look at, what is his wit and how does it work? His satire, what is he satirising? How does it work? And not only the aphorisms, but what is he actually satirising that speaks to his culture and to ours today? So if we can dive into the first slide, please. Thanks. So I want to just give a taste before I mention a couple of things about his life, and then the play and the novel. These are some of the great aphorisms or epigrams or witticisms, whichever word we want to use. It’s the way of thinking and putting words together that is so eminently memorable, with Oscar Wilde that he stands out for me as one of the truly great and subversive writers. “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he’ll tell you the truth.”
He always twists in the great art of ancient rhetoric, Going back to Rome and in ancient Greek times, where rhetoric was taught, so importantly, to the upper classes and to learn how to articulate oneself in public in the art of rhetoric. “I can resist everything except temptation.” And that’s one of the great phrases from “Portrait of Dorian Grey.” “Man’s face is his autobiography.” “True friends stab you in the front.” “Always forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them so much.” It’s always that twist which brings in the humour at the end. “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.” I love that phrase, and I’ve mentioned that many times to students and always get that wonderful heartwarming witchy response. “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” Not in affair, not a marriage, or even a lifelong love, but a romance, an adventure to love oneself. And he means it in a profound humanistic way. “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” And that’s of course from the novel as well, which I’m sure everybody knows that phrase. “It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.” Of course, I want to talk about the role of him, performing in writing like this as we go along. “Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.”
He always throws and finds a witty, incredibly concise ways to make us turn 180 degrees on anything we may have as a preconceived assumption or a learnt preconception in our own lives. “You don’t love someone for their looks or clothes or fancy car. You love them because they sing a song only you can hear.” I think that’s a great line. Okay, if we can go on to the next slide please. “Life is too short to waste it on realising the dreams of others.” Isn’t that a true phrase, if ever one was said? “I have the simplest of tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.” “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” “I can never travel without my diary, one should always have something sensational to read on the train.” This is said by Gwendolyn in “The Importance of Being Earnest.” Talking about, I don’t take books either, it’s my diary because that’s the most sensational thing I can read. “In all matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential.” And that’s a crucial one which I’m going to link to, particular to “The Importance of Being Earnest.” The role of style and form and manners, and how it was perfected in the late Victorian period of the 1890s when he’s writing his best work. The four plays and, “Portrait of Dorian Grey.” “Be yourself, everything else already been taken.” “Experience is the most difficult teacher. First he takes the exam, then explains the lesson.” So it’s just so true, witty, concise, yet again. And it flips any stereotype. And Wilde always is looking for a way to whip or to flip stereotype or preconceived assumptions about life, manners, morals, mores. And say, look, this is all just social mores of a particular time in history, and a particular culture. Back to the ancient Greeks, their attitude to homosexuality or the ancient Romans, totally different to the attitude during his life. Just to take one example of something that obviously affected him so strongly. And then just a couple of others just to share with you here.
“The Bible begins with a man and a woman in paradise, and ends with the apocalypse, why?” Well, another one of his here. “Loveless marriages are horrible, but there is something worse than a loveless marriage. It’s a marriage in which there is love, but only on one side. One of the two hearts will surely break.” “In ancient times, books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by anyone.” It just keeps going on. “The first duty of life is to be as artificial as possible. Which is the second? No one has quite found out yet.” It’s all about the mask and the artificiality of form and presentation and performance of self. We’re going to look at it in the play and in the novel. “Sometimes I think that God in creating man slightly overestimated his abilities.” “The secret to staying young lies in having a wild passion for pleasure.” And one of his greatest ones is this. “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” I think it’s one of his greatest insights and witticisms. “A pessimist is someone who complains about the noise when opportunity knocks on the door.” And then finally. “The great events of the world take place in the brain.” And it’s the life of the mind. Steven Fry talks about in some interviews and some lectures that he gave as well, around the time after making the film. You know, it’s the life of the mind that is so, ultimately what he’s trying to do, is that morals, conventions, all the rules we inhabit and live by, most of them exist in the mind, and are are manufactured through human society, of course.
And what might have happened in Aztec society or ancient Egypt or ancient China or wherever, it will be totally different. And the obvious one that he links it to is homosexuality, but many other things as well. So it’s the life of the mind. And I think that’s where Wilde takes place. And I think that’s why it is so subversive. That’s why he was so vilified, and so viciously attacked in his own life. Not only because of the affair with the Boysie, with Douglas and Queensberry, and the crazy father, obsessed father. But it was, he’s constantly subverting preconceived, accepted notions, which of course take place in the mind. He was one of the most popular playwrights in the 1890s. And I mean a lot of critics have called him one of the first great celebrities, and the celebrity trial when it did happen. Obviously flamboyant life and so on. He wrote a play in 1891, interestingly called, “Salome,” which is not that well known. He wrote it in French, he could speak French, German and other languages. And it was refused a licence on the English stage, because then the Lord Chamberlain said you could not show biblical subjects on the English stage. Nothing was allowed. So it’s interesting that he, his very first play that he wrote, and he chooses that John the Baptist and Salome demanding of Herod, that if he dance the dance of the seven veils, then she wants the head of John the Baptist in return. Ancient biblical story, but it’s not allowed no matter how you portray it. So he’s not scared to take it on, the social mores of the times. Then he wrote “De Profundis” after coming out in prison, and “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”, 1898, after prison. The last three years of his life, 1897 to 1900, is when he goes straight to Paris and he lives there, becomes very poor, destitute, and dies in horrible circumstances.
So this remarkable short life of 46 years, and what he went through, from literary to the heights of literary elite in London, to rock bottom to prison for two years, and hard labour. And it was hard physical labour that he was sentenced to. The judge said, this is the worst case that I’ve ever seen. And the case before Wilde’s case, was a case of a rapist. So the judge said what Wilde had done with homosexuality was worse than a rapist, basically. Sentenced him to the strictest that he could at the time, two years hard labour. Okay, if we can go on to the next slide please. So this is Wilde and Boysie, this is just a real picture of the two of them. Lord Alfred Douglas, the young guy. You know the whole story that Trudy wonderfully went into detail the other day. Now what’s interesting is that after the trial, when he got on the train to be taken to prison, there was huge crowd 'cause he was hugely popular, as what we would again call public celebrity intellectual today or writer. And they jeered him on the train, and this grated him almost more than going to prison. So it’s that flippancy of the masses, of the trial, I’m going to come to this with Dorian Grey, is how the masses can go this way and that way. it can be dynamic individual, with obvious references to the 20th century, and Wilde, being charismatic and renowned and intellectually glittering intellectual and witty brilliance. And yet after the trial, accusation of homosexuality, that crowds are booing him, jeering, mocking, sneering as he gets on the train. It’s that fickleness of how you can turn the mass psychology of a crowd. And he wrote about that quite a bit. He also, in prison, he sought, he understood, to go back to the Bible, Solomon’s great line, “all is vanity.”
One of the opening lines in the Book of Solomon. And he sees finally in prison that it’s all vanity. And he remembers Douglas, Boysie’s remark, when he said to Wilde, and I’m quoting, “When you are not on your pedestal, you are not interesting, Oscar.” An extraordinary statement. Somebody that he’s been so infatuated with, so in love and obsessed with. “When you are not on your pedestal, you are not interesting.” That’s what this young guy says. So it’s the ruthless cruelty of Boysie, but the truth. And he remembers it in prison and writes about it, 'cause he starts to change in prison, moving more towards understanding sorrow, pain and suffering, and being an authentic self, as opposed to living the life of the performative, the external image, form, presentation of manners and self, and all of that being so important, he changes in prison. And that’s what so much of “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” and “De Profundis” is all about. Okay, then of course, as I said, he dies, he goes across to France. And then I want to just mention the, the one other point is, you know, he wrote this essay, “The Critic as Artist,” where he wrote, “art is individualism.” It’s not just art for art’s sake. It’s an interesting depth that he goes to. Art, and I’m quoting, “Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing force in society. True individualism, there lies its immense value. It seeks to disturb the slavery of custom and habit. It seeks to disturb the tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to being an automaton or a machine.” And that phrase for me sums up the much bandied around phrase, art for art’s sake, which I think is just one phrase, but underneath it is this call for the individualist voice. In our times of mass conformity, mass production, mass consumption of everything, where is that individualist voice? That democracy ironically should hold up to the top of the tree.
That should be the top of Everest is individualism, but how much of it is really allowed or not? And he’s challenging that. Okay, the next slide please. So this is just an image, this is the cell that he was in, obviously it’s an image from recent times today, repainted and made clean and nice and so on, just to give you a visual of that. And then on the right is the illustrated piece, Police News. Now the police had their own newspapers at the Times in London, and you always had these engravers or drawers, and they would draw pictures of Wilde in prison, sorry, Wilde in his trial, together with the article would come the images. Of course this all predates TV, film, and obviously internet. So, this is how one makes visual and verbal together in the police itself newspaper, very popular newspapers of it’s time. Okay. And then I want you to show you the next, this is now a little clip from the, if we go on to the first clip, which is there, it’s the next one. Okay, and it’s Stephen Fry in the film and you’ll see it. Okay, if we can play it. Thanks.
CLIP BEGINS
[Oscar] Life cheats us with shadows. We ask it for pleasure, it gives it to us, with bitterness and disappointment in its train. And we find ourselves looking with dull heart of stone at the tress of gold-flecked hair that we had once so wildly worshipped and so madly kissed.
Oscar.
CLIP ENDS
- If we can hold it there. Thanks. So just an image from the film with that moment of first, Alfred Douglas, Boysie, and what he’s seeing, of course, the innocence of youth, the beauty and all of that, and his own age, everything comes into it. It’s a memory of himself young, looking at Douglas. Is it love, is it obsession, infatuation? What is beauty? And what is falling in love with this beauty for him? And in doing it in such a literary and if you like, psychologically analytical way, for himself. Okay, if we can show the next slide, please. Next film clip, sorry. From the film as well.
CLIP BEGINS
- Ladies and gentlemen, I have enjoyed this evening immensely. The actors have given us a charming rendering of a delightful play, and your appreciation has been most intelligent. I congratulate you on the great success of your performance, which persuades me that you think almost as highly of this play as I do myself.
CLIP ENDS
- Okay, thanks. It’s a wonderful little clip from the film, and of course he’s coming on stage, it’s after his own play has been performed. And it’s done in a very subtle way that Stephen Fry can act so wonderfully and, congratulating the audience on their intelligence for appreciating it. Always flipping, always trying to find the subversive different angle or point of view on the same thing. It’s brilliant. Okay, if we can go to the next one please. Okay, this is a little clip from Monty Python. I’ll just show you a little bit at the beginning. Monty Python sketch.
CLIP BEGINS
My congratulations Wilde, your latest play is a great success. The whole of London’s talking about you.
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
Witty, very witty. Very, very witty.
There is only one thing in the world worse than being witty, and that is not being witty.
I wish I had said that.
You will Oscar, you will.
Your majesty, have you met James McNeil Whistler?
Yes, we play squash together.
There is only one thing worse than playing squash together, and that is playing it by yourself. I wish I hadn’t said that.
You did Oscar, you did.
I’ve got to get back to the palace.
Your majesty is like a big jam donut with cream on the top.
I beg your pardon?
It’s one of Whistler’s.
I never said that.
You did James, you did.
Very well, what I meant was that, like a donut your arrival gives us pleasure and your departure only makes us hungry for more.
CLIP ENDS
- Okay, we can hold . Okay, thanks. You know, and the clip goes on more and more, but it’s the great satirists of Monty Python who I love, on Oscar Wilde himself. And I’m sure Wilde would’ve loved it, and it’s how satire echoes through the ages and how, as one of my professors said when I studied at Columbia, originality is lack of how they take it from the past and add it on, and satirise one’s own previous heroes like, or in this case, great satirists of any form. So, we can go to the next clip please. Now this is a scene between Queensberry and Stephen Fry playing Wilde, from the movie.
CLIP BEGINS
The Christians, they go around pretending they know who God is and how He works. Well I’ve got no time for that Tomfoolery. I say that if you don’t know something, you should stand up and say so, not go around pretending you believe in some mumbo jumbo.
I can believe in anything provided that it’s incredible. That’s why I intend to die a Catholic, though I couldn’t possibly live as one. Catholicism is such a romantic religion. It has saints and sinners. The Church of England only has respectable people who believe in respectability. You get to be a bishop, not by what you believe, but by what you’re don’t.
That’s true enough.
It’s the only church where the sceptic stands at the altar. St. Thomas the Doubter is Prince of the Apostles. Now, I couldn’t possibly die in the Church of England.
Where do you stand on cremation?
I’m not sure I have a position.
I’m for it. I wrote a poem. “When I am dead, cremate me.” That’s how it begins. “When I am dead, cremate me.” What do you think of that for an opening line?
It’s challenging.
Well, I’m a challenging sort of man. That’s why people don’t like me. I don’t go along with the ordinary ways of thinking.
Then we are exactly alike. Another glass of brandy? I find that alcohol taken in sufficient quantities can produce all the effects of drunkenness.
You were there for ages. You stayed talking till after four. I knew you’d like him once you’d met him.
Well, he’s got charm, I admit that. That’s bad, men shouldn’t be charming. It’s disgusting. I don’t think much of his action. Let’s have a look at the bay. Mind you, Wilde’s no fool, talks wonderfully, really wonderfully, and that means nothing, and what he says is such rot, worse than rot, evil. Which is why I insist you stop seeing him, forthwith.
Insist, what’s that supposed to mean?
It means I will cut off your allowance if you don’t do as I say. Trot him up and down a bit.
[Boysie] Look, father.
You wasted your time at Oxford pretending you were going into the Foreign Office. And thank God you didn’t when that Jew queer Rosebery can become Foreign Secretary and bugger all the juniors, including your brother.
That’s all lies.
You spent your whole time writing obscene poetry.
My poems aren’t obscene.
They’re in the manner of Wilde, that’s filthy enough for me.
Have you ever actually read any of Oscar’s poems?
I wouldn’t sully my mind with perverted trash like that. Tell him to pick his feet up. He’s not straight.
CLIP ENDS
- Ken, would you pause it please? Thank you. So, I wanted to show this because it’s all from the film. Not only the generational clash amongst this aristocratic class or this family, but also the fantastic writing and the acting. But to show the dominant attitudes that Queensberry symbolises, the certain morals and conventions. What is pervert? What is perversion? What isn’t? What is homosexuality? What isn’t? What is it to grow up to be a young man, or to become a man? From boy to manhood. What is it to be a father, son? I think all of this is hidden inside. Obviously Queensberry is a bit of an extreme, very cruel father, but it is partly symbolic of this kind of relationship of late Victorian times, I think in the 1890s that I think the film is touching on. And also Queensberry’s attitude is not so far out there, because when Wilde to the trial, he was attacked for being robbing in muck heaps, writing mawkish and nauseous and clean contaminating works. This is about “Dorian Grey”, and how he deviates, is a deviant from convention in Victorian Britain of its times. When “The Picture of Dorian Grey” came out, WH Smith, which was the biggest bookseller in Britain at the time, they withdrew every copy of the 1890 issue of the monthly magazine that was publishing it in a monthly series, from all its bookshops.
So, and it was brought up in the trial in 1895, where the book “Dorian Grey” was called a perverted novel. So this idea of perversion, what is perversion? What is moral? What is right, what is wrong? What is acceptable, what isn’t? Is an obsession I think of Wilde’s. And I think it resonates today. I mean we don’t have to go obviously Roe versus Wade, or whatever, but in many countries, not just the American Supreme Court, but many countries, what is the attitude to perversion, morality? The attitude to women? The attitude to all these things constantly is in flux and changing. And one needs to fight, to have a certain semblance of what we might call an open-minded society. Okay, I want to go on to the next slide please. And this is a, so this is a “Picture of Dorian Grey,” I mentioned, and it was serialised in it. 1891, he writes it. And these are some images of course from various editions. It’s never been out of print. For me this, and “The Importance of Being Earnest,” brilliant. Now I want to show a clip from one of the earliest films made of the book, 'cause I think it does capture something of the effect of this book. You can show the next clip, please.
CLIP BEGINS
If only the picture could change, and I could be always what I am now. For that I would give everything. There’s nothing in the whole world I would not give. I would give my soul for that.
[Narrator] The vain jealousy which prompted Dorian Grey to utter this fateful prayer, was destined to sweep him into a life so fraught with vice and evil that its marks became horrible to behold, for the mad wish of Dorian Grey was granted through some supernatural miracle. And day by day he watched his sins etch themselves upon his painted portrait, while he himself stayed young and handsome. Every vile thought and act, every criminal deed, left its mark upon the painted canvas that was to bear the burden of his shame. Down to depths of degradation, frightful to conceive, went Dorian Grey, seeking new outlets to satisfy his passion for pleasure. His extraordinary visits into the strange world of crime and sin became notorious. And when he reappeared again in society, men would whisper to each other in corners, or look at him with searching eyes. Women, who for his sake had set convention at defiance, were seen to grow pale if Dorian Grey entered the room. What was this strange fascination this man held for everybody? To what limits of evil did he drag those he knew? Men and women alike all fell under the spell of his charm. And yet to know him, was to court shame and disaster.
CLIP ENDS
- Okay, if we can hold it there please, Emily. Thank you. Can we go back to the previous slide just showing the image of the book, number 14? Yeah. Great, thank you. So what is this book about that is so amazing? First of all, it’s a Faustian bargain. The young man makes a deal that if he can retain his eternal youth, beauty, but his eternal youth, and the picture will age, then he will do anything for that. So it’s the Faustian bargain. I will sell my soul to the devil in return for eternal youth, and beauty of my eternal youth. And I will do anything to keep my youth and not grow old. So the picture will, the painting of him will grow old and become decrepit and will commit crimes and violence and killings and so on. The picture will go through it, but I won’t. That’s the Faustian bargain. And that Wilde in 1891 is putting Faust as Goethe did, at the centre of human insight. 'Cause what is originally in Faust? Faust makes a deal with the devil, that if I can have all, if I can have wine, women, song, knowledge, and power, everything in mortal life, then Mr. Devil, you can have my soul for eternity. And it’s basically the metaphor of course from Goethe, that what price my soul? I want power, I want success, I want money, I want this, I want that, whatever it is, I will do anything to get what I want.
And Goethe puts that at the centre for him of human nature, the story of Faust. And that Wilde chooses that for his first novel. The second main idea for me is that it’s about extreme narcissism, because this guy is obsessed with his own image of his youth, of his beauty, and keeping young. And the extremes of narcissism and where that will go. I am the most beautiful, I am the most handsome, I am the most desired young man. All the women desire me, they find me irresistible and so on. I am the one who everybody wants to be with and to know, because I have eternal youth. We go back to Narcissus of ancient Greek literature, looks in the pond and all he sees is the image of himself. It’s this self obsession. And I think it is such a contemporary theme for our times. And not only through social media and internet and all the rest of it, and not just Trump or Boris or whatever, it’s much deeper than that. And the very word selfie, it’s the self obsession with the self. Not only with eternal youth, but what price am I ever prepared to compromise the interest of myself, of my own self? And should I or can I in the moment of extreme self obsession in society, narcissism, what price will I pay to keep that up? So in love with one self is really what it is, which is fantastic. It’s the authentic self, all contemporary psychological language, but pushed too far, and where does the obsession take us? Where does that obsession and infatuation with oneself, and getting what one wants, regardless of what anyone else may want or think?
And linked to that for me is the theme in the novel of charisma, because this is what gives him such charisma, ironically. The irony of such self obsession, and the irony of such self love and narcissism is charisma. And we cannot deny some of the most evil humans, some of the most lauded humans in history have had extraordinary charisma. And where does charisma come from? It can only come from the sense of deep, deep self obsession. You know, in many cases, not every case of course, but a sense of self-worth, of self-belief, which is so strong, self-confidence. And it just has to step over the Rubicon, and it will lead to an extreme form of a narcissism, which has no empathy or interest in anybody else, but only the self. So Wilde is playing with the borderline of self-love, authenticity and narcissism and self-obsession through charisma. And that is such a 20th, 21st century phenomenon, I think, and probably goes way back to ancient times, but we don’t know 'cause we don’t have visual record. It’s before the visual era, of course, of film, media, internet, et cetera, TV. So it’s this what to me, it’s the Faustian idea, it’s this idea of narcissism pushed to its extreme charisma. And that is what is so attractive and appealing of Dorian Grey to so many people in the novel. The word that is used the most often in the book is the word fascinate. Fascinating, fascination. And isn’t that an interesting word that it’s so used today about celebrities or film stars or politicians or leaders, whether they’re on the evil side of the spectrum or the better side of the spectrum? It is that they’re fascinating no matter what.
What does that mean, if somebody is fascinating? It means all of this that I’m talking about, I would argue, and I am indebted to Camille Paglia, who to me is one of the really true, brilliant minds of out times. She has two brilliant chapters on “Dorian Grey,” and “Importance of Being Earnest” and a whole lot of other works. And she talks about, of course, Wilde was a cold romantic. He was an elitist. I mean, he’s not part of the working class, he’s not writing messages about politics and economy and all of that, of the world, like maybe some of Shaw and other writers. But I think he’s touching the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age, which is our age as well, to understand something which is deeper in the unconscious and exhibits itself in our society today. We are more interested in these individuals and what happens, than we are in countless who die from diseases, in wars, in civil wars, in horror, everywhere. Again, the word fascinate, and it’s so interesting to me that it’s used, it is the most used word in in that novel. Something in him is picking it up. Wilde, and he made his own life fascinating. He made his own life to be charismatic, self obsession. This portrayal of the external self. And the internal is not the issue at all. It’s just civilization is form. One of the great friends of mine, professor once said, “you know, civilization is form in certain societies.” In some societies civilization is money. Some societies civilization is brutal violence. But when it’s form, it’s about the external performance of self, the external presentation.
And I think that’s what he’s touching on. And isn’t that celebrity culture today? Isn’t that the charisma of leaders, actors, well, anybody. It’s the performance of a form. It’s not the substance of what they really think or say, but it’s how either they become more fascinating again that word, or they push the boundaries or the edges. They become charismatic in these ways through fascination. So “Dorian Grey” begins with this, with the portrait of the guy, and in that sense there’s a hierarchy, because he makes celebrity and charisma at the top of social hierarchy. Now that’s interesting. It’s not necessarily the person with the most power or money or politics or something, but the most charismatic person, the most fascinating person, it’s the top. In social context of the external form, he rises to the top of a society where what matters is manners, form, presentation. It’s the civilization of artifice. And artifice becoming the civilised . Emotion is irrelevant. Emotion and inner life of a human being is a non-issue. It must be, it must be put into hibernation. And what must be performed is the exterior artificial self. And that’s why I wanted to show that clip from Monty Python. And that’s why, in some of these others what Queensberry even challenges Wilde, and you get that slightly more honest talk between the two in the film. So narcissism, Narcissus, we get this completely taken up. Even Lord Henry in the novel says to Dorian, “You really must not allow yourself to become sunburned. It would be unbecoming.” In other words, all that matters is how you are seen, not who you are from the inside, but how society will see you. That’s what matters. It becomes unbecoming. It’s an external presentation of self. In ancient Greek art, there was a narcissistic, the beautiful boy, there’s one thing as a boy, narcissism ancient Greek thing.
But, but today, different story. Something about this which goes back to ancient Greece is pre-Christian, and Camille Paglia talks about how this is a pagan idea. And what she means is pre-Christian Judeo-Christian morality, Judeo-Christian morality of conscience in other things, that narcissism is actually seen in a different way. It’s seen as beauty. It’s not necessarily seen as the bridge to charismatic leadership or charismatic celebrity, whether evil or good. And that’s an interesting concept of hers. Then couple of other ideas about this here is Wilde, I mean this is also from something in the book that he wrote. “I consider ugliness a kind of illness, and suffering always inspires me with revulsion.” Now that’s what he changes when he is in prison. It’s suffering, it’s sorrow that he talks about in his poem, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” and so he changes to see that sorrow and suffering are also at the core of real human emotion. But he has to go through it in his own life to have redemption and change. And it’s an extraordinary life change in himself, 'cause he wants to be the ultimate public celebrity of performance of exterior self. Where one makes one’s own life an artwork, and Andy Warhol, of course in the 60s, 70s, picks that all up completely. Then Lord Henry’s wife in in the novel says, says to Dorian, Dorian Grey, “You have never been to one of my parties, have you, Mr. Grey?
You must come. I can’t afford orchids, but I spare no expense for foreigners.” So it’s again that performance and presentation of self. The meaning of a dinner table is how I spare no expense for foreigners, 'cause they’ll add to the exotic external performance at the dinner table. And that’s what it all becomes about. And this self is the Faustian bargain at heart of it, but it’s not shown. And Dorian says, I would give my soul, you know, et cetera to become what he has become. And in a sense he does become this, and becomes aware as he goes through it that he can’t resist because he’s going to have eternal youth, and in his mind eternal beauty. And go on and on about fascination and fascinating. But it’s these ideas he talks about. If we look at Byron, if we even look at someone like Elvis, and again, I’m not distinguishing between the evil charismatic and the good charismatic, it’s just the notion of what is charisma. Max Weber, interestingly, Max Weber, the great psychologist sociologist, he wrote that charisma is an extraordinary supernatural divine power, that an individual will have. Can be a warlord, heroic deeds, a prophet, miracles, and he goes on and on. An extraordinary supernatural divine power it feels like. And these charismatic people almost claim they’re getting it from somewhere else. And it’s interesting what Max Weber writes. And I think that link between the narcissistic personality and charisma is so important. And I think that’s what Wilde is really touching on here. And the whole idea of what is being charming, what is being interesting, what is fascinating, all comes through this. And I keep going back to it. And it’s just in a simple image of a man who has a portrait of his youth painted while he’s young still, and knows he’s going to start getting older and all the rest of it’s going to change.
And it’s such a simple yet powerful theatrical image to me, and visual image, that we can never forget it once we’ve read this book or we’ve seen in a film or maybe an adapted stage version. But it becomes that image for ourselves when we look in the mirror, and we see how we’ve aged, and what our life and all the rest of it, or young people look in the mirror as well. So the narcissistic personality, and for the narcissism personality with charisma, whims are laws for everybody except himself. His whims, what is law for one is virtue for the other. Disraeli once said, “What is vice for one is virtue for another.” And Dorian Grey I think taps into this. What is vice for some is virtue for others, because it feeds celebrity culture as we might put it today. Of course, it’s going to lead to degradation and death. We think of Snow White and looking at herself in the mirror. We have echoes in modern fairytales even of this idea of the constant need of the ancient narcissistic image from the ancient Greeks. Okay, I want to now go on to the next slide, please. Okay, now we’re going to go into “Importance of Being Earnest.” Completely different play. He wrote four plays. He wrote that novel and then four plays. This was the last, and I think by far the best without a doubt. And it has been performed, it’s hardly ever out of performance of the repertoire of some theatre somewhere in the world, translated to form. It’s the second most, he’s the second most quoted playwright in the English world, English-speaking world. And this play, together with Shakespeare’s, of course, are the most quoted.
So many of the great lines that are in it, some of them I mentioned to you earlier. We have the two main characters, young guys who are in love, and they call themselves earnest and so on. I’m not going to go into the story, too complicated. It’s a comedy of manners, comedy, you know, and mistaken identities. And there’s Lady Bracknell, who’s the imperious matriarch of the family of Gwendolen and Cecily. And Gwendolen and Cecily vie for the love of these two. And now these two want to get their love and it’s a whole play on all of that. And they come from London into the rural area and the stately home and see each other. In essence, that’s the story. The very old, this is from the very first production, the picture in the middle. And these others are from posters. Now on to the next slide, please. Thanks, so these are more contemporary versions. This is a much more contemporary one at the right, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” and on the left as well. And at the bottom, this was done after his trials, when the plays were being published, 'cause publishers wanted to published . And so it was written without his name, by the author of “Lady Windermere’s Fan,” because they didn’t want his name attached, because of all the accusations of homosexuality and his so-called perversion and so on. So that’s in 1895, just after that, when it was taken off finally in London.
So what’s this play about? Why is it so important? Because I think it puts emotion into hibernation, and it puts the presentation of self, civilization is form, the performance of form and manners and all of those attributes at the forefront of the individual’s life. So long as you perform how you should perform as what is civilised and what isn’t. So long as you perform how to act in the right way, accepted by the upper echelons of society, you’re okay. It’s a savage satire on the upper class, obviously in England of the late Victorian era of its time, but in many societies of today, as long as you perform how people want you to, at work for the boss or at school for the teacher of your child or grandchild, all the different ways. As long as we perform our social roles in a way that is accepted by society, we get the tick. The second we start to subvert it, we don’t, and we are a threat, or we are at least a subversive element. So it’s this divide itself between the entitled ruling class and the presentation of the form. And the two words that appear a lot in many scholars writing about the book, the play, are elegance and appearance. As long as one appears elegant, and the appearance of it, even in the great Kenneth Branagh film “Conspiracy,” about the Wannsee Conference, everything is decided and made as a sort of corporate business meeting. The word elegant is used in the script so much. It’s an elegant solution, to gas rather than bullets. It’s an elegant solution to transport. All of these things. It’s the elegance is linked to sophistication. The appearance of elegance, the appearance of charm, the appearance of the self where emotion is delegated and presentation, performance of self is fore granted. That is the key. And it’s that split in the self. Now it’s different from the narcissistic personality, because this is a split in the self between the public image and the private inner world. And so long as that public image is performed, okay.
And I think that’s why this play is still so resonant today, and probably in any society, anywhere. And what I think is so powerful again 'cause he was attacked and accused, social justice, social messages about the dark Satanics, the mills, the slums of London, the poor, the working classes that you don’t write any of it. No, I think like Kafka, he goes to the spirit of the age, he goes to the zeitgeist, he goes somewhere much deeper into the unconscious. Kafka doesn’t write about social justice and economy and so on. He tries to find something inside how human beings are actually living their daily life. And I think that it’s this quality. Okay, let’s go on. Wilde, and I’m quoting from the play and from some of his writing, “The great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing, cultivated leisure. That is the aim of man and that is the aim. But work is the aim of the drinking classes.” So it’s all this, work is the curse. He goes on and on about it. Elegance is the ruling principle of the salon. It’s the ruling principle of the club, the society, the community. It dictates that speech must be wit, speech must not be anything other than wit, which the Monty Python group pick up on. Elegance. Sartre said this of Genet, another brilliant French playwright, “Elegance, is the quality of conduct which transforms the greatest quantity of being into appearing. Through elegance, I can show how I want to appear to the group, to my audience.” Proust, you know, he describes one of the characters as a greyhound in evening dress. That’s a perfect phrase for Lord Henry in the book. And it’s all these things about the evening dress, the tuxedo, the performance, and so on. John le Carré talked about you will never find a greater dissembler than the privately educated Englishman.
And you cannot find the art of dissembling, the art and the artifice of how to dissemble, and how to play the system, and win in the system. What is a gentleman? Smoothness, elongation, elegance. It’s that easy assumed air of superiority. I don’t have to show I’m superior, I just assume it, and I have that air. And we have so many examples of it and it’s fantastic. It’s witty, it’s charismatic, it’s interesting, it’s exciting, it’s fun to watch and to see performed. So it is a whole satire on what is it to be a gentleman? What is it to be a man in the world? What is it to be an adult? And for Cecily and Gwendolen, you know, they talk about I will never marry anybody whose name is not Earnest. One must marry a man called Earnest. Otherwise, it’s a satire, just the name is enough. And Earnest was a very popular name, or an important name at the time of the late Victorian era. So form is absolutely essential. It is form, the formalities of social life, that this play satirises. And Aristophanes did it in ancient Greece. And so, you know, many have done it in ancient Rome and all the way through, satirise the formalities of social life in order to show the absurdity, the humour. Okay, I’ll just get to a conclusion fairly quickly now. So it’s male and female both needing to, in a sense wear masks in order to perform socially. And again, I think this goes so deep into the play, it goes so deep into Wilde, and why he is still subversive today. Why it wasn’t only, I think, his homosexuality in his times, but I think somewhere he tapped something deeper, and he also set himself up as this great charismatic leader of celebrity and public intellectual. And, and he can only one way to go, which is down from there, from the height to the bottom and then the change in his own life.
There’s so many other examples in the play, which I can mention here, but it’s all about style. It’s about the aesthetics of performance, the appearance of elegance, the appearance of sophistication. It’s again, it’s the eradication of empathy of human emotion, and showing human emotion from the inside, that this play for me captures so well. And that’s why it is so important to be it, 'cause you ain’t going to survive in a society if you don’t do it. You’re going to be ostracised in some way. And the terrible irony of his life is that he ultimately becomes ostracised, partly for his homosexuality of course, or largely, but other things as well, 'cause then Dorian Grey and the plays are used to accuse him of perverting the morals of late Victorian society. That’s a fascinating phrase, accuse of perverting the morals. That is seen as far more serious than Shaw and many other playwrights who are writing about social justice, or writing about the dark of working in factory life, or the workhouse of Dickens and others. None of those, none of those are banned, none of those are seen as subversive. None of those are not allowed to be performed, staged, published, or accused of perversion. It’s when you attack the performance of the self in upper class of whatever society, in this case late Victorian England. That is the biggest taboo. And that’s for us today, the one novel which is about such extreme of self obsession, charisma, and this one which is the divided self, and the truthful inner self which must be held back. Okay, I’m going to hold it there and sorry about these internet connection problems here. We can go to some of the questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Elliot, thank you.
Q: Favourite quote?
A: Yep. Cost of everything but the value of nothing, yep.
Yeah that experience is the most difficult teacher, first take the examination. Yeah, gives the examination. I think you might be right there Elliot. Thank you, I’ll check that.
Sheila, I think he might have meant Ecclesiastes, all is vanity.
Q: Was it not Solomon who said, “all his vanity?”
A: I thought, we can check that. That’s great Sheila, thank you.
Jenny, Oscar Wilde, he wrote the wonderful children’s stories.
Yep. Jonathan, Wilde’s position on the Dreyfus case. Whew, that’s another whole lecture to go into, but it’s interesting, it’s fascinating. Use the word of today.
Hillary, we’ve always seen Alfred Douglas’s name as Bosie. Ah, yes. I think you mentioned that with Trudy’s talk the other day. It’s Bosie, not Boysie. I don’t always hear it as Boysie. You could well be right, thank you.
Q: Ingrid. The Fry film is Oscar Wilde?
A: I know, God, it’s just took me for the moment. I’ll get back to you about that, thanks.
Sylvia, hi, I hope you’re well in Argentina. His obsession has to do with his own subjectivity suffering in society, yep. Well, I think it’s the obsession of Dorian Grey that he’s trying to show that when obsession crosses the Rubicon, goes too far and becomes that extreme self-infatuation, it’s narcissism, and the danger of that kind of charisma can go into evil.
Janet, it’s hard to lose one’s youthful beauty. Nowadays people have cosmetic surgery. I agree, but you can’t smile with Botox. It’s so hard. You can’t get a real proper smile, and the face changes. And others for men as well.
Q: Sheila, did you see Matthew Bourne?
A: I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve heard about it and I’ve read about it, thank.
Janet, wonder if you’re familiar with the aphorisms. I’m not going to try and pronounce it 'cause my French is terrible. They are very like those brilliant. I think it was seen in France, 'cause not only England. There’s a really good point, Janet.
In France, in England and many other parts, it’s this upper class of the late 19th century, the 1890s and so on, before the First World War, when the aristocratic upper class echelons of numerous countries in Europe, where I think you’re absolutely right. It had to be amusing and wit and had to show elegance, sophistication. It’s all this part of this performance of the external self and exploring public fascination, narcissist of Dorian Grey does seem current.
Yeah, it’s certainly with Trump, and it’s certainly with Boris, and there’s so many others. You know, I think these guys, Trump and Boris, are just examples really of the contemporary zeitgeist, the contemporary spirit of our age, which is obsessed with the public image, the public performance of the self, not authenticity. And the more outrageous and the further they go the better, because celebrity sort of feeds on itself. It’s got to go more and more. It’s got to go further and further. It can’t stop, otherwise somebody else will come in and, you know, go further. So you’ve got to outrage on Twitter or social media or wherever, more and more. Otherwise you become yesterday’s news as a celebrity. So it’s a self feeding on itself kind of narcissism. It’s a great point, Anne.
Ron, good to see you Ron. Strangely, Whistler attended West Point. I know, exactly. And I think these guys are playing whether conscious or not, but with some of the ideas I’m trying to talk about, because they’re taking it way to the furthest extreme of satirising the great satirist.
While being a student at Leningrad State University, my husband memorised “The Importance of Being Earnest.” Oh, that’s amazing. It’s really interesting, thank you.
Q: He could reproduce it from memory?
A: Well, it’s after Shakespeare, it’s the most quoted play in the English speaking world.
“The Importance of Being Earnest.” I mean it’s quite incredible. You know, a lot of people and critics at the time just saw it as this flippant piece of nonsense, not HG Wells, and later WH Auden, they didn’t. They had a very different perception. They got it in a way, and Shaw, George Bernard Shaw. But so many of the critics, if you read the reviews of the times, they just saw it as a bit of flippery nonsense, just playful witticism, and you’re just trying to throw out witty comment after witty comment. So they just saw it as having no substance, the plays. They couldn’t understand why they were so popular, and maybe even the audience that flocked.
Monty, great to see you, Monty.
Q: Maybe Putin suffers from Dorian Grey?
A: Definitely. Exactly. And I think it’s that Dorian Grey, and it’s nice that you use the word Dorian Grey syndrome, because I think it is, and the fact that he just used the painting of the self, it is such a simple, perfect, powerful image, and it’s eminent, it’s forever memorable for us, I think. Hannah, it’s being staged in London after Christmas. Great, thank you Hannah.
Rita, self obsession, I worked in the beauty industry. I left it, as apparent that it is built on selling lies.
Yeah. Feeding into collective insecurity founded on the self. I think it’s this notion of the love of the self is to be celebrated, and the realisation of the self is to be celebrated. Absolutely, the authentic, but it’s when it flips into an obsession, that I am beautiful, I am youthful, I am the most intelligent, I am the best, I am the, then it flips into the fascination with being self and narcissism, and that type of charisma is what becomes dangerous to the self and to other people. It becomes evil.
Jill. And I think that’s what’s in the book. The allusion to sunburn also refers to the danger of being in the spotlight too long one gets burnt, yep. The old story from ancient Greece of Icarus, flying too close to the sun, over ambitious, goes too far, get burnt by the sun, and your wings of wax will melt, and you’ll fall down to earth and die.
Dennis, in addition to the Stephen Fry movie, may I recommend two films? Great. Ah, yeah. With Robert Morley and Peter Finch. Fantastic, thank you.
Q: Ron. Do you think the fact that Wilde and Shaw were Irish, yes.
A: Their fabulous wit, yes. What’s very interesting, you’re linking it to the Jewish humorists. Now there’s quite a bit written about, definitely, because the Irish, let’s never forget, they were colonised for 900 years. Britain colonised, as we know, 25% of the world. But they colonised the Irish for 900 years, the English rather. So of course the Irish have that enormous historical memory, and it goes way back. And I think amongst, so Irish coming into England is of course already the outsider, and the outsider seeing the insider culture. But Wilde he wants to fit in here. He thinks maybe he can fit in to be at the centre of the club. But can he ultimately? No, because ultimately he is so Irish. So unless he really performs the elegant, sophisticated rituals of the club, certainly not going to fit in. And Shaw absolutely. But Shaw had the social conscience so he was writing in a different way. And that was also part of seen as the decency, which is fantastic of the English culture of its times. And the Jewish humorists, yes. And what’s fascinating is quite a bit of scholarly stuff written, where they compare Woody Allen and Oscar Wilde, and Woody Allen is also of course the outsider, the Jewish outsider, in America. But is he coming? And the debate is, is he coming from a victim perspective through the wit and the humour? And is Wilde also coming from the victim perspective 'cause he’s Irish, or not? And what happens when the perception of the Jewish character changes of the Jewish humorist? Is he victim of persecution or is he something else? So where does that lie with the humorist who is the outsider? Whether Jewish or Irish in New York or London or wherever in the world? You know, in Ossa and Zulu, whatever. So I think it’s a fascinating question, Ron. And there’s quite a bit of new stuff being written about comparing humour from outside of individuals in different cultures, and Wilde would certainly be part of it.
Okay, I think that’s it. Sorry again everybody for the internet problems, and it’ll be sorted I’m sure by next week. So thanks everybody, hope you have a great weekend. And Emily, thanks so much again.