Oscar Wilde, "Interview," St. James Gazette, January 1895
The wit so prevalent in the plays of Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), sparkles in this interview. The new play discussed near the end of the interview – "a delicate bubble of fancy and it has its philosophy" – is The Importance of Being Earnest (in Volume II of the anthology).
I found Mr. Oscar Wilde (writes a Representative) making ready to depart on a short visit to Algiers, and reading—of course, nothing so obvious as a time-table, but a French newspaper which contained an account of the first night of "The Ideal Husband" and its author's appearance after the play.
"How well the French appreciate these brilliant wilful moments in an artist's life," remarked Mr. Wilde, handing me the article as if he considered the interview already at an end.
"Does it give you any pleasure," I inquired, "to appear before the curtain after the production of your plays?"
"None whatsoever. No artist finds any interest in seeing the public. The public is very much interested in seeing an artist. Personally, I prefer the French custom, according to which the name of the dramatist is announced to the public by the oldest actor in the piece."
"Would you advocate," I asked, "this custom in England?"
"Certainly. The more the public is interested in artists, the less it is interested in art. The personality of the artist is not a thing the public should know anything about. It is too accidental." Then, after a pause—
"It might be more interesting if the name of the author were announced by the youngest actor present."
"It is only in deference, then, to the imperious mandate of the public that you have appeared before the curtain?"
"Yes; I have always been very good-natured about that. The public has always been so appreciative of my work I felt it would be a pity to spoil its evening."
"I notice some people have found fault with the character of your speeches."
"Yes, the old-fashioned idea was that the dramatist should appear and merely thank his kind friends for their patronage and presence. I am glad to say I have altered all that. The artist cannot be degraded into the servant of the public. While I have always recognized the cultured appreciation that actors and audience have shown for my work, I have equally recognized that humility is for the hypocrite, modesty for the incompetent. Assertion is at once the duty and privilege of the artist."
"To what do you attribute, Mr. Wilde, the fact that so few men of letters besides yourself have written plays for public presentation?"
"Primarily the existence of an irresponsible censorship. The fact that my "Salomé" cannot be performed is sufficient to show the folly of such an institution. If painters were obliged to show their pictures to clerks at Somerset House, those who think in form and colour would adopt some other mode of expression. If every novel had to be submitted to a police magistrate, those whose passion is fiction would seek some new mode of realization. No art ever survived censorship; no art ever will."
"And secondly?"
"Secondly to the rumour persistently spread abroad by journalists for the last thirty years, that the duty of the dramatist was to please the public. The aim of art is no more to give pleasure than to give pain. The aim of art is to be art. As I said once before, the work of art is to dominate the spectator—the spectator is not to dominate art."
"You admit no exceptions?"
"Yes. Circuses where it seems the wishes of the public might be reasonably carried out."
"Do you think," I inquired, "that French dramatic criticism is superior to our own?"
"It would be unfair to confuse French dramatic criticism with English theatrical criticism. The French dramatic critic is always a man of culture and generally a man of letters. In France poets like Gautier have been dramatic critics. In England they are drawn from a less distinguished class. They have neither the same capacities nor the same opportunities. They have all the moral qualities, but none of the artistic qualifications. For the criticism of such a complex mode of art as the drama the highest culture is necessary. No one can criticise drama who is not capable of receiving impressions from the other arts also."
"You admit they are sincere?"
"Yes; but their sincerity is little more than stereotyped stupidity. The critic of the drama should be versatile as the actor. He should be able to change his mood at will and should catch the colour of the moment."
"At least they are honest?"
"Absolutely. I don't believe there is a single dramatic critic in London who would deliberately set himself to misrepresent the work of any dramatist—unless, of course, he personally disliked the dramatist, or had some play of his own he wished to produce at the same theatre, or had an old friend among the actors, or some natural reasons of that kind. I am speaking, however, of London dramatic critics. In the provinces both audience and critics are cultured. In London it is only the audience who are cultured."
"I fear you do not rate our dramatic critics very highly, Mr. Wilde; but, at all events, they are incorruptible?"
"In a market where there are no bidders."
"Still their memories stand them in good stead," I pleaded.
"The old talk of having seen Macready that must be a very painful memory. The middle-aged boast that they can recall 'Diplomacy:' hardly a pleasant reminiscence."
"You deny them, then, even a creditable past?"
"They have no past and no future, and are incapable of realizing the colour of the moment that finds them at the play."
"What do you propose should be done?"
"They should be pensioned off, and only allowed to write on politics or theology or bimetallism, or some subject easier than art."
"In fact," I said, carried away by Mr. Wilde's aphorisms, "they should be seen and not heard."
"The old should neither be seen nor heard" said Mr. Wilde, with some emphasis.
"You said the other day there were only two dramatic critics in London. May I ask-"
"They must have been greatly gratified by such an admission from me; but I am bound to say that since last week I have struck one of them from the list."
"Whom have you left in?"
"I think I had better not mention his name. It might make him too conceited. Conceit is the privilege of the creative."
"How would you define ideal dramatic criticism?"
"As far as my work is concerned unqualified appreciation."
"And whom have you omitted?"
"Mr. William Archer, of the World."
"What do you chiefly object to in his article?"
"I object to nothing in the article, but I grieve at everything in it. It is bad taste in him to write of me by my Christian name, and he need not have stolen his vulgarisms from the National Observer in its most impudent and impotent days."
"Mr. Archer asked whether, if it was agreeable to you to be hailed by your Christian name when the enthusiastic spectators called you before the curtain."
"To be so addressed by enthusiastic spectators is as great a compliment as to be written of by one's Christian name is in a journalist bad manners. Bad manners make a journalist."
"Do you think French actors, like French criticism, superior to our own?"
"The English actors act quite as well; but they act best between the lines. They lack the superb elocution of the French—so clear, so cadenced, and so musical. A long sustained speech seems to exhaust them. At the Théâtre Français we go to listen, to an English theatre we go to look. There are, of course, exceptions. Mr. George Alexander, Mr. Lewis Waller, Mr. Forbes Robertson, and others I might mention, have superb voices and know how to use them. I wish I could say the same of the critics; but in the case of the literary drama in England there is too much of what is technically known as 'business.' Yet there is more than one of our English actors who is capable of producing a wonderful dramatic effect by aid of a monosyllable and two cigarettes."
"For a moment Mr. Wilde was silent, and then added, "Perhaps, after all, that is acting."
"But are you satisfied with the interpreters of the 'Ideal Husband?'"
"I am charmed with all of them. Perhaps they are a little too fascinating. The stage is the refuge of the too fascinating."
"Have you heard it said that all the characters in your play talk as you do?"
"Rumours of that kind have reached me from time to time," said Mr. Wilde, lighting a cigarette, "and I should fancy that some such criticism has been made. The fact is that it is only in the last few years that the dramatic critic has had the opportunity of seeing plays written by anyone who has a mastery of style. In the case of a dramatist also an artist it is impossible not to feel that the work of art, to be a work of art, must be dominated by the artist. Every play of Shakspeare is dominated by Shakspeare. Ibsen and Dumas dominate their works. My works are dominated by myself."
"Have you ever been influenced by any of your predecessors?"
"It is enough for me to state definitely, and I hope once for all, that not a single dramatist in this century has ever in the smallest degree influenced me. Only two have interested me."
"And they are?"
"Victor Hugo and Maeterlink."
"Other writers surely have influenced your other works?"
"Setting aside the prose and poetry of Greek and Latin authors, the only writers who have influenced me are Keats, Flaubert, and Walter Pater; and before I came across them I had already gone more than halfway to meet them. Style must be in one's soul before one can recognize it in others."
"And do you consider the 'Ideal Husband' the best of your plays?"
A charming smile crossed Mr. Wilde's face.
"Have you forgotten my classical expression—that only mediocrities improve? My three plays are to each other, as a wonderful young poet has beautifully said,
as one white rose
On one green stalk to another one.
They form a perfect cycle, and in their delicate sphere complete both life and art."
"Do you think that the critics will understand your new play, which Mr. George Alexander has secured?"
"I hope not."
"I dare not ask, I suppose, if it will please the public?"
"When a play that is a work of art is produced on the stage what is being tested is not the play, but the stage; when a play that is not a work of art is produced on the stage what is being tested is not the play, but the public."
"What sort of play are we to expect?"
"It is exquisitely trivial, a delicate bubble of fancy, and it has its philosophy."
"Its philosophy!"
"That we should treat all the trivial things of life very seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality."
"You have no leanings towards realism?"
"None whatever. Realism is only a background; it cannot form an artistic motive for a play that is to be a work of art."
"Still I have heard you congratulated on your pictures of London society."
"If Robert Chiltern, the Ideal Husband, were a common clerk, the humanity of his tragedy would be none the less poignant. I have placed him in the higher ranks of life merely because that is the side of social life with which I am best acquainted. In a play dealing with actualities to write with ease one must write with knowledge."
"Then you see nothing suggestive of treatment in the tragedies of everyday existence?"
"If a journalist is run over by a four-wheeler in the Strand, an incident I regret to say I have never witnessed, it suggests nothing to me from a dramatic point of view. Perhaps I am wrong; but the artist must have his limitations."
"Well," I said, rising to go, "I have enjoyed myself immensely."
"I was sure you would," said Mr. Wilde. "But tell me how you manage your interviews."
"Oh, Pitman," I said carelessly.
"Is that your name? It's not a very nice name."
Then I left.