A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TWO
EXTREME VERSIONS OF SUBJECTIVIST CRITICISM: OSCAR WILDE’S INTENTIONS AND ANATOLE FRANCE’S LA
VIE LITTÉRAIRE (1)
Dr CRISTINA PASCUAL ARANSÁEZ
University of La Rioja
ABSTRACT
In the present article I carry out a comparative study of the extreme versions of subjectivist criticism which are presented in Oscar Wilde’ Intentions and Anatole France’s La Vie Littéraire. The purpose of this paper is to show that there may be interesting connections between Wilde’s and France’s critical writings. Some critics (Roditi, 1947; Woodcock, 1949; Ellmann, 1987; Kohl, 1989) have already noticed the relation of Wilde’s drama La Sainte Courtisane to France’s novel Thaïs; nevertheless, the similarities between the critical works of the two authors have not been studied yet. I propose that Wilde and France employ the same principles in order to develop their versions of subjectivist criticism. In order to find evidence to support my view I shall examine in detail the possible parallels which may be drawn between Wilde’s and France’s aesthetics as expounded in Intentions and La Vie Littéraire.
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n this
essay I carry out a comparative study of the extreme versions of subjectivism
which are presented in Oscar Wilde’s Intentions
and Anatole France’s La Vie Littéraire. Wilde admired the Frenchman’s works, but
research on the connections between the two authors has not received much
attention yet. The few studies (2) which have scarcely noticed them (Roditi,
1947; Woodcock, 1949; Ellmann 1987; Kohl, 1989) have focused on the
similarities between Wilde’s play La
Sainte Courtisane and France’s novel Thaïs. However, the connections between
Wilde’s and France’s critical views have not been researched. In the present
paper I shall study how both authors employ the same basic principles in order
to present criticism as a subjective process and to stress the creative role of
the critic against the supposed objectivity of nineteenth-century criticism. My
aim is to demonstrate that a comparative study of Wilde’s Intentions and Anatole France’s La Vie Littéraire may be useful in order
to attempt to draw several interesting points of resemblance between the
critical thought of these two authors.
Both Wilde
and France started to develop their critical activity in the 1880s contributing
book reviews to newspapers. By 1890 Wilde gave up journalism and went on with
his critical career publishing critical essays, which were issued in 1891 with
some additions and modifications in a volume entitled Intentions. The writings (3) included in Intentions were ‘The Decay of Lying’, ‘Pen, Pencil, and Poison’,
‘The Critic as Artist’, and ‘The Truth of Masks’ (formerly named ‘Shakespeare
and Stage Costume’). In contrast to Wilde, France continued his journalistic
career (4), writing weekly articles for a journal called Le Temps from 1886 till 1893. He comprised more than a hundred of
them in four series entitled La Vie
Littéraire (1888–1892), to which was added a posthumous volume in 1949.
In spite of
the different forms in which they choose to express their critical views, Wilde
and France present two theories of criticism which have the same starting point
and move in a similar direction: both authors reject the increasing enthusiasm
for objectivity and rationalism of Positivist philosophy and condemn its
pervading influence on literature (5). They develop theories which are based on
the subjectivity and individuality of the artist and the critic and the
autonomy of art and criticism. I say that Wilde and France present extreme
versions of subjectivist criticism because they do not simply believe that
different people see works of art slightly differently; they contend that works
have no existence independent of the individuals who create or perceive them.
Since the
repudiation of contemporary tendencies in literature is at the basis of Wilde’s
and France’s criticism, I want to comment further on it before discussing the
main principles of their critical theories. Wilde and France coincide in
attacking Naturalism, which was the offshoot in literature of
nineteenth-century science and was a predominant movement in the 1880s. The
naturalist movement proposed a kind of literature which was scientific and
positivistic, in accordance with the prestige of science in the second half of
the nineteenth century. The naturalistic writer observed man and his social
surroundings and analysed them in his work, in order to be able to deduce human
and social laws. Both Wilde and France coincide in stressing that contrary to
Naturalism’s assumptions, the aim of art is not to reflect life. Wilde asserts that:
‘Wherever
we have returned to Life and Nature, our work has become vulgar, common, and
uninteresting (…) Facts are usurping the domain of Fancy, and have invaded the
kingdom of Romance. Their chilling touch is over everything. They are
vulgarising mankind’. (‘DL’,
Similarly France claims that:
‘Le Naturalisme tomba
tout de suite dans l’ignoble. Descendu au dernier degrè de la platitude, de la
vulgarité, destitué de toute beauté intellectuelle et plastique, il dégoûta les
délicats’. (VL, 1re série : 508) (7)
Émile Zola (1840-1902), who was the main conspicuous
representative of naturalism, became the main object of Wilde’s and France’s
attacks. Wilde criticises Zola and his work thus:
‘M. Zola,
true to the lofty principle that he lays down in one of his pronunciamientos
on literature, L’homme de genie n’a
jamais d’esprit, is determined to show that, if has not got genius, he can
at least be dull. And how well he succeeds! (…) His work is completely wrong
from beginning to end (…). The author is perfectly truthful, and describes
things exactly as they happen. (…) But from the standpoint of Art, what can be
said in favour of the author of L’Assommoir, Nana
and Pot-Bouille?
Nothing. (…) In literature we require distinction, charm, beauty and
imaginative power’. (‘DL’, 1075)
France accuses Zola of offending beauty with
his ‘irrémédiable grossièreté’
(VL, 1st série: 345) and of representing nature according to the
teachings of science, making ‘une botanique,
une chimie, une physiologie de la plus mauvaise qualité’, concluding that:
‘Quand M. Zola parle
pour son proper compte, il est bien lourd et bien mou. (…) La grâce des choses
lui échappe, la beauté, la majesté (…) le fuient à l’envi. (…) Son œuvre est
mauvaise et il est un de ces malheureux dont on peut dire qu’il vaudrait mieux
qu’ils ne fussent pas nés’. (VL, 1re
série : 210, 213)
The basic principle of Wilde’s and France’s
criticism is the rejection of the subjective/objective distinction. Both of
them argue that works are inevitably subjective and they do it in remarkably
similar grounds:
‘The
difference between objective and subjective work is one of external form
merely. It is accidental, not essential. All artistic creation is absolutely
subjective. (…) For out of ourselves we
can never pass’. (‘CA’, 1142).
‘Il n’y a pas plus de
critique objective qu’il n’y a d’art objectif, et tous ceux qui se flattent de
mettre autre chose qu’eux-mêmes dans leur œuvre sont dupes de la plus
fallacieuse illusion. La vérité est qu’on ne sort jamais de soi-même’. (VL, 1st série : 5)
They even coincide in reaching the seemingly
paradoxical conclusion that the objective form is subjective in matter:
‘Man is
least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will
tell you the truth’. (‘CA’, 1142)
‘Les plus grands n’ont
pas fait davantage. Ils n’ont parlé que d’eux. Sous de faux noms, ils n’ont
montré qu’eux mêmes’. (VL, 1re série, 99)
As Bashford (1977:
182; 1978: 219) rightly points out, Wilde applies this observation that a work
is at least partially a projection of its author not only to art, but to
discourse in any intellectual realm. This is the reason why Wilde regards the
literary critic as a creator in his own right, which leads him to extremes of
subjectivism, as in the following passage:
‘That’s
what the highest criticism really is, the record of one’s own soul. It is more
fascinating than history (…), it is more delightful than philosophy (…) It is
the only civilised form of autobiography’. (‘CA’, 1125)
This extreme subjectivism is also to be found
in France’s conception of criticism and the critic. There are striking
similarities between Wilde’s passage above and the following lines by France:
‘ (…) la critique est,
comme la philosophie et l’histoire, une espèce de roman à l’usage des esprits
avisés et curieux, et tout roman, à le bien prendre, est une autobiographie.
(…) Le bon critique est celui qui raconte les aventures de son âme au milieu
des chefs-d’oeuvre’. (VL, 1re
série 7)
This point
of resemblance between Wilde and France is peculiarly worthy of note because of
the way it throws into relief how strong the versions they hold of subjectivist
criticism are. Wilde states that ‘the first step in aesthetic criticism is to
realise one’s own impressions’ (‘Pen’, 1096), and contends that it is the
critic
‘who
lends to the beautiful things its myriad meanings, and makes it marvellous for
us. (…) To the critic the work of art is simply a suggestion for a new work of
his own, that need not necessarily bear any obvious resemblance to the thing it
criticises (8). The one characteristic thing of a beautiful form is that one
can put into it whatever one wishes, and see in it whatever one chooses to
see’. (‘CA’, 1127, 1128)
France
equally stresses the creative and independent role of the critic, who must, in
France’s own words:
‘déployer moins de
raison, surtout moins de raisonnement ; (….) de s’arrêter òu l’on se plaît
et de faire parfois des confidences ; de garder dans la critique le ton
familier de la causerie et le pas léger de la promenade ; de suivre ses
goûts, ses fantaisies et même son caprice (…) ; de ne pas tout savoir et de
ne pas tout expliquer ; de croire à l’irrémédiable diversité des opinions
et des sentiments et de parler plus volontiers de ce qu’il faut aimer’. (VL, 3ème série : 14)
It is
particularly significant to examine one of the requirements for the critic which
France mentions in the passage above, namely, that he must believe in ‘l’irrémédiable diversité des opinions et des sentiments’.
This indicates that France defends a subjectivist criticism which is not
limited to the critic’s realm, but extends to encompass all the receivers of a
work of art. This idea is even more
explicitly stated in the following statement: ‘Il faut que le critique se
pénètre bien de cette idée que tout livre a autant d’exemplaires différents
qu’il a de lecteurs’ (VL, 2ème série :
332).
Wilde also
believes that there exists no definite interpretation of any work of art and he
contends that there are ‘as many meanings as man has moods’ (‘CA’, 1127). This
belief leads Wilde to conclude that ‘there are as many Hamlets as there are
melancholies’ (‘CA’, 1131). France
reaches a similar conclusion as regards Virgil: ‘(…) que dans le même pays deux
hommes sentent absolument de la même façon tel vers de Virgile, rien n’est
moins probable’ (VL, 3ème série : 11) (9).
The
similarities between the precepts of both critics can be stretched further. In
both Wilde’s and France’s critical theories, the complete departure from
objectivity in criticism is reinforced by their vision of art, which
contributes to give coherence to their critical positions. These two authors
regard Beauty as an essential element of a work of art, and both coincide in
conceiving it as something which is never fully realised: Wilde believes that
‘Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing’ (‘CA’, 1127), and
France asserts that ‘la beauté (…) garder[a] à jamais [son] secret’ (VL, 3ème série: 13). Consequently the works of art which they
consider to be beautiful are characterized by the sense of vagueness that they
associate with Beauty. All this is directly connected with their versions of
subjectivist criticism, because it is precisely these works which stimulate the
critic to exert his creative faculty. Wilde asserts that:
‘You see,
then, how it is that the aesthetic critic rejects these obvious modes of art
that have but one message to deliver, and having delivered it become dumb and
sterile, and seeks rather for such modes as suggest reverie and moood, and by their imaginative beauty make all
interpretations true, and no interpretation final’. (‘CA’, 1129)
A similar
statement is made by France:
‘Je m’efforcerai de garder comme
un don céleste l’impression de mystère que me causent les sublimités de la
poésie et de l’art. (…) Tous les livres en général et même les plus admirables
me paraissent infiniment moins précieux par ce qu’ils contiennent que par ce
qu’y met celui qui les lit. Les meilleurs, à mon sens, sont ceux qui donnent le
plus à penser, et les choses plus diverses’. (VL, 2ème série : 331)
A further
element of Wilde’s and France’s theories is the method of applying the
principle of subjectivity of the critic, which in both cases is related to the
value these authors put on individuality. For Wilde resting self-satisfied is a
way of restraining the general growth of the individual, and according to him the
only solution is to avoid it is to continue to search for the new. As regards
criticism, this means that the critic ‘will ever be curious of new sensations
and fresh points of view’ (‘CA’, 1144), and that he ‘will not consent to be
slave of his own opinions’ (‘CA’, 1145). France believes in the same method in order to avoid the stagnation of the
critic, and claims that ‘[nous] aimons les livres qui nous plaisent (…) en
convenant avec nous-mêmes que notre impression d’aujourd’hui n’engagera point
celle de demain’ (Les Contemporains,
II, Fayolle, 1964: 132).
Both Wilde
and France coincide in pointing out that this subjectivist behaviour of the
critic towards the work of art will have a direct consequence on the
presentation of classic masterpieces:
‘He [the
critic] will always be showing us the work of art in some new relation to our
age. He will always be reminding us that great works of art are living things –
are, in fact, the only things that live’. (‘CA’, 1132)
‘Chaque génération
d’hommes cherche une émotion nouvelle devant les ouvrages des vieux maîtres’. (Le Jardin d’Epicure, Fayolle,
1964 : 130)
Let us look closely at
Wilde’s and France’s views on criticism in the narrower sense of commentary on particular
authors and works, where they fare slightly differently:
Both Wilde
and France believe that the aim of the critic does not consist in clarifying a
work of art: Wilde sees reason and recognition as stages of apprehension
subordinated to ‘a pure synthetic impression of the work of art as a whole’ (10)
(‘CA’, 1128); France regards sentiment and reason as the only instruments to
study a work of art, and he adds that these are ‘les instruments les moins
précis qui soient au monde’ (VL, 2ème série: 30).
However,
Wilde recommends the traditional scholarly study of an author and his works:
‘Ordinary
people are ‘terribly at ease in Zion’. They propose to walk arm in arm with the
poets, and have a glib ignorant way of saying ‘Why should we read what is
written about Shakespeare and Milton? We can read the plays and poems. That is
enough.’ But an appreciation of Milton is (…) the reward of consummate
scholarship’. (‘CA’, 1130)
This remark
may seem surprising at first in the light of the subjectivism of his critical
theory. Nevertheless, it does not contradict Wilde’s basic principles, because
the critic will not use his learning as a simple clarification of the work but
as his background against which he will bring his creative faculty to the fore:
‘The
critic (…) will not Art as a riddling Sphinx, whose shallow secret may be
guessed and revealed by one (…). Rather, he will look upon Art as a goddess
whose mystery it is his province to intensify, and whose majesty his privilege
to make more marvellous in the eyes of men’. (‘CA’, 1130).
In contrast
to Wilde, France makes no reference to the critic’s need of possessing any
previous knowledge of scholarship of a work in order to criticise it. However,
it must be stressed that this distinction between Wilde and France does not
affect the basic similar nature of their critical theories, because as we have
seen, both authors employ the same principles in order to develop their
versions of subjectivist criticism. Moreover, it must be noted that despite
France’s apparent indifference to scholarly knowledge about the works to
criticise, his friends affirmed that they provided him with abundant
information for each of his articles (Vandegans, 1954: 298).
Finally, it
would be interesting to comment on another similarity between Wilde’s and
France’s theories. Wilde adds a last qualification for the critic, which
emphasises the subjectivism of this criticism: the critic must intensify his
personality, because, in Wilde’s own words:
‘The more
strongly this personality enters into the interpretation, the more real the
interpretation becomes, the more satisfying, the more convincing, and the more
true. (…) If you wish to understand others you must intensify your own
individualism’. (‘CA’, 1131)
This
qualification for the critic can also be found in France’s critical theory. France shares with Wilde the belief that ‘la
critique (…) la plus personnelle est la plus intéressante’ (VL, 2ème série : 176).
So far
little attention has been paid to the connections between Oscar Wilde’s and Anatole France’s works, and the similarities between their
lines of critical thought have been scarcely noticed. In the foregoing analysis
I have carried out a comparative study of Wilde’s Intentions and France’s La
Vie Littéraire, with the aim of providence evidence that there may be
interesting points of resemblance between the extreme versions of subjectivism
criticism of these authors. I have analysed the possible correspondences
between Wilde’s and France’s aesthetics, and the results have confirmed that,
in spite of some slight differences, there were several parallels between
Wilde’s and France’s proposals.
Thus, it
can be concluded that there is ample proof that Wilde and France hold the same
basic position on the subjective nature of criticism and they put forward
similar principles in order to emphasise the creative faculty of the critic of
a work of art. It may be possible to think that the present study might
contribute to encourage further research on the points in common between
Wilde’s and France’s writings, because the conclusions reached after it seem to
suggest that this topic could make for a fruitful field of research.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
BANCQUART, Marie-Claire (1994): Anatole France. Paris : Juillard.
BACQUART, Marie-Claire & Jean DÉRENS, eds.
(1994) : Anatole France : Humanisme
et Actualité. Actes du Colloque pour le cent cinquantième anniversaire de la
mort d’Anatole France. Paris. Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris.
BASHFORD, Bruce (1977): ‘Oscar Wilde, His
Criticism and His Critics’. English Literature in Transition, 20, 4, 181-187.
_______ (1978): ‘Oscar Wilde and
Subjectivist Criticism’. English
Literature in Transition, 21, 4, 218-234.
BECKSON, Karl, ed. 1998 (1974): Oscar Wilde: The Critical Heritage.
London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul.
ELLMANN, Richard (1987): Oscar Wilde. London: Hamish Hamilton.
FAYOLLE, Roger (1964): La Critique Littéraire. Paris : Armand Colin.
FRANCE, Anatole (1926) : Ouvres Complètes Illustrés de Anatole France. 4 vols. Paris :
Calmann-Lévy.
HALEY, Bruce (1985) : ‘Wilde’s
‘ Decadence ’ and the Positivist Tradition ’. Victorian Studies, XXVIII, 2, 215-229.
HART-DAVIS, Rupert, ed. (1962): The Letters of Oscar Wilde. London:
Hart-Davis.
KOHL, Norbert 1989 (1980): Oscar
Wilde: Das literarische
Werk zwischen Provokation and Anpassung.
Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Translated as Oscar
Wilde: The Works of a Conformist Rebel, D. H. Wilson. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
RODITI, Edouard (1947): Oscar Wilde. Norfolk, CT: New Directions
Books.
VANDEGANS, André (1954): Anatole France: Les Années de Formation. Paris : Nizet.
WELLEK, Réne
(1986) : A History of Moden Criticism :
WILDE, Oscar 1994 (1948): Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. Glasgow:
HarperCollins.
WOODCOCK, George (1949): The Paradox of Oscar Wilde. London: T.V.
Boardman.
YLLERA, Alicia (1996): Teoría de la Literatura Francesa. Madrid: Síntesis.
NOTES
1.
This article appeared for
the fist time in 2001 in EPOS (ISSN:
2.
I think it is noteworthy
that these works mentioned above belong all of them to Wildean scholars. Francian critics seem to have paid no attention to the
possible connections between Wilde and France. An exception is Pierre
Citti, who mentions Wilde in relation to France, stating that: ‘ Pour tous
[les deux], l’idée fondamentale est que la culture est la chose la plus
importante de la vie et la moins nécessaire ’ (‘ La Culture d’Anatole
France ou la Mémoire Rebelle ’, in Bancquart and Dérens 1994 : 73).
3.
I shall be using the
following abbreviations in order to quote from Wilde’s critical Works: ‘DL’
(‘The Decay of Lying’); ‘Pen’ (‘Pen, Pencil, and Poison’); ‘CA’ (‘The Critic as
Artist’).
4.
For details on Anatole France’s extensive journalistic career, see Bancquart (1994: 42-43).
5.
Due to their divergent
positions with respect to the contemporary prevailing views on literature and
criticism, both France and Wilde received several attacks from the French and
English press respectively. Anatole France’s
aesthetic principles were hardly criticised by M. Ferdinand Brunetière
in ‘La Critique Impersonnelle’ (Revue des Deux Mondes, 1st
January, 1891: 210-214), which led to France’s defense
of his critical tenets in his ‘Preface’ to the third series of La Vie Littéraire. Oscar Wilde’s critical
and literary works were constantly abused by the critics and he did not only
engaged himself in a debate with the Press in 1890 after the latter’s violent
reactions to The Picture of Dorian Gray
(see Beckson, 1998: 67-71 and Letters of
Oscar Wilde, ed. Hart-Davis, 1962: 295-313), but also defended his
aesthetic standpoint in a ‘Preface’ (like France did) to his novel when it was
published in book form. Significantly enough for our comparative study, most
critics identified the spirit of Wilde’s works as both ‘modern and French’
(Haley, 1985: 229).
6.
The quotations from Oscar
Wilde’s critical works will be taken from Complete
Works of Oscar Wilde, 1994 (1948), Glasgow: HarperCollins.
7.
Unless otherwise indicated,
the quotations from Anatole France’s La Vie Littéraire (VL in the present paper) will be taken from Oeuvres Complètes Illustrés
de Anatole France, 1926, 4 vols,
Paris: Calmann-Lévy. By the way, the four series of La Vie Littéraire have been placed
online recently and may be found through the following links: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/19249 (1re série), http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/19344
(2ème série), http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/19345
(3ème série), http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/20143
(4ème série).
8.
Nonetheless Wilde admits
later on his essay that ‘some resemblance, no doubt, the creative work of the
critic will have to the work that has stirred him to creation’ (‘CA’, 1129).
9.
As Wellek
(1986: 38) and Yllera (1996: 257) have rightly
pointed out, in spite of France’s apparent tolerance towards others’s tastes and opinions, his judgments on contemporary
writers whom he did not like were as harsh as that of any other critic. The
same can be said with respect to Oscar Wilde’s literary judgments on other
authors, even if his tone was milder than France’s. France’s and Wilde’s
hostile comments on Zola quoted above illustrate this point.
10. Here Wilde is referring to the critic as creator, but he relieves that the critic can also choose to limit himself to analyse the work itself: ‘He [the critic] can pass from his synthetic impression of the work of art as a whole, to an analysis or exposition of the work itself’ (‘CA’, 1130). However, he considers it to be a ‘a lower sphere’ and insists that the critic’s object ‘will not always be to explain the work of art. He may seek rather to deepen its mystery, to raise round it, and round its maker, that mist of wonder which is dear to both gods and worshippers alike’ (‘CA’, 1130).
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