Oscar Wilde: A Critical Study

by Arthur Ransome

Contents Biographical Summary Poems Aestheticism Miscellaneous Poems Intentions The Theatre Disaster De Profundis 1897-1900 Afterthought

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History

Paperback

First published January 1, 1912

About the author

Arthur Michell Ransome (January 18, 1884 – June 3, 1967) was an English author and journalist. He was educated in Windermere and Rugby.

In 1902, Ransome abandoned a chemistry degree to become a publisher's office boy in London. He used this precarious existence to practice writing, producing several minor works before Bohemia in London (1907), a study of London's artistic scene and his first significant book.

An interest in folklore, together with a desire to escape an unhappy first marriage, led Ransome to St. Petersburg, where he was ideally placed to observe and report on the Russian Revolution. He knew many of the leading Bolsheviks, including Lenin, Radek, Trotsky and the latter's secretary, Evgenia Shvelpina. These contacts led to persistent but unproven accusations that he "spied" for both the Bolsheviks and Britain.

Ransome married Evgenia and returned to England in 1924. Settling in the Lake District, he spent the late 1920s as a foreign correspondent and highly-respected angling columnist for the Manchester Guardian, before settling down to write Swallows and Amazons and its successors.

Today Ransome is best known for his Swallows and Amazons series of novels, (1931 - 1947). All remain in print and have been widely translated.

Arthur Ransome died in June 1967 and is buried at Rusland in the Lake District.

Reviews

[Rosie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars
I liked this book. It was particularly interesting because I went into it with some background knowledge of the affairs of its publication; the fact that Lord Alfred Douglas sued Ransome for libel for some statements that were made about him (though without explicitly naming him, I think) in this book, but lost the libel suit, meaning Ransome was free to continue to publish whatever he said. It didn’t bear much on this book, especially as this is a third edition, and Ransome decided to leave out those references to avoid hurting feelings, but it was nice to know that extra information. And this was quite a good book. I felt Ransome had a pretty good insight into at least some aspects of Wilde’s character, and I found his analyses of Wilde’s work illuminating, even if I didn’t always agree with his assessments. It’s unfortunate his perspective on homosexuality, though; I provided the quotation below. He views it as a malady of the brain, which, considering the time period this was published, is actually a rather liberal and tolerant view…not for us, though. I also think this book lost something as a result of the way it carefully avoided discussing Wilde’s homosexuality for any extended period of time. Especially near the end when discussing De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Another critique: All that untranslated French. I had to mark the passages with untranslated French (at least six) to go back to to translate later with Google Translate…It’s obnoxious. And a little pretentious, as if to show off the author’s education. This was, I think, his first book, so it makes sense that he was trying very hard to display his smarts and learning, but there was a bit of a garrulous element to it sometimes. I’m sure it would disappear if you read his later works—well, hopefully.

Altogether: I don’t regret reading this. I have actually read comparatively few books of literary criticism of Wilde (as opposed to biography), so in that sense it was new to me, and I hope to read more books of this type.

Quotations:

“His personality was stronger than his will. When, as he often did, he set himself to imitation, he could not prevent himself from leaving his mark upon the counterfeit. He stole freely, but often mounted other men’s jewels so well that they are better in his work than in their own.” (21) This exactly echoes my thoughts when I read Pater’s The Renaissance, and even though I knew Pater was the original, I couldn’t help but think he sounded like a pale echo of Wilde, because Wilde does it so much better.

“We recognize Wilde by the decorative effects that are scattered throughout the book. He preferred a lyrical pattern to a prosaic perspective, and, even more than his wit, his love of decoration is the distinguishing quality of his work.” (93)

“But men who talk for their own enjoyment and for that of those who listen to them are less likely than others to compose by eye instead of by ear. It is actually difficult to read Wilde in silence. His sentences lift the voice as well as the thoughts of the writer from the printed page.” (113)

“Our business here is scientific, not apologetic, and such evidence as we have shows that the vice needs none but a pathological explanation. It was a disease, a malady of the brain, not the necessary consequence of a delight in classical literature. Opulence permitted its utmost development, but did not create it. Opulence did, however, make it noticeable, and prepared the circumstances in which it was publicly punished.” (168)

“There is a word, often applied to Wilde in his lifetime, that has, since his death, been used to justify a careless neglect of his work. That word is ‘pose.’ . . . Wilde ‘posed’ as an aesthete. He was an aesthete. He ‘posed’ as brilliant. He was brilliant. He ‘posed’ as cultured. He was cultured. The quality in him to which that word was applied was not pretence, though that was willingly suggested, but display. Wilde let people see, as soon as he could, and in any way that was possible, who and what he was or wished to be. No bushel hid his lamp. He arranged it where it could best be seen, and beat drums before it to summon the spectators. He had every quality of a charlatan, except one: the inability to keep his promises. Wilde promised nothing that he could not perform. BUt, because he promised so loudly, he earned the scorn of those whom charlatans do not outwit. He has even met with the scorn of charlatans, who cannot understand why he made so much noise when he really could do what he promised.” (220-2)

[Misty Gardner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the 'reprint' version I have is only just on 100 pages it has taken me a long time and a lot of willpower to get through it.
It is well-written (if a little 'florid' by today's standards) - the fairest thing to say is that it was 'of its time' (it was, as Ransome tells us, written just twelve years after Wilde's death). Part of my problem is that being 'of its time', it takes extreme pains to avoid the subject of Wilde's identity which, essentially, is central to so much of his work. It coyly refers to 'his friend' - usually of course Lord Alfred Douglas.
I also had the sense at various times that Ransome was choosing his commentary and the descriptions he was using to highlight his own erudition rather than making a literary critique of Wilde's work - there is a lot of referencing of classical themes which would probably not mean much to a lot of people.
I had the sense that Ransome disliked (or at best disapproved of) Wilde although he does make a few more sympathetic comments towards the end of the essay
It was an interesting read but is, as I have said, 'of its time', and to anyone who has read more recent biographies and other material concerning Wilde it now seems wearisome