A Clarification on the Wilde Essay

"Wilde derides the action of criticism" is hardly a correct statement. In his work "The Critic as Artist", he writes "[Criticism] treats the work of art simply as a starting point for a new creation. It does not confine itself - let us at least suppose so for the moment - to discovering the real intention of the artist and accepting that as final", that indeed, "[t]o 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 criticizes." For Wilde, "the highest criticism is, the record of one's own soul." Wilde's criticism of Victorian high society is, of course, hardly bitter, but the Marxist who takes on Wilde's work will see it with bitter eyes. I am aware that a Marxist criticism (such as this one) is ideologically oriented, and it is meant to be ideologically oriented, for criticism must have its grounding on something, and it is as much a reflection of Wilde's play as it is a reflection of the Marxist theory. To "truly establish Wilde as a canon beyond his era" is not the goal of this essay. The purpose of this paper is to gain an understanding of how ideology (specifically capitalism) grounds and operates itself in the Victorian high society. I have no intention of getting an accurate picture of Oscar Wilde himself; rather, I want to get an accurate picture of Victorian high society.

I realized that I have given the wrong impression that Wilde means this or Wilde means that, but one must read my thesis statement carefully: "...we can see The Importance of Being Earnest...as a extremely critical satire beneath its virtuosic wit and memorable fun." I never said that "Wilde is subconsciously a Marxist critic who satirizes Victorian high society because of its immoral capitalist ways of acting"; rather, the play can be seen as a satire because one can readily trace the three elements of satire.

Admittedly, the clarification above is not consistent. On the third point, "the reversal of the serious and the trivial", I do mean to give Wilde's concern with textual support; but before one gets all angry at my inconsistency, let me just say that the third point is not meant to be a sharp Marxist criticism like the first two points; the third point has to do with Wilde's own artistic views, which happens to be expressed in this final element of satire, and so it must be included in this paper.