Part 5 (1/2)
The mock interviews in _Punch_ which have been quoted from are really no very wide departures from the real thing. A year or two after the aesthetic movement was not so prominent in the public eye as was the success of Wilde as a writer of plays, an actual interview with him appeared in a well-known weekly paper in which he talked not much less extravagantly than he was caricatured as talking in _Punch_. A play of his had been produced and, while it was a complete and satisfying success, it had been a.s.sailed in that unfortunately hostile way by the critics to which he was accustomed.
He was asked what he thought about the att.i.tude of the critics towards his play.
”For a man to be a dramatic critic,” he is said to have replied, ”is as foolish and inartistic as it would be for a man to be a critic of epics, or a pastoral critic, or a critic of lyrics. All modes of art are one, and the modes of the art that employs words as its medium are quite indivisible. The result of the vulgar specialisation of criticism is an elaborate scientific knowledge of the stage--almost as elaborate as that of the stage-carpenter, and quite on a par with that of the call-boy--combined with an entire incapacity to realise that a play is a work of art, or to receive any artistic impressions at all.”
He was told that he was rather severe upon the dramatic critics.
”English dramatic criticism of our own day has never had a single success, in spite of the fact that it goes to all the first nights,” was his reply.
Thereupon the interviewer suggested that dramatic criticism was at least influential.
”Certainly; that is why it is so bad,” he replied, and went on to say:
”The moment criticism exercises any influence it ceases to be criticism.
The aim of the true critic is to try and chronicle his own moods, not to try and correct the masterpieces of others.”
”Real critics would be charming in your eyes, then?”
”Real critics? Ah, how perfectly charming they would be! I am always waiting for their arrival. An inaudible school would be nice. Why do you not found it?”
Oscar Wilde was asked if there were, then, absolutely no critics in London.
”There are just two,” he answered, but refused to give their names. The interviewer goes on to recount his exact words:
”Mr Wilde, with the elaborate courtesy for which he has always been famous, replied, 'I think I had better not mention their names; it might make the others so jealous.'
”'What do the literary cliques think of your plays?'
”'I don't write to please cliques; I write to please myself. Besides, I have always had grave suspicions that the basis of all literary cliques is a morbid love of meat-teas. That makes them sadly uncivilised.'
”'Still, if your critics offend you, why don't you reply to them?'
”'I have far too much time. But I think some day I will give a general answer, in the form of a lecture, in a public hall, which I shall call ”Straight Talks to Old Men.”'
”'What is your feeling towards your audiences--towards the public?'
”'Which public? There are as many publics as there are personalities.'
”'Are you nervous on the night that you are producing a new play?'
”'Oh no, I am exquisitely indifferent. My nervousness ends at the last dress rehearsal; I know then what effect my play, as presented upon the stage, has produced upon me. My interest in the play ends there, and I feel curiously envious of the public--they have such wonderful fresh emotions in store for them.'
”I laughed, but Mr Wilde rebuked me with a look of surprise.
”'It is the public, not the play, that I desire to make a success,' he said.
”'But I'm afraid I don't quite understand----'
”'The public makes a success when it realises that a play is a work of art. On the three first nights I have had in London the public has been most successful, and had the dimensions of the stage admitted of it, I would have called them before the curtain. Most managers, I believe, call them behind.'”
There are pages more of this sort of thing, and the earlier and pretended interview in _Punch_ differs a little in period but very little in manner from this real interview.