Wilde Times

One day, I will write a newsletter from a place of serenity, but alas, that's not what I'm doing today.

Hello! I’m excited to share a new essay with you which recently published at The Nation. As you might have guessed from the title of this newsletter, its subject is Oscar Wilde — in particular, Oscar Wilde the critic. The piece is pegged to a lovely new annotated collection of Wilde’s critical work, edited by scholar Nicholas Frankel. As soon as I knew this collection was in the works, I was determined to write about it. However solipsistic, I’m always eager for the opportunity to think about what a critic’s role ought to be in the larger world of art and ideas, and how incisive criticism can make the world better (because it absolutely can!). And predictably, I often turn to the Victorians as a way to muddle through these questions. No matter how I feel about a particular Victorian writer or their work, I am at my best when I’m sussing out the contours and idiosyncrasies of my own intellectual milieu alongside a consideration of theirs.

That said, I unabashedly love Oscar Wilde. And this essay is pretty firmly focused on his philosophies on the role of criticism, which I find genuinely inspiring. Wilde believed so vehemently in criticism’s artistic significance. He believed, too, that the best criticism was beautiful, and beauty, he emphasizes, is not merely a decorative fringe benefit; it is, rather, a crucial component to lived experience. Every human deserves not merely to live, but to live amongst beauty.

Yet it is hard, at the present moment, to discern much beauty in this world that is being smashed and blown apart. As I bear witness to the humanitarian horror erupting in Palestine and Israel, and to the callous, incoherent social media circus unfolding in its wake, I cannot help but think that humans have entirely lost the thread on the basic matter of how to exist on a planet amongst other people. I’m not going to offer any amateurish geopolitical musings. Instead, you should read Jewish Currents’ coverage, both of this horror, and of the many years of brutish state oppression that underpins it. I will only express my bone-deep sadness when I think of the possibilities Wilde conjures in his work—possibilities ultimately denied to him as a gay man in Victorian Britain—and the chasm that separates them from this broken, ailing world. I only hope that the grief weighing upon so many of us right now will urge us towards moral clarity and consistency.

I’m tired enough that if I write much more, the content will devolve into gobbledegook—although, perhaps it’s brazen of me to assume that it hasn’t already. I’m back in the classroom this fall, and it’s deeply rewarding, but balancing writing, teaching, and a toddler is proving demanding work. So, I’ll end here, with a request that you read my essay, and that you share it if you’re so inclined. I also share this link to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. Please donate if you possibly can.

Take care, friends.

RVC