Helen's Discussion Prompts for June 15th

1) Dubiously relevant fact: some of you may have noticed that, in England, the bespectacled man in stripes that we love to seek out in large crowds goes by the name of Wally rather than Waldo, for goodness knows what reason. Relevant question: where is Wilde in "The Critic as Artist?" How does having two fictional characters as mouthpieces for thought complicate and/or clarify the problems of opinion and authorship in this essay?

2) What kind of perspective can we shed, using the lenses of class and religion, on the idea of the "contemplative life" (1041-42) proposed by Gilbert as the main reward of the critical spirit and the comparison of a contemplative life to that of a god? Are there problematic or exclusive elements to these two ideas?

3) What are the effects of the mixture of literary and historical allusion, fictional dialogue, and argumentative essay in "The Critic as Artist"? What is lost or gained by their combination?

4) Our readings of Wilde's poetry, fairy tales, and short stories have often dealt with the warring--but perhaps reconcilable--tensions between Hellenism and Catholicism in Wilde's writing. Are these different historical and religious traditions also at play here?

5) Do you read "The Critic as Artist" as a kind of treatise on how modern English creators, critics, and dreamers should behave? Or are we looking at a justification for Wilde's own behavio[u]r?

6) What opinion does Gilbert, our resident critic, have of women in this piece? What does he say or imply about their abilities as artists? Gilbert's longest section of dialogue on page 1022 may be particularly illuminating in terms of framing a discussion.

7) In what ways does Wilde suggest that critics and criticism can or should rewrite history (1023)? Does Gilbert expect his ideas about criticism to change the way it was, at the time, perceived (not as an art but, perhaps, as a form of journalism)? Consider his feelings about different forms of writing, the respective roles of critic and artist, and/or his feelings about the role of action.

8) Wilde rarely, if at all, addresses the idea of there being multiple critics: he references the idea of criticism and The Critic himself, but no others. With this in mind, discuss the purported role of the critic as someone who is responsible for transmitting his ideas not to individuals, but to the age in which he lives (1053). Can there only be one critic? Is it Gilbert? Is it Wilde? Or someone else entirely?

9) Is Wilde addressing a kind of deficiency or double standard in art by defending the kind of advanced plagiarism of Shakespeare, Homer, and indeed the critic himself?