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Chris Robertson
Dr. Foss
Engl. 478
9 Sept. 2016
Student as Expert: A Conversation
People: John and Kori. Scene: A dark and stormy night, inside a cozy apartment
looking out over the busy city.
Kori (Looking up from her laptop): Sweetie, what are you reading?
John (marking his place in a book): Mathew Arnold’s The Function of Criticism at the
Present Time. It is the essay that Oscar Wilde wrote a rebuttal to with The Critic as Artist.
Kori: What is there to rebut? Criticism is simply seeing “the object as in itself really is”
(Arnold 130). When talking about a piece of art or literature, the critic needs to keep the art unto
itself, “[r]efusing to lend itself to any of those ulterior, political, practical considerations about
ideas… which criticism as really nothing to do with” (Arnold 142).
John: That’s where Wilde diverges and disagrees with Arnold. Wilde, in his essay The
Critic as Artist, sets forth the argument that criticism is an art and is a tool to create art.
Kori: Criticism is not art; it “is really, in itself a baneful and injurious employment”,
criticism is far less noble than that of the art that it discusses. (Arnold
John: “All art is quite useless” (Wilde 17).

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Kori: Fine. What does Oscar Wilde believe the true purpose of criticism is? What art
could be created through criticism?
John: Wilde believes that the critic’s role as an artist is not based solely on what he says
and thinks a piece of literature means; instead, the critic’s true art is the conversation that he
creates and invites. Wilde believes that it is the argument created because of the criticism that is
the true art of the critic.
Kori: You’re just being dramatic. There is no way that Wilde would consider
conversation the art of criticism. Criticism is “really, in itself a baneful and injurious
employment” that allows for people to make erroneous claims and tell them to other people
(Arnold 132). When people talk about a piece of writing, it is just bickering and opinions.
John: Of course Wilde believes that criticism is all about a conversation; his entire essay
and its conception are founded on the idea of creating a conversation. Mathew Arnold’s essay is
laid out in a familiar format: He states his argument, presents the facts he sees, and then ends the
essay with his conclusion. Effectively, Mathew Arnold shuts out all forms of communication
with his essay.
Wilde “pulls Arnold out on a ledge” and forces open a dialogue that otherwise would
have remained closed (Felstiner 13). Wilde’s essay is labeled a rebuttal to Arnold’s because
Wilde engaged it and took a stance with the opposing opinion. This created an argument
between the two critics as they both present two very different ideas. Readers of these ideas
could then engage in both and decide for themselves. Felstiner asserts an idea that Wilde is
instructing readers to “treat the literary work not as a text but as a pretext for critical acumen”
(13). Felstiner proposes that Wilde means literature should be used to engage our critical

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faculties and have a reader think on what the text might be trying to assert. This will allow a
reader to have his or her opinions and talk about the book. This opinion is substantiated by Alice
Wood when she points out, “Wilde uses this susceptibility to gain impressions, as of value in
themselves” (903). Wood explains how Wilde believes that critics see a reflection of themselves
in order to find the meaning. Criticism is more a reflection of the soul than a reflection of the art,
and that is what helps start the conversation.
Kori: This sounds like a lot of hearsay, Oscar Wilde replied to a ton of criticism and
other people’s ideas. He often gave his opinions whether they were wanted or not. Look at
some of his dandy characters: Henry Wotton and Lord Darlington both, at some point, spout off
ideas for the sake of argument. This could be Wilde’s “Dramatist” coming out as a “less
interesting case of psychological study” (Elis 5). “The very name of Oscar Wilde challenges
criticism,” so this idea of Wilde having a deeper meaning is a little shallow (7).
John: Then look at the essay directly. The title of Wilde’s essay is Critic as Artist: A
Dialogue. Clearly, in specifying the essay as a dialogue, he is pointing to the idea that all
criticism is meant to be viewed as one side of a conversation instead of a one-sided dictation of
what someone thinks the text means. The entire essay is even structured as a conversation rather
than the proto-typical essays of the era, like Mathew Arnold’s. Wilde constructs his argument in
the guise of what could be read as a stage play: “Persons: Gilbert and Ernest. Scene: the library
of a house in Piccadilly, overlooking the Green Park” (Wilde 1009). This is Wilde’s artistic way
of inviting the reader, or his audience, into criticism rather than having them sit on the side.
Then, once you get into the meat of the dialogue, there is some true back and forth
between the characters. Wilde could have had the conversation weighted to one side rather than
the other. One character states that Oscar Wilde’s point is that criticism should be viewed as a

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form of artistic expression while the other character asks leading questions that could be used to
clarify the points of the dominant character. Even better, the second character could have been
completely silent. Now, Gilbert is the character who is giving his opinion on criticism as he sees
it; therefore, he does have a larger speaking role. With that, Ernest the other character does
interject and provide counter points when he feels Gilbert has not justified himself.
After Gilbert uses an example about the “Olympians” and the use of “Rhyme” and
“Robert Browning’s hands a grotesque, misshapen thing, which at times made him masquerade
in poetry as a low comedian” (Wilde 1012). Ernest responds asking for clarification and calling
out the points of the argument he sees as unjust:
“Ernest: There is something in what you say, but there is not everything in what
you say. In many points you are unjust.
Gilbert: It is difficult to not to be unjust to what one loves. But let us return to
the particular point at issue. What was it you said?
Ernest: Simply this: that in the best days of art there were no art-critics” (Wilde
1013).
At this point, Ernest is calling into question Gilbert’s logic and ideas; Ernest sees the validity of
some of Gilbert’s ideas, but he does not agree with all of them and offers an alternative idea.
This allows for further explanation and has Gilbert expand on his idea and disprove Ernest’s
claim that “in the best days of art there were no art-critics” (Wilde 1013).
Ernest also explains that artist create their art by using a medium such as marble,
painting, or the written word. An artist does not rely on someone else’s already-created work,
where a critic must rely on someone else’s work in order create criticism.

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Kori: That feels more like a small comment than a substantial argument. At the very
least, it is Wilde using Ernest to clarify his side of the argument. This makes Wilde’s essay no
different than Arnold’s other than aesthetically choosing to use characters in order to present his
argument. This is all simply Wilde’s taste for the dramatic.
John: For that one instance, yes, Ernest appears to be giving Gilbert a way to expand
upon his argument. But within that same passage, Ernest has a lengthy argument that the
Grecian society is without critics. Ernest states that during the time of Ilyssus, “There were no
silly art congress… teaching the mediocrity how to mouth… no tedious art magazines” (Wilde
1015). All of these contemporary Victorian institutions are used to educate the population on art
and give them opinions. Since these practices were not around, Ernest postulates that the ancient
Greeks were able to produce the best art because they did not have art critics.
Kori: Alright [sic], I will concede that Wilde does provide counter arguments of
substance within his essay. That does not mean that Wilde thinks anything of the critics. His
essay is called Critic as Artist not Critic as Conversationalist. In fact, many critics read Wilde
“as an enemy of authenticity and depth,” so his rebuttal to Arnold at this point might be nothing
more than Wilde being flippant (Cohn 476).
John: That is always a possibility, but look, it is late and we have work in the morning.
Let’s call it a night for now, and we can pick up with this discussion tomorrow.
Kori: I like this conversation and want you to show where else Wilde believes that
criticism is all about the conversation that can be had.
John: Fine. Wilde can be “an enemy to authenticity and depth,” as you claim (Cohn
476). But this does not make his belief of conversation as the true focus of criticism any less

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valid. Wilde believes that art and life are forms of imitation, and that subsequently criticism
itself is an art unto itself. Many critics, such as Riquelme, will point out that Wilde has a “style
of decentering, often in order to reaffirm that decentering ‘rejects conventional, institutionalized,
essentializing attitudes without itself becoming totalizing’” (qtd. In Cohn 476). Here, the
traditional convention would be an essay where Wilde states his ideas; however, because Wilde’s
argument should be viewed as art, his inspiration should come from somewhere.
Wilde has borrowed characters and used different people in his own life within his works.
He has even plagiarized his own work: Ernest appears in both Critic as Artist and three times in
The Importance of Being Ernest. Even Wilde’s children, Cyril and Vivian, have made an
appearance in his works. Wilde, once again, is imitating his own life and actions to showcase the
importance of the dialogue that criticism inspires.
Kori: Your argument is that Oscar Wilde plagiarized himself or, at the very least,
imitated his own life in creating his argument.
John: He is not so much plagiarizing himself here, except for Ernest, but he is drawing
from his own life. Wilde had many open and public conversations with critics, mainly through
retorts and comments published in letters to the editor and other articles in both newspapers and
literary magazines.
Wilde was perceived as an arrogant author who responded to almost any negative
criticism that was published about any of his works. However, all of his responses to these
critics carried a similar tone; Wilde never took a definitive stance in his retorts. Most of the
responses that Wilde fired back at his critics are left very open ended, as if he wanted them to
carry on this dialogue, if they were capable.

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When Dorian Gray was first published some of the reviews that came out called the story
a “study in Puppydom,” or “cheap research among the garbage of French Decadents” (Beckson
271). The critics also attack the story for the lack of morality that seems to come forth from this
Of course, Oscar Wilde could not let something like this stand so he shot back with his own
interpretation and argument in his Letters: “All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own
punishment…. Yes; there is a terrible moral in Dorian Gray – a moral which the prurient will not
be able to find in it, but which will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic
error? I fear it is. It is the only error in the book. (Letters 259)” (Beckson 271). Here we have
Wilde posing an obviously bated question and providing a seemingly facetious answer that is
daring to be challenged. Oscar Wilde, the man who says, “There is no such thing as a moral or
immoral book. Books are well written or badly written,” has just come out and said that his book
has a moral (Wilde 17). The reviews do not even seem to be addressing the quality of the
writing as much as they are appalled at the subject matter the book seems to address. Why
would Wilde admit to putting a moral within his book and then call it an “artistic error” if not to
spur the conversation with contradictions (Letters 259). Wilde explains in the Foreword of the
story that books cannot be moral or immoral but here his only error is the moral. Wilde calling
out an error within his own book and egging on the critics is a way of promoting the
conversation, daring them to interpret and look deeper into his story.
Of course, this was not the only time that Wilde wrote back against criticism. A critic
from Scotland wrote about Wilde’s The Portrait of Mr. W. H. saying that the serial it was
published in “was particularly good… with the exception of one article clearly out of place”
(Beckson 290). To which Wilde offers his colorful retort in his Letters: “To be exiled to
Scotland to edit a Tory paper in the wilderness is bad enough, but not to see the wonder and

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beauty of my discovery of the real Mr W. H. is absolutely dreadful. I sympathize deeply with
you, and can only beg you to return to London where you will be able to appreciate a real work
of art. The Philistines in their vilest form have seized on you” (qtd. In Beckson 290). Here
Wilde is addressing a very important set of claims that Harris is making in his criticism. Harris
explains in his critique that Wilde’s story “set everyone talking and arguing” (Beckson 290).
Oscar Wilde’s The Portrait of Mr W. H., a fictitious story about Shakespeare’s mysterious lover,
got everyone talking and wondering if it were true or not. Wilde’s story here, which he presents
to be factual, is a way to create a conversation with his readers and the critics.
When addressing this critique, Wilde invites the man to have an open conversation and
dialogue with him. Wilde, of course, does address the fact that Harris works for a Tory paper in
Scotland, but instead of discounting the man’s arguments, he invites him back to London. Wilde
could have simply dismissed the critic as a Tory and tried to discredit him; instead, he leaves an
opportunity for more dialogue to continue and to allow for further conversation. Wilde could
have not addressed the article at all.
Kori: Hold on one moment. Your argument that Wilde believes that criticism revolves
around a conversation is based around letters to papers. All of these replies can be seen as Wilde
mocking these critics; he is simply being sarcastic in the way he addresses them. The first reply
involving Dorian Gray, you note that Wilde asks a question. Wilde asks, “Is this an artistic
error?” and then he even turns around and answers it (Beckson 271). This can easily be
explained as a rhetorical question, and the fact that he answers it makes the question a moot
point. If Wilde wanted there to be more of a conversation, wouldn’t he have just stopped at the
question and not answered it?

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Then he replies to Harris, a man “exiled to Scotland,” someone who probably cannot
even come back to London (Beckson 290). So, Wilde extending an invitation for him to come
back to London and experience real, or good art, seems a little hollow.
John: You are right, of course. Wilde could have published both of these responses in
jest. However, Wilde still addressed both of these men when he could have said nothing. Just
because a question is rhetorical doesn’t mean it can’t be answered. If Harris is exiled and is
unable to return, then why write back to his paper at all? Surely being exiled warrants very little
attention from a writer in London. The very idea that Wilde would address these articles shows
how highly Wilde thinks of criticism and the conversation that it creates.
Kori: Wilde can open a conversation with people who criticize his book, but that doesn’t
prove that he thinks criticism itself is about the conversation that it creates. Wilde wrote back to
a lot of people when they spoke negatively about his work; look at his poems and the response he
sent to the professors at Oxford after they wouldn’t accept his poems. Wilde, as you said,
plagiarized and was called out for having un original poems. The reviewers of the poems said
they were poems from Shakespeare, Phillip Sidney “and by sixty more” (Beckson 273). To this
Wilde’s only response was, “Chief regret indeed [is] that there should still be at Oxford such a
large number of young men who are ready to accept their own ignorance as an index, and their
own conceit as a criterion of any imaginative and beautiful work” (Beckson 273).
That response neither opens room for dialogue nor does it try to engage with the
professors at Oxford who reviewed his work.
John: Oscar still replied to them. Even if the letter back was meant to be read as snarky
and condescending, he still offered a dialogue for the conversation -the same way he responded

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to Arnold with Critic as Artist. Wilde is still engaging the work and the dialogue that can be
had.
Kori: So far the only places you’ve shown Wilde can create a conversation is when
someone criticizes his work, or in response to Mathew Arnold. If Wilde believes that Criticism
is about the dialogue then where is it applied to works outside of his own?
John: Wilde, at one point, criticizes the “ordinary English novelists”; these are the very
people who would be his constituents, writing to entertain the same people for whom Wilde
writes (Beckson 273). Wilde calls their characters “far too eloquent”; he wishes they would
think more and talk less. Wilde then closes his response to the contemporary novelist by looking
at the readers of those novels “they are the only relaxation for intellectually unemployed”, what
better way to spur on a conversation than to critique his own audience (Beckson 273)? Here
Wilde is creating a conversation by arguing with the people he writes for, those same people that
will read his stories or see his plays. This could create a flurry of conversations as people defend
or attack Wilde’s position. Why else would someone like Wilde call out his own audience?
Kori: Wilde does make some brash statements, and I can see how they would generate a
conversation. So far, all of your examples seem to focus on a negative idea. The critiques on
Dorian focused on what was wrong with the book. Same with the Portrait of Mr W. H. If Wilde
only responds to negative, that skews the perception of the conversation.
John: Yes, those examples do focus on Wilde’s responses to negative feedback to his
writings, but he also responded to people who enjoyed his writings. The most prominent of these
responses was Wilde’s letter to Mr. Payne. Payne wrote to Wilde expressing how much he
enjoyed the book The Picture of Dorian Gray. Oscar Wilde’s letter that he wrote back to Mr.

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Payne is perhaps the greatest example of Wilde’s care for the conversation caused by criticism:
“The book that poisoned, or made perfect Dorian Gray does not exist: it is a fancy of mine
merely. I am so glad you like that strange coloured book of mine – it contains much of me in it –
Basil Hallward is what I think I am; Lord Henry what the world thinks of me; Dorian what I
would like to be -on other ages perhaps” (Wilde). Here Wilde explains that his ideas and
influences, such as the book Dorian becomes obsessed with, are nothing more than his own
whims. Wilde, at this point, is posing more questions than he is giving answers to when
responding to this fan. Wilde tells Mr. Payne that in “other ages perhaps” he would like to be
Dorian Gray (Wilde). Yet, the strongest argument that is presented in this letter is one that
directly goes against Mathew Arnold’s criticism. Oscar Wilde explains that The Picture of
Dorian Gray contains much of himself Basil is what Wilde thinks he is; Lord Henry is how he
thinks the public sees him; and Dorian is someone he might want to be, maybe.
This is Oscar Wilde showing his fan that outside influences have to be taken into account
when reading and criticizing a piece of writing. Wilde is stating that the “highest form of
criticism really is, the record of one’s own soul” (Wood 903). If the author puts some of himself
in his work, presumably his soul, then the critic should have to put himself in the ideas that he
takes away from any piece of writing. Gilbert in Critic as Artist uses this same argument when
trying to explain Criticism as an art to Ernest. “The meaning of any beautiful created thing is, at
least, as much in the soul of him who looks at it as I was in the soul who wrought it” (Wilde
1029).
Wilde is saying that all art and subsequently criticism “is in its essence purely subjective”
(Wood 903). The truest ideas and feelings we get from such works of literature will be

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discovered in these conversations. Wilde knew this to be true which is why he made some of the
claims he did, and why he would choose to make an essay about criticism into a dialogue.
With so many people coming from different places in their lives and having different
experiences, then each person should see or read something a little bit different. This leaves
room for interpretation, arguments, conversations, and dialogues to happen. It is this ability to
create the conversation that makes criticism so important to Oscar Wilde; the actual criticism
itself might be enjoyable to read, but that is not where it should stop. Criticism should continue
well past the paper it is printed on and the mind of the critic. Criticism needs to be talked about,
disagreed with, argued, and proven; that’s what Wilde shows readers in his essay The Critic as
Artist, and it is what Wilde proves in his actions.
Kori: That is a lot of liberty you are taking with that argument just because Wilde wrote
his essay as a dialogue and his comments to critics and fans.
John: That’s the joy of subjectivity though. You and I can read the same text but not
read the same work.
Kori: I think that is enough talk of subjectivity for the night; we should be getting ready
for bed.
John: (Gesturing to the clock) We should be getting ready for work.
Kori: (Groan inwardly)
John: We can at least enjoy this quiet morning together.