The best and most productive
way forward I should think, when contemplating great works of art (or even
mediocre efforts such as Herr Hitler's) is to view them in relation to what is
known of the artists themselves - if there is enough solid biographical material
known then it becomes necessary & perhaps indispensable to make preliminary
judgements as to what was perhaps the creative inspiration behind them.
Just as artists aren't hatched in a jam jar divorced from the vicissitudes of the life around them, neither should their works be viewed as such. An appreciation of any isolated work can of course be had, when it is viewed on it's own merits minus knowledge of the person behind them or what motivations guided them but it's impossible to deny that placing that work in the context of their lives makes for a more satisfying overall understanding; you might even say such an approach becomes indispensable to enriching the aesthetic experience itself.
As an example, I went through a 'Wilde' phase about twenty years ago, bored my then girlfriend to tears talking about the convoluted plotlines to Dorian Gray and bemoaned the savage injustice meted out to Oscar by a prudish hypocritical Victorian society who hadn't yet advanced far enough to acknowledge and legalise the 'love that dare not speak it's name'. I even went out and bought the 'yellow book' (Á Rebours/Against Nature) cited by Wilde during his trial just because the whole hedonistic aesthetic of 'art for art's sake' had a strange appeal for me at the time - I liked his flamboyance, his learning and his seeming capacity to hold an encrypted key of the inner workings of society; he always seemed to know which buttons to press and had a tailored response for every objection. Surely a figure like that I thought is almost excused whatever excesses he may be guilty of? I especially loathed his prosecutor Carson, not only for felling Wilde but for his subsequent role in rallying Unionist opposition to Home Rule.
Soon enough though I came to deplore Mr. Fingal O' Flaherty Wills Wilde, not merely because he was an upper-class predatory paedophile (no different from Cathal Ó Séarcaigh today) whose victims were poor and defenceless (the grotesque reality of which strangely enough never struck me to any great extent while I was actually enamoured of his work) but also the distinguished world he left behind him in Ireland and the obvious disgrace he brought on his proud family heritage.
His father was a famed opthalmic surgeon but was also chief coroner in Ireland during the famine - it was his reports that provide much of the primary documentary evidence we have today on causes of death during the period, while his mother, 'Speranza' was one of the 'three Graces' who composed stirring & influential poems for the 'Nation' and thus spearheaded the revival (or, properly speaking, birth) of anti-colonial romantic idealism which culminated in the Young Ireland secessionist Confederacy. Despite his early immersion in the rich heritage of Gaelic myth & folklore, his close proximity to the ideologues of nationalist Ireland, his unique position to affect change (his Trinity Gold Medal), he wound up like Shaw peddling his trade in London, hardly to be blamed as this was where graft and talent could be rewarded, but did so via the promotion of an art form (despite Kiberd's assertions to the contrary) that did little whatever to promote the cause of his country abroad - while all the time ludicrously pandering to the laughably obnoxious and shallow Lord Douglas and fawningly ingratiating himself with what he evidently deemed to be the acme of civilisation (London 'high society' - despite the plays which affect to hold a critical gaze of it's mores).
I don't think it's possible to detach some writers from the work they produce and Wilde is one of those creatures I've really begun to loathe over the years - maybe I need to revisit his Ballad of Reading Gaol which I had always found moving and see if there's perhaps any sympathy left in me for the man, but I'd doubt whatever I once had can be remotely salvaged. Basically, he became the worst type of social parasite in my eyes - someone who felt compelled to evolve an elaborate aesthetic philosophy to excuse an inner depravity. There is much art in Dorian Gray, if you'd like to view it like that, but it's more gripping as a frank confession of someone who'd self-consciously lost the run of himself.
Just as artists aren't hatched in a jam jar divorced from the vicissitudes of the life around them, neither should their works be viewed as such. An appreciation of any isolated work can of course be had, when it is viewed on it's own merits minus knowledge of the person behind them or what motivations guided them but it's impossible to deny that placing that work in the context of their lives makes for a more satisfying overall understanding; you might even say such an approach becomes indispensable to enriching the aesthetic experience itself.
As an example, I went through a 'Wilde' phase about twenty years ago, bored my then girlfriend to tears talking about the convoluted plotlines to Dorian Gray and bemoaned the savage injustice meted out to Oscar by a prudish hypocritical Victorian society who hadn't yet advanced far enough to acknowledge and legalise the 'love that dare not speak it's name'. I even went out and bought the 'yellow book' (Á Rebours/Against Nature) cited by Wilde during his trial just because the whole hedonistic aesthetic of 'art for art's sake' had a strange appeal for me at the time - I liked his flamboyance, his learning and his seeming capacity to hold an encrypted key of the inner workings of society; he always seemed to know which buttons to press and had a tailored response for every objection. Surely a figure like that I thought is almost excused whatever excesses he may be guilty of? I especially loathed his prosecutor Carson, not only for felling Wilde but for his subsequent role in rallying Unionist opposition to Home Rule.
Soon enough though I came to deplore Mr. Fingal O' Flaherty Wills Wilde, not merely because he was an upper-class predatory paedophile (no different from Cathal Ó Séarcaigh today) whose victims were poor and defenceless (the grotesque reality of which strangely enough never struck me to any great extent while I was actually enamoured of his work) but also the distinguished world he left behind him in Ireland and the obvious disgrace he brought on his proud family heritage.
His father was a famed opthalmic surgeon but was also chief coroner in Ireland during the famine - it was his reports that provide much of the primary documentary evidence we have today on causes of death during the period, while his mother, 'Speranza' was one of the 'three Graces' who composed stirring & influential poems for the 'Nation' and thus spearheaded the revival (or, properly speaking, birth) of anti-colonial romantic idealism which culminated in the Young Ireland secessionist Confederacy. Despite his early immersion in the rich heritage of Gaelic myth & folklore, his close proximity to the ideologues of nationalist Ireland, his unique position to affect change (his Trinity Gold Medal), he wound up like Shaw peddling his trade in London, hardly to be blamed as this was where graft and talent could be rewarded, but did so via the promotion of an art form (despite Kiberd's assertions to the contrary) that did little whatever to promote the cause of his country abroad - while all the time ludicrously pandering to the laughably obnoxious and shallow Lord Douglas and fawningly ingratiating himself with what he evidently deemed to be the acme of civilisation (London 'high society' - despite the plays which affect to hold a critical gaze of it's mores).
I don't think it's possible to detach some writers from the work they produce and Wilde is one of those creatures I've really begun to loathe over the years - maybe I need to revisit his Ballad of Reading Gaol which I had always found moving and see if there's perhaps any sympathy left in me for the man, but I'd doubt whatever I once had can be remotely salvaged. Basically, he became the worst type of social parasite in my eyes - someone who felt compelled to evolve an elaborate aesthetic philosophy to excuse an inner depravity. There is much art in Dorian Gray, if you'd like to view it like that, but it's more gripping as a frank confession of someone who'd self-consciously lost the run of himself.
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