Oscar Wilde as Theorist: The Case of De Profundis

395 OSCAR WILDE AS THEORIST: THE CASE OF DE_ PROFUNDIS By Bruce Bashford (SUNY, Stony Brook) Earlier I have argued that Wilde's paradoxically stated position in his two dialogues on criticism, "The Decay of Lying" and "The Critic as Artist," is more consistent than it first appears.1 More specifically, my claim was that in the dialogues Wilde defines a principle by which meanings originate in art and criticism, presents a method by which the critic can elaborate the power of this principle, and describes the particular kind of self-realization that the critic can thereby achieve. In my- view, Wilde's analysis of criticism has enough development and coherence to earn recognition as a theory of criticism, whatever objections one might subsequently raise to the theory. In this essay, my concern is Wilde's success in constructing a different theory of self-realization in p_e Profundis. To anticipate my verdict : one can again discern in his discussion a basic principle and a method, as well as a final state that these project. Thus Wilde shows once more his ability to set forth the major components of a theory. But he also underestimates the difficulties that he creates for himself by discarding the basic principle of his earlier position, and as a result, his new theory lacks development.2 The scope of the theory in p_e Profundis is greater than that of the critical dialogues. In the latter, Wilde's concern is the self-development possible in a life lived in the realm of art and criticism. In the former, his subject is the self-development possible in any individual's life. Here are the major components of the theory in p_e Profundis: Wilde says that he learned from Christ that "one only realizes one's soul by getting rid of all alien passions, all acquired culture, and all external possessions be they good or evil."3 The soul is the basic principle of the theory, that is, it is the source of the individual's possible development . This development comes about through a process of two stages, and these stages taken together constitute the theory's method. As the remark about Christ indicates, the first stage is a stripping down or casting off of all that might encumber the soul. Wilde identifies the special power of the soul by this analogy: [J]ust as the body absorbs things of all kinds, things common and unclean no less than those that the priest or a vision has cleansed, and converts them into swiftness or strength, into the play of beautiful muscles and the moulding of fair flesh, 396 into the curves and colours of the hair, the lips, the eye: so the Soul, in its turn, has its nutritive functions also, and can transform into noble moods of thought, and passions of high import, what in itself is base, cruel, and degrading: nay more, may find in these its most august modes of assertion, and can reveal itself most perfectly through what was intended to desecrate or destroy. (DP, 197-98) The other stage of the method is bringing the soul's power to bear on all of the individual's experiences. After listing the dreadful features of his life in prison—the "plank bed, the loathsome food, the hard ropes shredded into oakum till one's fingertips grow dull with pain"--Wilde insists that "each and aJU of these things I have to transform into a spiritual experience" (DP, 197, my emphasis). And just before drawing the "power of the soul" analogy, he states, "To reject one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development . To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the Soul" (DP, 197). Wilde's account of the theory's last component, the final state produced by the principle and method, is slightly ambiguous. What is clear is that Wilde envisions the comprehensive application of the principle as fully disclosing the soul's capacity to spiritualize. The soul is the core of one's identity, and its function is to lift up one...