PARTISAN REVIEW
doin anything else. This is not satire but sound sense.
Concerning the one work of Wilde's upon the excellence of which
we can all agree,
The Importance of Being Earnest,
Mr. Woodcock's
own social interests make him see in Lady Brackwell "a satire on the
snobbish values of the upper-classes" and in Miss Prism and Dr.
Chasuble respectively "Wilde's contempt for the educational system and
the Church of his day." This seems to me a complete misrepresenta–
tion of what Wilde is trying to do, namely, to portray the Garden of
Eden as a spot quite different from the pagan island of the blessedJ
The tough and pessimistic Greek who identified pleasure and (hap–
piness knew that pleasure depends upon power; accordingly his Happy
Place is inhabited only by the beautiful, the strong and the wise; the
weak, the ugly, the poor, the old, the stupid are excluded. But Wilde, like
anyone who has been exposed to the culture of Christendom, knew,
however unconsciously, that pleasure and happiness are distinct, and
that happiness does not depend upon power but upon love. In his
day-dream, therefore, Eden is the place where everyone is happy, poor
Miss Prism, silly Dr. Chasuble and old Lady Brackwell just as much as
the young lovers, where everyone loves everyone else and where, though
the laws of nature operate-people have the same nature that they have
in the real world-their operation causes neither conflict nor suffering.
Given his nature, it is not surprising that this subject should have
excited Wilde to write a masterpiece, for on this subject as on no other
is the playboy, who is always an "alienated" soul who craves to belong,
truly earnest.
W. H.
Auden
the hans hofmann school of fine arts
52 west 8th street
new yorlc
city
phone gramercy 7-3491
provincetown, mass.
june 12 - sept. 1 opproved G.!. Bill of Rights
summer session
personally conducted
by mr. hofmann
