A Critic in Pall Mall: Being Extracts from Reviews and MiscellaniesWilde, Oscar
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A Critic in Pall Mall: Being Extracts from Reviews and Miscellanies
Wilde, Oscar
Books -- Reviews; Literature -- History and criticism
Indeed, it is one that is eminently needed in this age of ours, an age
that reads so much, that it has no time to admire, and writes so much,
that it has no time to think. Whoever will select out of the chaos of
our modern curricula ‘The Worst Hundred Books,’ and publish a list of
them, will confer on the rising generation a real and lasting benefit.
After expressing these views I suppose I should not offer any suggestions
at all with regard to ‘The Best Hundred Books,’ but I hope you will allow
me the pleasure of being inconsistent, as I am anxious to put in a claim
for a book that has been strangely omitted by most of the excellent
judges who have contributed to your columns. I mean the _Greek
Anthology_. The beautiful poems contained in this collection seem to me
to hold the same position with regard to Greek dramatic literature as do
the delicate little figurines of Tanagra to the Phidian marbles, and to
be quite as necessary for the complete understanding of the Greek spirit.
I am also amazed to find that Edgar Allan Poe has been passed over.
Surely this marvellous lord of rhythmic expression deserves a place? If,
in order to make room for him, it be necessary to elbow out some one
else, I should elbow out Southey, and I think that Baudelaire might be
most advantageously substituted for Keble.
No doubt, both in the _Curse of Kehama_ and in the _Christian Year_ there
are poetic qualities of a certain kind, but absolute catholicity of taste
is not without its dangers. It is only an auctioneer who should admire
all schools of art.
THE LETTERS OF A GREAT WOMAN
(_Pall Mall Gazette_, March 6, 1886.)
Of the many collections of letters that have appeared in this century
few, if any, can rival for fascination of style and variety of incident
the letters of George Sand which have recently been translated into
English by M. Ledos de Beaufort. They extend over a space of more than
sixty years, from 1812 to 1876, in fact, and comprise the first letters
of Aurore Dupin, a child of eight years old, as well as the last letters
of George Sand, a woman of seventy-two. The very early letters, those of
the child and of the young married woman, possess, of course, merely a
psychological interest; but from 1831, the date of Madame Dudevant’s
separation from her husband and her first entry into Paris life, the
interest becomes universal, and the literary and political history of
France is mirrored in every page.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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