Wilde×Austen

full transcript

1. 00:00
   Oscar Wildeshare moment

   Miss Austen, I have been accused by my contemporaries of caring too much about being talked about. I find this rich, coming from people who talk about me constantly. You, I'm told, pretended not to care at all whether anyone read your work.
2. 00:12
   Jane Austenshare moment

   I did not pretend, Mr. Wilde. I was genuinely indifferent to the opinion of most readers. Though I confess I was curious about the intelligent ones.
3. 00:21
   Oscar Wildeshare moment

   Ah, the intelligent ones. How convenient that they are always so few in number and so discerning in their judgments. I notice you published anonymously as 'A Lady.' That suggests either modesty or strategy, and I have never trusted modesty.
4. 00:35
   Jane Austenshare moment

   It was neither. It was propriety. A gentlewoman did not parade her accomplishments. Though I will allow that anonymity had certain advantages when reviews were unfavorable.
5. 00:46
   Oscar Wildeshare moment

   You read your reviews, then?
6. 00:47
   Jane Austenshare moment

   I did not seek them out. But my brother Henry was enthusiastic in bringing them to my attention. One cannot control one's relations.
7. 00:55
   Oscar Wildeshare moment

   No, but one can control one's response to their enthusiasm. I myself read every review ever written about me, even the illiterate ones. Especially the illiterate ones, actually, as they were often the most amusing. To pretend otherwise would be dishonest, and I have always preferred my vices to be public.
8. 01:11
   Jane Austenshare moment

   There is honesty, Mr. Wilde, and there is exhibitionism. They are not the same thing.
9. 01:16
   Oscar Wildeshare moment

   But they can be such delightful companions! Tell me, when Walter Scott praised you in his journal—oh, do not look surprised, everyone knows he did—did you not feel the smallest flutter of vindication?
10. 01:26
    Jane Austenshare moment

    I did not know of it until after my death, as you well know. So the question is moot.
11. 01:31
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    But if you had known?
12. 01:33
    Jane Austenshare moment

    I might have felt a flutter. I am not made of stone, whatever my critics suggested. But I would not have altered my work to court more of his praise.
13. 01:42
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    No, of course not. You would simply have written more novels, more quickly, hoping the next one might also happen to merit his notice. Purely by accident.
14. 01:50
    Jane Austenshare moment

    I wrote six novels in total, Mr. Wilde. You wrote one good one. Let us not discuss productivity as though you have standing.
15. 01:58
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    One! The Picture of Dorian Gray alone justifies my entire existence. Though I grant you The Importance of Being Earnest comes close as a second.
16. 02:08
    Jane Austenshare moment

    A play is not a novel.
17. 02:09
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    No, it is better. It must succeed immediately or perish. A novel can languish for decades before someone claims to have understood it all along. You benefited enormously from this delay, I think.
18. 02:20
    Jane Austenshare moment

    I sold out my first editions within months, as it happens. Sense and Sensibility earned me one hundred and forty pounds. I kept careful accounts.
19. 02:29
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    You kept accounts? How perfectly you.
20. 02:31
    Jane Austenshare moment

    One hundred and forty pounds was not nothing to a woman in my position. I suspect you never kept accounts in your life.
21. 02:38
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    I kept excellent accounts of what I owed. It was paying them I found tedious. But we have wandered from our subject. You claimed not to compete, yet you revised First Impressions into Pride and Prejudice. Why revise if you don't care for success?
22. 02:51
    Jane Austenshare moment

    I revised because the book was not yet good enough. That is rather different from revising because I wished to trounce Mrs. Radcliffe in the circulating libraries.
23. 03:01
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Did you not wish to trounce her? Even a little?
24. 03:03
    Jane Austenshare moment

    Mrs. Radcliffe wrote a different kind of novel altogether. One does not compete with another species.
25. 03:09
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    One absolutely does. I competed with everyone. Ruskin, Pater, Whistler—poor Whistler, who thought he was competing with me when really he was my warmup act. Even Shakespeare. Especially Shakespeare.
26. 03:20
    Jane Austenshare moment

    You competed with Shakespeare?
27. 03:22
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Why not? He's dead and cannot defend himself. It is the only fair fight in literature.
28. 03:27
    Jane Austenshare moment

    You are absurd.
29. 03:28
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Thank you. But you are evading. Did you not measure yourself against other novelists? Burney, perhaps? Or Scott himself?
30. 03:35
    Jane Austenshare moment

    I admired Miss Burney exceedingly. As for Mr. Scott, his canvas was broader than mine, his palette more varied. We were doing different work.
31. 03:45
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    And yet you must have known your work was better.
32. 03:47
    Jane Austenshare moment

    I—
33. 03:48
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Come now. Three or four families in a country village, you said. You knew precisely what you were doing, and you knew no one else could do it. That is not indifference. That is certainty.
34. 03:58
    Jane Austenshare moment

    There is a difference, Mr. Wilde, between knowing one's own abilities and needing the world's applause to confirm them.
35. 04:05
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Is there? I have never found one.
36. 04:07
    Jane Austenshare moment

    Yes, well. You also wore velvet coats to lecture tours in America. I rest my case.
37. 04:12
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Those coats were magnificent, and the Americans expected a spectacle. To disappoint them would have been cruel. But I think you are the greater showman, Miss Austen. Your performance of not caring was so convincing that scholars still believe it.
38. 04:25
    Jane Austenshare moment

    It was not a performance.
39. 04:27
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Then why did you instruct Cassandra to burn your letters? What were you hiding?
40. 04:31
    Jane Austenshare moment

    My privacy. My family's dignity. Not everything need be displayed.
41. 04:35
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    But you displayed everything that mattered in your novels. Every anxiety about money, every fear of becoming ridiculous, every sharp observation about people who bored you. You simply gave it all to your heroines and pretended it was fiction.
42. 04:47
    Jane Austenshare moment

    And you gave your epigrams to Lord Henry Wotton and pretended they were not your own philosophy. We are not so different.
43. 04:55
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    We are entirely different. I wanted everyone to know they were mine. You wanted everyone to think you were merely a modest lady who happened to scribble.
44. 05:03
    Jane Austenshare moment

    I was a modest lady who happened to scribble. The fact that I scribbled well does not negate the modesty.
45. 05:11
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    False modesty is the most immodest thing of all. It says, I am so superior that I need not compete. I exist on another plane entirely.
46. 05:19
    Jane Austenshare moment

    Or it says, I have work to do and limited time to do it, and I cannot afford to waste energy on rivalry.
47. 05:26
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    You died at forty-one. I died at forty-six. We both knew our time was limited, and yet I suspect we each spent considerable energy looking over our shoulders.
48. 05:36
    Jane Austenshare moment

    I looked forward, not over my shoulder.
49. 05:39
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Forward to what? To Persuasion's reception? To whether the reviews would finally acknowledge your art?
50. 05:44
    Jane Austenshare moment

    Forward to the next sentence. The next chapter. The next book I might write if my health permitted.
51. 05:50
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    That is a lovely sentiment. I almost believe it.
52. 05:52
    Jane Austenshare moment

    Believe what you like. I have nothing to prove to you.
53. 05:55
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    And yet here you are, proving it nonetheless. That is the heart of the thing, Miss Austen. We both claimed we did not care, and we both cared desperately. I cared loudly, in green carnations and scandalous plays. You cared quietly, in revisions and anonymous title pages. But we cared.
54. 06:13
    Jane Austenshare moment

    Perhaps. Though I still think caring quietly shows better taste.
55. 06:16
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Taste is the death of art. Genius is always in bad taste. That is how you know it is genius.
56. 06:22
    Jane Austenshare moment

    Then I am content to have been tasteful.
57. 06:25
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    No, you are not. But you are content to say you are, which is almost as good.
58. 06:28
    Jane Austenshare moment

    I notice you require the last word, Mr. Wilde.
59. 06:31
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Always. It is my signature. You, however, require the last chapter, which I think is rather the same thing.
60. 06:38
    Jane Austenshare moment

    The last chapter is where the marriages happen and the estates are settled. One must tie up loose ends.
61. 06:45
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Or one could leave them gloriously untied and let the reader suffer. But that would be unkind, and you were never unkind. Even when you were eviscerating someone, you did it so politely they barely noticed until later.
62. 06:57
    Jane Austenshare moment

    Evisceration need not be theatrical to be effective.
63. 07:00
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    True. Though it is so much more enjoyable when it is. I think, Miss Austen, that we have both won our competitions. You have your posterity, and I have my legend. We simply took different roads to immortality.
64. 07:12
    Jane Austenshare moment

    I did not seek immortality, Mr. Wilde. I sought a well-turned sentence and enough income to buy muslin.
65. 07:19
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    And yet you achieved immortality anyway. How perfectly irritating that must be for someone who claims not to have wanted it.
66. 07:25
    Jane Austenshare moment

    I did not say it was unwelcome. I said I did not seek it. There is a distinction.
67. 07:31
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    A very fine one. The kind you specialized in. Very well, I concede the point. You did not compete, you simply wrote better than everyone else and waited for them to notice. I competed with everyone and made certain they noticed immediately. Different methods, same result.
68. 07:46
    Jane Austenshare moment

    If you like. Though I still believe my method showed better character.
69. 07:51
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Character is what one has when one cannot afford personality. I am glad to have been profligate in both.