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Oscar Wilde in 1883.^[1]

ENG 463: The Victorian Period

Amanda French

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Introduction

Basic information about Oscar Wilde on the web:

• Wikipedia entry: Oscar Wilde
• Encyclopaedia Britannica entry: Oscar Wilde (NCSU only)
• Victorian Web: Brief Biography of Oscar Wilde
• Victorian Web: Works of Oscar Wilde
• The Trials of Oscar Wilde
• The Free Library: Oscar Wilde
• Photographs of Oscar Wilde and his Circle at the Clark Library

Topics

All topics are based on chapter titles of Sally Mitchell's Daily Life in Victorian England (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996).

Class, Tradition, and Money

In Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, poor eighteen-year-old Cecily is required to study many dull subjects, when she would rather be doing the Victorian equivalent of blogging:

MISS PRISM: Cecily! (CECILY makes no answer.) Cecily! You are again making entries in your diary. I think I have had occasion more than once to speak to you about that morbid habit of yours.

CECILY: I am merely, as I always do, taking you for my example, Miss Prism.

MISS PRISM: When one has thoroughly mastered the principles of Bimetallism one has the right to lead an introspective life. Hardly before. I must beg you to return to your Political Economy.^[2]

Bimetallism, whatever else it was in the Victorian period -- surely modern readers are unlikely to recognize the word -- was a favorite joke of Oscar Wilde's. In An Ideal Husband Mabel Chiltern, another young and pretty girl, piffles cheerfully with the term:

Well, Tommy has proposed to me again. Tommy really does nothing but propose to me. [. . .] At luncheon I saw by the glare in his eye that he was going to propose to me again, and I just managed to check him in time by assuring him that I was a bimetallist. Fortunately I don't know what bimetallism means. And I don't believe anybody else does either. But the observation crushed Tommy for ten minutes. He looked quite shocked. ^[3]

It is comforting to find that, at least in Mabel Chiltern's opinion, we are perfectly justified in not recognizing the term. But what was bimetallism, and, more importantly, why did Wilde find it so amusing? What purpose does the word "bimetallism" accomplish for him in his plays?

An article from the 1893 New York Times that mentions S. Dana Horton.^[4]

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, bimetallism is a "monetary standard or system based upon the use of two metals, traditionally gold and silver, rather than one (monometallism)."^[5] American and British reformers (liberals and radicals) in the last thirty years of the nineteenth century advocated bimetallism, the introduction of a double standard, as a solution to prevailing economic hardship; conservatives were upset by this proposed overthrow of the traditional "monometallic" gold standard. The issue was much in the news in both America and England in the 1890s.

To be a bimetallist was to be a liberal reformer, possibly even a radical. The suggestion that the traditional gold standard could be replaced with a newfangled double standard was frightening to social conservatives. S. Dana Horton, a (real) bimetallist, wrote in his 1887 book The Silver Pound, "To object that this idea is novel is merely to prove that it is important" (xvi). William Jennings Bryan, in his famous "Cross of Gold" speech of 1896, used radical Christian rhetoric to defend the adoption of bimetallism: "Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."^[6]

Wilde, then, mocking Bimetallism, might seem to be aligning himself with upper-class social conservatives. Yet, typically, Wilde (himself a declared socialist) mocks that political position as well: for Wilde, "Bimetallism" was clearly a shorthand for everything unimportant, pompous, and ridiculous about the world of political engagement. By airily claiming to be a bimetallist, Mabel "shocks" her suitor, Tommy: apparently he is Conservative. By claiming a thorough knowledge of the principles of Bimetallism, Miss Prism may well be revealing her liberal and left-leaning reformist inclinations. But both Tommy and Miss Prism are ridiculous characters. For Wilde, the issue is not whether there should be a single gold standard for paper money, the issue is whether people should be judged by the single standard of their politics. And his answer to that is no: political orientation is not, for Wilde, a standard.

Working Life

"The Briefless Barrister" -- "I give you my word that during the last twelve months I have not earned enough fees to pay the rent of my Chambers and the salary of my Clerk. And things are getting worse and worse. One of the Solicitors who used to give me an occasional turn has been struck off the Rolls, and the other, has transferred his business to Australia. I feel inclined to follow, but I can't raise the passage-money. What luck, now, could be worse than mine?" ^[7]

Most editions of The Importance of Being Earnest omit the scene in which a solicitor, Mr. Gribsby, serves a writ of attachment upon Algernon Moncrieff, thinking he is "Ernest Worthing," who does not, of course, exist. Mr. Gribsby is clearly not a gentleman; Algernon keeps haughtily instructing him in what a gentleman is and does and can be expected to do:

GRIBSBY: I am merely a Solicitor myself. I do not employ personal violence of any kind. The Officer of the Court, whose function it is to seize the person of the debtor, is waiting in the fly outside. He has considerable experience in these matters. That is why we always employ him. But no doubt you will prefer to pay the bill.

ALGERNON: Pay it? How on earth am I going to do that? You don't suppose I have got any money? How perfectly silly you are. No gentleman ever has any money. ^[8]

And this:

GRIBSBY (pulls out watch): I am sorry to disturb this pleasant family meeting, but time presses. We have to be at Holloway not later than four o'clock; otherwise it is difficult to obtain admission. The rules are very strict.

ALGERNON: Holloway!

GRIBSBY: It is at Holloway that detentions of this character take place always.

ALGERNON: Well, I really am not going to be imprisoned in the suburbs for having dined in the West End.

GRIBSBY: The surroundings I admit are middle class; but the gaol itself is fashionable and well-aired; and there are ample opportunities of taking exercise at certain stated hours of the day. In the case of a medical certificate, which is always easy to obtain, the hours can be extended.

ALGERNON: Exercise! Good God! No gentleman ever takes exercise. You don't seem to understand what a gentleman is.

GRIBSBY: I have met so many of them, sir, that I am afraid I don't. There are the most curious varieties of them. The result of cultivation, no doubt. ^[9]

And this:

GRIBSBY: (To Algernon.) I hope I shall have the pleasure of meeting you again.

ALGERNON: I sincerely hope not. What ideas you have of the sort of society a gentleman wants to mix in. No gentleman ever wants to know a Solicitor who wants to imprison him in the suburbs.

GRIBSBY: Quite so, quite so. ^[10]

Some of Algernon's attitude in these exchanges can, of course, be put down to (partly) righteous indignation at the idea that he should be about to be taken away and imprisoned for a debt that it is not his. Yet it is clear from the rest of the play that Algernon does indeed have many debts, and that such a scenario is not unlikely for him in the near future. If, in fact, he has not already had some experience (like Gribsby and the Officer of the Court) with it already. Some of Algernon's attitude is also simply Wilde mocking the upper classes: Wilde takes pleasure in confirming all middle-class prejudices against the upper classes. They are idle, indolent, and indebted, and little else.

But these passages also serve to emphasize the vast social gap between some practitioners of law and others in the Victorian period. While a Solicitor is the object of Algernon's disdain, a Barrister, later in the play, is the object of faint praise by that notorious stickler, Lady Bracknell:

JACK: Miss Cardew's family solicitors are Messrs. Markby, Markby, and Markby of 149a Lincoln's Inns Fields, Western Central District, London. I have no doubt they will be happy to supply you with any further information. Their office hours are from ten till four.

LADY BRACKNELL: Markby, Markby, and Markby? A firm of the very highest in their profession. Indeed I am told that one of the Mr. Markbys is occasionally to be seen at dinner parties. So far I am satisfied. ^[11]

The joke here, of course, is that Lady Bracknell judges the legal firm not by its professional reputation but by its social reputation. The firm could be known for embezzlement, fraud, and chicanery of all sorts, and Lady Bracknell would still judge it to be "of the very highest" as long as one of its barristers "is occasionally to be seen at dinner parties."

Sally Mitchell writes in her Daily Life in the Victorian Period that "Barristers were the gentlemen of the legal profession. . . . A mature and successful barrister['s] social status was high, and his income could reach several thousand pounds a year." ^[12] In other words, he might occasionally be seen at dinner parties with a Lady Bracknell. But the caricature of the "briefless barrister" in Punch (depicted without the 18th-century wig he would wear in court) shows that a barrister was still subject to the vicissitudes of independent employment, and that he might indeed rely on the lower-status Solicitor for much of his income. In the Victorian period, then, involvement in the legal profession was not in itself a guarantee of either high social status or a high income -- nor, for that matter, low social status or a low income.

Science and the Urban World

Government and the Law

House, Food, and Clothes

Family and Social Rituals

Education

Health and Medicine

Holidays, Sports, and Recreation

Religion and Reform

Morality

England and Empire

References

1. ↑ Frontispiece. His Life, with a Critical Estimate of his Writings. NY: Lamb, 1909. Vol. 15 of The Works of Oscar Wilde. 15 vols.
2. ↑ Wilde, Oscar. The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. 1966. Gen ed. J. B. Foreman. NY: Perennial Library, 1989. 355.
3. ↑ Wilde 513.
4. ↑ "Europe's Financial Problem: It is the Same which Confronts the United States." New York Times 4 Aug. 1893, p. 2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. The New York Times (1851-2003) 31 Jan. 2007.
5. ↑ "Bimetallism." Encyclopaedia Britannica Online: Academic Edition. 31 Jan. 2007.
6. ↑ "Bryan’s 'Cross of Gold' Speech: Mesmerizing the Masses." History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web. George Mason University. 31 Jan. 2007.]
7. ↑ "The Compliments of the Season: A Characteristic Welcome to the Coming Year." Punch, or the London Charivari 31 Dec. 1892. Retrieved 8 Feb. 2007 Project Gutenberg.
8. ↑ Wilde 350
9. ↑ Wilde 351
10. ↑ Wilde 352
11. ↑ Wilde 373
12. ↑ Mitchell, Sally. Daily Life in Victorian England. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996.