Oscar Wilde: Reminiscences

By André Gide and Jeanine Parisier Plottel

Personal recollections from André Gide on a man who profoundly influenced his work—Oscar Wilde André Gide, a towering figure in French letters, draws upon his friendship with Oscar Wilde to sketch a compelling portrait of the tragic, doomed author, both celebrated and shunned in his time. Rather than compile a complete biography, Gide invites us to discover Wilde as he did—from their first meeting in 1891 to their final parting just two years before Wilde’s death—all told through Gide’s sensitive, incomparable prose. Using his notes, recollections, and conversations, Gide illuminates Wilde as a man whose true art was not writing, but living. This ebook features a new introduction by Jeanine Parisier Plottel, selected quotes, and an image gallery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philosophical Library Open Road
• Release date: Feb 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781453240410

André Gide

André Gide (1869 - 1951) was a French author described by The New York Times as, “French’s greatest contemporary man of letters.” Gide was a prolific writer with over fifty books published in his sixty-year career with his notable books including The Notebooks of André Walker (1891), The Immoralist (1902), The Pastoral Symphony (1919), The Counterfeiters (1925) and The Journals of André Gide (1950). He was also known for his openness surrounding his sexuality: a self-proclaimed pederast, Gide espoused the philosophy of completely owning one’s sexual nature without compromising one’s personal values which is made evident in almost all of his autobiographical works. At a time when it was not common for authors to openly address homosexual themes or include homosexual characters, Gide strove to challenge convention and portray his life, and the life of gay people, as authentically as possible.

Book preview

OSCAR WILDE

Philosophical eLibrary Editions

of works by André Gide

Autumn Leaves

The Notebooks of André Walter

Notes on Chopin

White Notebook

A Philosophical eLibrary Edition

OSCAR WILDE

IN MEMORIAM

(REMINISCENCES)

DE PROFUNDIS

by

ANDRÉ GIDE

With a New Introduction by

JEANINE PARISIER PLOTTEL

Translated from the French by

BERNARD FRECHTMAN

PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY

New York

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

ANDRÉ GIDE QUOTES

IMAGE GALLERY

OSCAR WILDE QUOTES

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

FOREWORD

IN MEMORIAM

PART I—EARLY PERIOD

PART II—TRAGIC MEMORIES

PART III—SEBASTIAN MELMOTH

PART IV—THE KING OF LIFE

PART V—PARIS

APPENDIX

INDEX

INTRODUCTION

André Gide and Oscar Wilde met for the first time when they were at a crossroad of their lives. The year was 1891, a year that was an annus mirabilis for both men. ¹ The Frenchman, born on November 22, 1869 was 22 years old and the Irishman, born on October 16, 1854, was 37, fifteen years older. Oscar was already the celebrated author of many works, including poems, stories, criticism, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and near the top of his form—a form that would yield his great plays Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, Salomé, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest. André became part of the Paris literary milieu with the publication of his first works, Les Cahiers d’André Walter (The Notebooks of André Walter), a book purporting to be a journal and filled with poems, and Traité du Narcisse, a long essay that presents his own version of the myth. ² He left a copy of the Cahiers at Stéphane Mallarmé’s home, 89 rue de Rome. Mallarmé then invited him to join the famous Tuesday evening group. Oscar, who seems to have been present at Mallarmé’s on Tuesdays in November 1891, ³ may well have met André there. Still, a note in a recent edition of Gide’s Journal indicates the two met for the first time at the home of the poet Henri de Régnier. ⁴

Be that as it may, André felt at once dazzled and overwhelmed by his new acquaintance. Here, for example, dated November 28, 1891, is the very first written mention he made of Wilde as an esthete: Oh, an admirable, admirable man. ⁵ A few days later, in a December 1891 letter to Valéry (the words De profundis appear in front of the day Friday, i.e. Vendredi) he wrote: Wilde is piously intent in killing whatever remains of my soul, because he says that to know an essence, you must stifle it: he wants me to yearn for my soul. Its value depends on how much exertion it takes to destroy it. ⁶ In a social whirlwind the two dined several times in December at the home of Princess Ourousoff, the wife of the Russian ambassador to Paris, and they shared other meals with poets Marcel Schwob, Stuart Merrill, ⁷ Henri de Régnier and the poet/chansonnier Aristide Bruant. ⁸ On Christmas Eve, Gide found himself apologizing to Valéry for his silence. Since Wilde, he wrote, I exist almost not at all. ⁹

The manuscript of Gide’s Journal has evidence of pages torn out, and these are the pages that deal with the three weeks, November to December 1891, presumably with the beginning of the friendship with Oscar. While we can only surmise about their content, their destruction is significant. An echo can be found at the end of Gide’s Les nourritures terrestres, The Fruits of the Earth (which we will take up a little later here), when he beseeches his interlocutor Nathanaël, and also his readers, to destroy the pages and abandon the book. What is certain is that Gide was impressed, not by the literary quality of his elder’s book, but by his legend and the seduction of his conversation and personality. In the essay at hand, In Memoriam, Gide notes that he was wrong to dismiss the literary quality of Wilde’s books.

Wilde’s lessons in hedonism, his praise of evil, his contempt for Christian morality and Victorian values seem to have shaken his would-be-disciple and destroyed all his convictions. Gide’s Journal entry of January 1, 1892 is categorical: Wilde was, I believe evil for me. With him, I had unlearned how to think. My emotions were more and more diverse, but I didn’t know how to organize them; above all, I could no longer follow other persons’ deductions. A thought, here and there. But my clumsiness in shifting them led me to abandon them. Now I am taking up again, with difficulty, but real pleasure, my history of philosophy, and study the problem of language that I will take up with Müller and Renan. ¹⁰

That is not the whole story. Wilde’s profligacy, his self-indulgence is the source