The first thing Gilbert teaches Ernest is that the creative faculty is predicated on the critical faculty. He describes the critical element as "the spirit of choice, that subtle tact of omission" and self-consciousness. A critic must have a keen awareness of what he is including and not including in his work, and it must not be an unconscious accident. "All fine imaginative work is self-conscious and deliberate." Without self-consciousness, "there is no fine art". He makes it clear that no one lacking such a "delicate instinct of selection" will ever be able to "create anything at all in art."
Once he establishes creation's complete dependence upon criticism, Wilde moves to elevate criticism above creation. Gilbert says that "It is very much more difficult to talk about a thing than to do it" because it demands "infinitely more cultivation." And because great criticism "treats the work of art simply as a starting-point for a new creation", criticism can be "creative in the highest sense of the word."
Gilbert seems extremely biased. At one point, he compares the "majestic prose" of a critic to the "sunsets that bleach or rot on their corrupted canvases" of an artist. I can understand what he's saying about "artistic creation implying the working of the creative faculty", but I don't agree that "It is only by language that we rise above [the lower animals]." Aren't there modes of action such as music that escape language and draw upon forms of emotion that are uniquely human? His idea that language is the parent of thought explains this opinion that writing is the supreme form of expression, but I think that's questionable as well. Could language not be the refinement of the raw, unprocessed thoughts in our minds? Words are like thought crystals.
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I would argue that music is a form of language because it is refined communication that differs individual to individual, culture to culture, yet nonetheless shares certain aspects. The literal language of music is a translation of musical structure. "Contrapuntal," for example, one of my favorite pretentious words to use in English papers, is actually a musical term to describe the weaving of opposing themes. Music does what words do in many ways, and words do what music does. And just as the individual takes the words of Shakespeare and interprets them, so music is interpreted each time it is played. I recently saw a cellist perform pieces from 19th century London with Harpsichord. His background in Latin music was subtly noticeable and only added to the impact of the pieces.
Sorry for the long note. In sum, music and the written arts are very much interconnected.
Artists should be biased, don't you think?
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