The title of my work makes it clear which of the traditional historical approaches to retrovertical analysis that I am inclined to follow. That is to say, I should suggest immediately my dissatisfaction with those theories of modernist historical methodology which purport to edify through objectivity, alternately construct ad hoc taxonomies of past events, or generally pursue one of the many "noble" theoretical objectives that proliferate within the lay world. Rather, I feel tempted to follow the path marked by Weschler et al., himself guided by a traditional (though largely forgotten) Aristotelian framework, and in spite of every difficulty I am certain this will bring us nearer to the truth than the judgements of the prevalent science today.
Freud's sketch of "the ego" and J.M. Whistler's sketch of Oscar Wilde as if he had been a pig.
My introduction to the theraputic benefits of retrovertical historical analysis was reached in the following manner. I had been engaged for many years (with a quasi-scientific aim in view) in unravelling certain psycho-pathological structures -- phobias, cultural symptoms, obsessional ideas, and so on -- that demarcate our socio-historio-cultural landscape, and this led, quite by chance, to my discovery of an important communique (found buried deep inside the Winter 1931 Quarterly publication of the Minnesota Historical Society) from the reknowned Victorian aesthete, Oscar Wilde, to his American artistic counterpart, James McNeill Whistler. According to the author of the article in question (all we know about him is that he signed with the name "T. Flanagan"), amongst Whistler's belongings at the time of his death was a fragment of a correspondence that is generally agreed to bear the handwriting of the young Wilde, one of the many samples of such, as the two men maintained an epistolary correpondence throughout their lives, having been introduced at the party of the Second Duchess of Kent, and a mutual aesthetic kinship found fertile rooting soil.
As to the correspondence in question, while a more precise date cannot be pinpointed with any degree of certainty due to the unfortunate fire damage, the supposition put forward by T. Flanagan was that the unidentified fragment referred to Wilde's 1882 visit to America's upper Midwest, a premise supported by both the stationery's atypical composition and by the most recent (but admittedly dated) chronological handwriting analysis, though some still doubt the methodology of the latter. (Surely a new handwriting study is in order, one that might bring to bear some of the more modern technological improvements of the field, though this is naturally contingent upon securing the proper funds.)
Wilde was walking America's olfactory avenues just as Whistler was crafting lithographs of London.
I feel compelled before we continue retrovertically onward to offer a brief summary of the historical context in which the following experience is believed to have taken place. During January 1882 Wilde embarked on his Great North American lecture tour, and the buzzworthy aesthete spent most of that year criss-crossing the country from New York to California and back again. I was somewhat surprised to learn that it took Wilde only until mid-March to find himself in Minnesota's remote Twin Cities, where he gave three lectures on aesthetics, two in Saint Paul and one in Minneapolis, lectures which sadly didn't sell out, and were even said to have lost money for their sponsors.
There is no question that Wilde's lectures produced a disagreeable impression for his Minnesotan audience. One can partially attribute the engagement's failure to the deluge of scorn lobbed at Mr. Wilde by the local critical press (e.g., the Minneapolis Tribune called him "an ass-thete"), as well as most of the cutural establishment, but at the same time, some of the blame must be laid at Mr. Wilde's well-shod feet. For reasons that must remain a mystery Wilde delivered his lectures with a lifelessly monotone vocal timbre that, in combination with his absurd English accent, turned nearly all of his audience away from his titillating aesthetic theory, and in fact, perhaps the only person in attendance at Wilde's final Opera House lecture who was actually listening to the speech was young Cass Gilbert, the would-be architect who grew up to design Minnesota's ornate capitol building. Architectural scholars have said that it was Wilde's speech, particularly his suggestion that art demanded "quantities of native marble… which excelled even the Greek stone in variety of colour," that led to rotunda's ornate marble pilloring, the second largest marble dome in the world after St. Peter's in Vatican City.
Both were advocates of what they considered to be mundane.
The supposition, roundly asserted, that the aforementioned posthumously discovered communique came from this timeframe will never be beyond doubt. Be that as it may, the scrap of paper, the part that survived the fire, read simply, "unclean streets," a comment that reminded me of the scant reports of Wilde's brief prologue from the first of his Saint Paul lectures. Reports from the time, Gilbert's journal included, suggest that Wilde found the streets in the Twin Cities to be quite lacking in hygiene. At any rate, he said as much during his speech, a suggestion which caused quite a ruckus amongst the Minnesotan urban society, who had taken at the time great pride in general civic cleanliness.
During the course of my recent studies I found myself engrossed in Wilde's best-known work, The Picture of Dorian Grey, and I was immediately struck by a dream-like passage which revealed to me the infusion of a distinct Midwestern psycho-pathological structure in Wilde's work. It is my humble hope that by unravelling this obsessional idea, shared equally amonst Wilde and myself, I shall simultaneously do much to remove it.
The Dream
Where he went to he hardly knew. He remembered wandering through dimly lit streets, past gaunt, black-shadowed archways and evil-looking houses. Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after him. Drunkards had reeled by, cursing and chattering to themselves like monstrous apes. He had seen grotesque children huddled upon door-steps, and heard shreiks and oaths from gloomy courts.
They corrseponded regularly,
As the dawn was just breaking, he found himself close to Covent Garden. The darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed itself into a perfect pearl. Huge carts filled with nodding lilies rumbled slowly down the polished empty street. The air was heavy with the perfume of the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an anodyn for his pain. He followed them into the market and watched the men unloading their waggons. A white-smocked carter offered him some cherries. He thanked him, wondered why he refused to accept any money for them, and began to eat them listlessly. They had been plucked at midnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them.
A long line of boys carrying crates of striped tulips, and of yellow and red roses, defiled in front of him, threading their way through the huge, jade-green piles of vegetables. Under the portico, with its grey, sun-bleached pillars, loitered a troop of draggled bareheaded girls, waiting for the auction to be over. Others crowded round the swinging doors of the coffee-house in the piazza. The heavy cart-horses slipped and stamped upon the rough stones, shaking their bells and trappings. Some of the drivers were lying asleep on a pile of sacks. Iris-necked and pink-footed, the pigeons ran about picking up seeds.
After a little while, he hailed a hansom and drove home. For a few moments he loitered upon the doorstep, looking round at the silent square, with its blank, close-shuttered windows and its staring blinds. The sky was pure opal now, and the roofs of the houses glistened like silver against it. From some chimney opposite a thin wreath of smoke was rising. It curled, a violet riband, through the nacre-coloured air.
Analysis
as they were unusually garbed for their time.
Where he went to he hardly knew. He remembered wandering through dimly lit streets, past gaunt, black-shadowed archways and evil-looking houses. The Crocus Hill section of Saint Paul had, during the Spring of 1882, undergone a period of rapid growth and transformation. At this point, while the housing boom had come and gone, the street lamps had yet to be fully installed, a fact that threw a pall of darkness over many brick entryways. I began to scent the distinct aroma of Minnesotan apartmentalism as the gloomy courts became evil-looking and colorless.
Drunkards had reeled by, cursing and chattering to themselves like monstrous apes. America in general, and the Midwest in particular, was experiencing tremendous consolidation of the beer-making and distillation industries, saloons were commonplace, and per capita alcohol consumption was at historical highs, a fact that fueled the Prohibition movement that was gaining momentum at this time. The further impression, the image of monstrous apes, reappears later in the dream, and I have every reason to suppose that the locals that mocked my patient at every turn were hysterical, and appeared simian to his more cultured European eye.
As the dawn was just breaking, he found himself close to Covent Garden. The darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed itself into a perfect pearl. It was as though the replacement of Minnesotan landmarks by their London counterparts was to be continued in another sense: this garden for that promonotory, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. The perfect pearl is a precise expression of the Saint Paul skyline, shaped as they are on all sides by rounded river bluffs, like a hollowed bowl.
Insomnia fueled their habitual roaming,
The air was heavy with the perfume of the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an anodyn for his pain. He followed them into the market and watched the men unloading their waggons. My patient had wandered, undoubtedly by chance, into the early-morning bustle of the downtown "farmer's market," where, particularly in early Spring, flowers were collected in large wheeled wagons. I would have been able to offer a more detailed description of their scent were it not for the fact that I was making frequent use of cocaine at that time to reduce some troublesome nasal swellings, and (like one of my women patients who had followed my unfortunate example) had developed an extensive necrosis of the nasal mucous membrane.
A white-smocked carter offered him some cherries. He thanked him, wondered why he refused to accept any money for them, and began to eat them listlessly. This detail reminded me of a tragic event in my practice. I had on one occasion produced a severe toxic state in a woman patient by repeatedly prescribing what was at that time regarded as a harmless remedy (sulphonal), and had hurriedly turned for assistance and support to my experienced senior colleague. The mention of listlessness is a subsidiary detail which confirmed the idea that I had of this incident in mind.
They had been plucked at midnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them. Local flowers had always had a rosy complexion, and I began to suspect that something else had been substituted for them. I owe it to this mistake, which I have now fortunately corrected, that my life was made easier at a time when, in spite of all my inevitable ignorance, I was expected to produce therapeutic successes. I noticed, however, that the words which were in the dream reflected the unenviable chill frequently found during the Minnesotan Springtime climate.
through the alleyways and social undersides,
Under the portico, with its grey, sun-bleached pillars, loitered a troop of draggled bareheaded girls, wating for the auction to be over. This was in any case only an interpolation. We naturally used to examine the children in the hospital undressed: and this would be a contrast to the manner in which adult female patients have to be examined. I remembered that it was said of a celebrated clinician that he never made a physicial examination of his patients except through their clothes. Further than this I could not see. Frankly, I had no desire to penetrate more deeply at this point.
Iris-necked and pink-footed, the pigeons ran about picking up seeds. At first this struck me as ridiculous. But nevertheless, like all the rest, it had to be carefully analysed. When I came to look at it more closely it seemed to have some sort of meaning all the same. As any urban ornithologist can tell you, the pigeon species of the upper Midwest are marked by distinct purpling, and portend misfortune at best, disease (dyphtheritis, for examle) at worst. I seemed to think, it is true, that metastases like this do not in fact occur with urban fowl: it made me think rather of pyaemia.
For a few moments he loitered upon the doorstep, looking round at the silent square, with its blank, close-shuttered windows and its staring blinds. At this point my patient found himself walking West through Irvine Park (he had made it his home during his reposte), which, while not quite a "square," did have four distinct sides. And why was the consolation so nonsensical?
From some chimney opposite a thin wreath of smoke was rising. It curled, a violet riband. The appearance of rising smoke, as may well be believed, is a perpetual symbol of anxiety to a specialist whose practice is almost limited to neurotic patients and who is in the habit of attributing to hysteria a great number of symptoms which other physicians treat as organic.
pioneering "slummin' it" for future generations, for example, here at the Saint Paul Opera House.
The nacre-coloured air. There seemed to be some remote theoretical notion that morbid matter can be eliminated through the bowels. Could it be that my patient was trying to make fun of local fertility by producing far-fetched analogies and making unexpected pathological connections? Something else now occurred to me in relation to nacre. A few months earlier I had taken on the case of a young man with remarkable difficulties associated with defaecating, which had been treated by other physicians as a case of 'anaemia accompanied by malnutirion.' I had recognized it as a hysteria, but had been unwilling to try him with my psychotherapeutic treatment and instead sent him on a sea voyage. Some days before, I had had a despairing letter from him from Egypt, saying that he had had a fresh attack there which a doctor had declared was dysentery. I suspected that the diagnosis was an error on the part of an ignorant practicioner who had allowed himself to be taken in by the hysteria. But I could not help reproaching myself for having put my patient in a situation in which he might have contracted some organic trouble on top of his hysterical intestinal disorder. Moreover 'nacre' sounds not unlike 'naysayer'-a word of ill omen which did not occur in the dream, despite being uttered with great frequency from the balconies of the Saint Paul Opera House.
I have now completed the interpretation of the dream. While I was carrying it out I had some dificulty in keeping at bay all the ideas which were bound to be provoked by a comparison between the content of the dream and the concealed thoughts lying behind it. And in the meantime the 'meaning' of the dream was born in upon me. I became aware of an intention which was carried into effect by the dream and which must have been Wilde's motive for writing it. The dream fulfilled certain wishes which were started in the work by the events of that took place during his Great North American tour, the repression of which has done much to obfuscate Midwestern influences on the English literary canon. It is my hope that a thorough elucidation of the problem will compensate for my personal sacrifice.
