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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: England is an instance of what I mean. With regard to the Bible,
considerations of ecclesiastical authority enter into the matter,
so that I need not dwell upon the point. But in the case of
Shakespeare it is quite obvious that the public really see neither
the beauties nor the defects of his plays. If they saw the
beauties, they would not object to the development of the drama;
and if they saw the defects, they would not object to the
development of the drama either. The fact is, the public make use
of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of
Art. They degrade the classics into authorities. They use them as
bludgeons for preventing the free expression of Beauty in new
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