Walter Pater
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Walter Pater (1839-1894) attained a B.A. degree in Classics from Queen's College, Oxford, followed soon after by a M.A. degree from Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was made a Fellow in 1865. That same year Pater toured Italy, where he discovered what would become a lifelong passion for masters of the Italian Renaissance like Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Michelangelo, among many others. In 1877 he published "The Renaissance: Studies in...
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This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. [T]he first true and correctly proportioned presentation of Platonism that has been given to the general reader."-Paul Shorey
Through his idiosyncratic presentation of Plato, Pater offers us an account of a peculiarly modern frame of mind. He converts Plato's search for a primordial and transcendent unity into a poetic evocation of a material life that is prized...
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This philosophical novel, published in 1885, uses the backdrop of Antonine Rome to elaborate Pater's ideas about Aestheticism. His hero, Marius, is a young Italian employed as private secretary to the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Pater developed a style in this novel, and elaborated on it in his later Imaginary Portraits, which later influenced such writers as Oscar Wilde and James Joyce.
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This 1896 book was assembled for a private printing when it was discovered that the author, a distinguished critic and novelist, had written nine anonymous pieces for the English newspaper. Here are "English Literature," "Browning," "Wordsworth," "Amiel's 'Journal Intime," "Robert Elsmere," "Their Majesties' Servants," "Ferdinand Fabre," and two more.
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Originally published in 1878, this semi-autobiographical sketch by the eminent Victorian critic pioneered a new genre of writing: eschewing dialogue and traditional plotline, it is an impressionistic psychological portrait of a young man named Florian Deleal. It evokes the sights and sounds of the author's philistine childhood home.
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This posthumous 1895 collection brings together, from many different journals and magazines, Pater's influential and wide-ranging writings. The contents include "Prosper Mérimée," "Raphael," "Pascal," "Art Notes in Northern Italy," "Notre-Dame d'Amiens," "Vézelay," "Apollo in Picardy," "The Child in the House," "Emerald Uthwart," and one of his earliest essays, "Diaphaneité," a meditation on the sensual and the moral.
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Published in 1887, Imaginary Portraits consists of four studies of fictional characters in historical settings. They are notable not only as illustrations of Pater's aesthetic theories but as influential works of literature. The characters include "A Prince of Court Painters," set in Valenciennes in 1701, "Denys L'Auxerrois," from a French town called Auxerre, "Sebastian van Storck," a young man from Holland during its push for independence, and...
10) The renaissance
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Pater's graceful essays discuss the achievements of Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and other artists. included is his celebrated discussion of the Mona Lisa in a study of Da Vinci. This book concludes with an uncompromising advocacy of hedonism, urging readers to experience life as fully as possible. His cry of "art for art's sake" became the manifesto of the Aesthetic Movement, and his assessments of Renaissance art have influenced generations...
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This collection of essays on ancient Greek mythology, art, and culture was posthumously published in 1895. The contents are "A Study of Dionysus: Spiritual Form of Fire and Dew," "The Bacchanals of Euripides," "The Myth of Demeter and Persephone," "Hippolytus Veiled: A Study From Euripides," "The Beginnings of Greek Sculpture," and "The Marbles of Aegina."