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'art comes to you professing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake' In Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873), a diffident Oxford don produced an audacious and incalculably influential defence of aestheticism. Through his highly idiosyncratic readings of some of the finest paintings, sculptures, and poems of the French and Italian Renaissance, Pater redefined the practice of criticism as an impressionistic, almost erotic exploration of the critic's aesthetic responses. At the same time, reclaiming the Hellenism that he saw as the most characteristic aspect of the Renaissance, he implicitly celebrated homoerotic friendship. Pater's infamous 'Conclusion', which forever linked him with the decadent movement, scandalized many with its insistence on making pleasure the sole motive of life, even as it charmed fellow aesthetes such as Oscar Wilde. This edition of Studies reproduces the text of the first edition, recapturing its initial impact, and the Introduction celebrates its doomed attempt to stand out against the processes of industrialization.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
A Bookish Man Called A Rake
24 Aug 2009
Format:Paperback
Walter Pater was one of the mildest and least adventure seeking people imaginable. He was shy, retiring, and quite bookish. It came as a great surprise to him and to those who knew him well that his STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF THE RENAISSANCE was trumpeted as a call to indulge in the wildest of sexual and artistic excesses. Oscar Wilde, during his trial for homosexuality, admitted that Pater's works had been a significant influence on him. Pater was the first Victorian writer not to adhere to the credo that one must at all costs hold to a continuation of the painful quest for Truth that had dominated Oxford since the days of Newman. Pater, to the delight of his days' youthful rebels, assured his readers that the quest was pointless. Truth, he claimed, was relative. Instead of echoing Carlyle's call to duty and social responsibility, Pater reminded his readers that life passes all too quickly and that our only duty is to enjoy life right now while they still can. He urged his readers to relish the sensations of art. In this sense, he was a forerunner of Timothy Leary, the later Harvard psychologist who said, `Tune in, turn on, drop dead.' In the `Preface', Pater sets forth his initial attempt to define beauty and the goal of the critic who seeks to do so: `What is important then is not that the critic should possess a correct abstract definition of beauty for the intellect, but a certain kind of temperament the power of being deeply moved by the presence of beautiful objects.' It was the conclusion to his book that gave Pater his unwanted notoriety. He described life as a whirlpool with its `flame more eager and devouring.' Life is a `group of impressions--color, odor, texture--in the mind of the observer.' He urged his readers `to burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy.' He concludes with: `For our one chance in expanding that interval, in getting as many pulsations as possible into the given time. Great passions may give us this quickened sense of life, ecstasy, and sorrow of love.' Given that his readers were used to a call to live the straight and narrow life, Pater's call to `ecstasy' sounded most inviting.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Brilliant Literary Minutia--Not At All What I Expected
20 Nov 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought this book on the basis of a rave mention of it in one of the other books I reviewed, it might have been a year ago. It's been sitting in my airplane pile for a while.
At a professional level of erudite literary dissection and amplification, this is clearly both a supreme professional accomplishment and a labor of love. From the note to the bibliography to the chronology, this is one of the best constructed and presented "packages" I have ever held in my hands.
It leaves me cold. I simply do not see, feel, or comprehend the bru-ha-ha over this being a clarion call to flagrant abandon, an ode to homosexuality, a challenge to the ruling class, etcetera.
I *do* see the celebration of the senses and the emphasis on appreciation in context, each piece is different for each person, it is the interaction of the person, the piece, and the moment that "creates" the unique sensory experience.
I *do* see the challenge to the Church and traditions (mostly very hypocritical as the prudes in public often turned out to be libertines in private).
I *do* learn at aestheticism has been associated with homosexuality in the past, and have to look up the word to learn that its secular meaning is (Merriam Webster Online:
1: a doctrine that the principles of beauty are basic to other and especially moral principles
2: devotion to or emphasis on beauty or the cultivation of the arts
I *do* get that the author (Pater) strives to celebrate both the human intellect and the human body as in "sound mind in sound body" but I do not see where this makes the book any kind of celebration of manly love.
I paid special attention to the conclusion, and found it bland in relation to all the bru-ha-ha.
One great quote:
QUOTE (119): The service of philosophy, and of religion and culture as well, to the human spirit, is to startle it into a sharp and eager observation. ... Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself is the end.
I love to read. I am now working my way through The Order of Things, a Catholic appreciation of philosophy, reality, and the cosmic, and I have to say that in relation to that and to Will Durant's Philosophy and the Social Problem: The Annotated Edition, I cannot recommend this book for anyone other than a fanatic student of the author, the literature on the literary history of the renaissance (not the same as the history of the renaissance).
Seize the day--got it. Love it. That does not make this book, in my view, a manifesto for homosexuality.
Instead of this book, I'd recommend the two above books, and these that struck me as much more valuable to the general reader:
Mapping the Moral Domain: A Contribution of Women's Thinking to Psychological Theory and Education
Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics
Radical Man
At a professional level of erudite literary dissection and amplification, this is clearly both a supreme professional accomplishment and a labor of love. From the note to the bibliography to the chronology, this is one of the best constructed and presented "packages" I have ever held in my hands.
It leaves me cold. I simply do not see, feel, or comprehend the bru-ha-ha over this being a clarion call to flagrant abandon, an ode to homosexuality, a challenge to the ruling class, etcetera.
I *do* see the celebration of the senses and the emphasis on appreciation in context, each piece is different for each person, it is the interaction of the person, the piece, and the moment that "creates" the unique sensory experience.
I *do* see the challenge to the Church and traditions (mostly very hypocritical as the prudes in public often turned out to be libertines in private).
I *do* learn at aestheticism has been associated with homosexuality in the past, and have to look up the word to learn that its secular meaning is (Merriam Webster Online:
1: a doctrine that the principles of beauty are basic to other and especially moral principles
2: devotion to or emphasis on beauty or the cultivation of the arts
I *do* get that the author (Pater) strives to celebrate both the human intellect and the human body as in "sound mind in sound body" but I do not see where this makes the book any kind of celebration of manly love.
I paid special attention to the conclusion, and found it bland in relation to all the bru-ha-ha.
One great quote:
QUOTE (119): The service of philosophy, and of religion and culture as well, to the human spirit, is to startle it into a sharp and eager observation. ... Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself is the end.
I love to read. I am now working my way through The Order of Things, a Catholic appreciation of philosophy, reality, and the cosmic, and I have to say that in relation to that and to Will Durant's Philosophy and the Social Problem: The Annotated Edition, I cannot recommend this book for anyone other than a fanatic student of the author, the literature on the literary history of the renaissance (not the same as the history of the renaissance).
Seize the day--got it. Love it. That does not make this book, in my view, a manifesto for homosexuality.
Instead of this book, I'd recommend the two above books, and these that struck me as much more valuable to the general reader:
Mapping the Moral Domain: A Contribution of Women's Thinking to Psychological Theory and Education
Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics
Radical Man
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