The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry
Mar 2013 · Courier Corporation
Ebook
160
Pages
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About this ebook
"The golden book of spirit and sense, the holy writ of beauty." — Oscar Wilde
Published to equal parts scandal and acclaim in 1873, The Renaissance inspired a generation of Oxford undergraduates, who adapted its credo of "arts for art's sake" for their Aesthetic Movement. Combining the skepticism of empirical philosophy, the materialism of 19th-century science, and the determinism of evolutionary theory, this book defies categorization and endures as an innovative example of cultural criticism.
An Oxford don who led a quiet scholarly life, Walter Pater was shocked at the reactions his writings provoked. ("I wish they would not call me a hedonist," he remarked, "it gives such a wrong impression to those who do not know Greek.") His essays on the individuals he viewed as embodiments of the Renaissance spirit encompass artists whose careers span the Middle Ages through the 18th century. Pater's elegant, fluid prose examines the works of Pico della Mirandola, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Botticelli, and others. He crowns his compendium of reflections with his notorious Conclusion, in which he asserts that "to burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life."
One of Victorian England's most talked about books, The Renaissance exerted a crucial influence on the art criticism of the past century, and it remains a work of unusual importance to those interested in art history and English literature.
Published to equal parts scandal and acclaim in 1873, The Renaissance inspired a generation of Oxford undergraduates, who adapted its credo of "arts for art's sake" for their Aesthetic Movement. Combining the skepticism of empirical philosophy, the materialism of 19th-century science, and the determinism of evolutionary theory, this book defies categorization and endures as an innovative example of cultural criticism.
An Oxford don who led a quiet scholarly life, Walter Pater was shocked at the reactions his writings provoked. ("I wish they would not call me a hedonist," he remarked, "it gives such a wrong impression to those who do not know Greek.") His essays on the individuals he viewed as embodiments of the Renaissance spirit encompass artists whose careers span the Middle Ages through the 18th century. Pater's elegant, fluid prose examines the works of Pico della Mirandola, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Botticelli, and others. He crowns his compendium of reflections with his notorious Conclusion, in which he asserts that "to burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life."
One of Victorian England's most talked about books, The Renaissance exerted a crucial influence on the art criticism of the past century, and it remains a work of unusual importance to those interested in art history and English literature.
About the author
Walter Pater (born August4, 1839) was an Englaish essayist, critic and writer of fiction. He attended Queen's College, Oxford. His earliest work, an essay on Samuel Taylor Coleridge, appeared in 1866 in The Westminster Review; Pater soon became a regular contributor to a number of serious reviews, especially The Fortnightly, which published his essays on Leonardo da Vinci, Pico Della Mirandola, Botticelli, and the poetry of Michelangelo. All were included in his first, and perhaps most influential, book, Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873; reissued as The Renaissance, 1877). In 1885 Pater's only novel, Marius the Epicurean, appeared. Ostensibly, Marius is a historical novel, set in the time of Marcus Aurelius and tracing the philosophical development of its young protagonist and his gradual approach to Christianity. Practically, however, Marius is more a meditation of the philosophical choices that confronted Pater, or any thinker, during the late Victorian period. In light of the work's underrealized characterizations and the lack of any but intellectual action, it is difficult to justify calling it a novel in the usual sense of the term. Yet, as a highly polished prose piece, and as an argument for an austere yet intensely experienced way of life, it holds a singular place in Victorian literature. On July 30, 1894 Pater died suddenly in his Oxford home of heart failure brought on by rheumatic fever, at the age of 54. He was buried at Holywell Cemetery, Oxford.
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