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Literary Criticism II
ENG- 332
Lecture No: 09
“Walter Pater on Art and Aestheticism”
Course: Literary Criticism II- ENG- 332 – Instructor: Siraj Khan, Lecturer in English, Department of English KUST- Email: siraj.khan@kust.edu.pk
By: Siraj Khan
Lecturer in English
KUST

Outlines
Poet’s Biography
Art for Art’s Sake
Good Art and Great Art
Aestheticism
The Term Renaissance
From the Preface
Conclusion
Topic: Walter Pater on Art and Aestheticism
Course: Literary Criticism II ENG- 332 – Instructor: Siraj Khan, Lecturer in English, Department of English KUST- Email: siraj.khan@kust.edu.pk

Walter Horatio Pater
(August 04, 1839– July 30, 1894 )
 English Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
 Art for Art’s Sake
 A Reading Man
 Chief Theorist of the Aesthetic Movement
 All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music
 Studied Greek Philosophy
 Religion and Aestheticism

Art for Art’s Sake
 Art exists for the sake of its beauty alone
 Nothing to do with Morality
 The Form of Poetry
 Relationship to Philosophy and Psychology
 Marius the Epicurean (1885)
 Subjectivist and Expressionistic Criticism
 The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (1873)
Topic: Walter Pater on Art and Aetheticism

Good Art & Great Art
• Good Art and Great Art.
• Good Art: when the writer is successful in
portraying truthfully his sense of fact.
• Great Art: when a great subject is treated
in great manner.

1873 Studies in the History of the Renaissance
• Widely regarded as the manifesto of aestheticism
• 1860s: the Italian Renaissance was emerging as a
new subject for Victorian criticism
• 15th & 16th century Italian culture was seen to
embody many qualities that Victorian thinkers
wanted to appropriate: classical scholarship, visual
artistry, and prizing of individualism captured in
e.g. the “genius” inventor or artist.
• A screen by which Victorian authors could explore
forbidden themes?

 The Use of the Term
 The Outbreak of Human Spirit
 Poetic Pursuit
 The outer Beauty
 Imparted Sentimeents
Topic: Walter Pater’s Concept of Style
The Term Renaissance

Aestheticism
 Perpetual motion
 A Product of Individual Mind
 Creativity
 Experience on its Own
 Beauty Mixed with darkness and Death
Topic: Walter Pater’s Concept of Style

• “A counted number of pulses only is given to us
of a variegated, dramatic life. How may we see in
them all that is to be seen in them by the finest
senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from
point to point, and be present always at the focus
where the greatest number of vital forces unite in
their purest energy? To burn always with this
hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is
success in life.
Topic: Walter Pater on Style, Art and Aestheticism
Conclusion

Remarks
 In a sense it might even be said that our
failure is to form habits: for, after all, habit
is relative to a stereotyped world and
meantime it is only the roughness of the eye
that makes any two persons, things,
situations seem alike .

GOOD LUCK

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