The ethical and religious thought of Walter Pater
Langford, Thomas Alexander
Langford, Thomas Alexander
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1967
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Abstract
The purpose of this dissertation is to evaluate Pater's moral philosophy. Although this study is not the first to argue that Pater should not be judged on the basis of the behavior of his disciples, other studies have not shown clearly enough what Pater's total view was and just how he came to be misinterpreted. This study attempts to do for his "ethic" what other scholarship has done for his "aesthetic." The method of the study is to survey all of Pater's writings, in more or less chronological order, with a focus on most significant works, such as Studies in the History of the Renaissance, Marius The Epicurean, and Plato and Platonism. The text is the nine-volume Macmillan Works of Walter Pater, published in 1900-1901. The more famous, isolated selections, by which Pater is usually characterized, are studied and interpreted in the light of his total production with a view to getting a more balanced and valid basis for evaluation of his contribution to English letters and thought. The results of the study show the highly moral foundation of all of Pater's aesthetic theories. They show that, contrary to much popular thought, Pater's writing not only does not encourage or justify the course of many who claimed to be his followers, but it has as its primary concern the illustration of moral values in art and literature. Pater is concerned with increasing man's moral strength through aesthetic discipline. "Art for art's sake" is found to be a phrase having special and unusual meaning for Pater. He identifies as among the ends of art the alleviation of suffering, the increase of sympathy, and the service of humanity. It is true that the early Pater seems to have been less concerned with ethics, developing the related concepts of beauty and morals only as he matured. It is likely that his moral aestheticism developed out of his own difficulty in achieving an absolute faith upon which to rest a system of morals. By the time of the conclusion of his last works, Pater has shown, to his own satisfaction at least, the real harmony of beauty and morality, and of religion, insofar as it serves to further the cause of man's perfectibility.
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Subject
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Pater, Walter, 1839-1894
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Dissertation
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168 leaves, bound
Department
English