Transfigured World: Walter Pater's Aesthetic Historicism

Carolyn Williams

Published by Cornell University Press 2016

Transfigured World

Walter Pater's Aesthetic Historicism

Carolyn Williams
Funded by: National Endowment for the Humanities Open Book Program

https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501707124

Overview
Contents

About this book

Exploring the intricacy and complexity of Walter Pater’s prose, Transfigured World challenges traditional approaches to Pater and shows precise ways in which the form of his prose expresses its content. Carolyn Williams asserts that Pater’s aestheticism and his historicism should be understood as dialectically interrelated critical strategies, inextricable from each other in practice. Williams discusses the explicit and embedded narratives that play a crucial role in Pater’s aesthetic criticism and examines the figures that compose these narratives, including rhetorical tropes, structures of argument such as genealogy, and historical or fictional personae.

Author / Editor information

Carolyn Williams is Chair and Professor of English at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She is the author most recently of Gilbert and Sullivan: Gender, Genre, Parody.

Reviews

A convincing account of the unity of Pater's thought and probably the most detailed treatment ever attempted of the intricacies of his prose; a book that is likely to be an essential source for future readings of Pater.

In addition to her superb analysis of the style and thought of Pater's individual writing, demonstrates that Pater was far more philosophically coherent and complex, and of far more interest for contemporary critical thought, than has previously been recognized. Her book is the best critical study on Pater yet written.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Open Access Download PDF	ix
Abbreviations Open Access Download PDF	xi
Introduction Open Access Download PDF	1
Part One. Opening Conclusions
1. "That Which Is Without" Open Access Download PDF	11
2. "The Inward World of Thought and Feeling" Open Access Download PDF	18
3. Aestheticism Open Access Download PDF	26
4. Answerable Style Open Access Download PDF	37
5. Historicism Open Access Download PDF	46
6. Aesthetic Historicism and "Aesthetic Poetry" Open Access Download PDF	57
7. The Poetics of Revival Open Access Download PDF	68
Part Two. Figural Strategies in The Renaissance
1. Legend and Historicity Open Access Download PDF	79
2. Myths of History: The Last Supper Open Access Download PDF	94
3. The Historicity of Myth Open Access Download PDF	103
4. Myths of History: The Mona Lisa Open Access Download PDF	111
5. Types and Figures Open Access Download PDF	123
6. Low and High Relief: " Luca Della Robbia" Open Access Download PDF	143
7. The Senses of Relief Open Access Download PDF	153
Part Three. Historical Novelty and Marius the Epicurean
1. The Transparent Hero Open Access Download PDF	169
2. Autobiography of the Zeitgeist Open Access Download PDF	184
3. The Transcendental Induction Open Access Download PDF	193
4. Typology as Narrative Form Open Access Download PDF	202
5. Typological Ladders Open Access Download PDF	213
6. Christian Historicism Open Access Download PDF	219
7. Literary History as "Appreciation" Open Access Download PDF	224
Part Four. "Recovery as Reminiscence" : The Greek Studies and Plato and Platonism
1. Histories of Myth: The Greek Studies Open Access Download PDF	235
2. The House Beautiful and Its Interpreter Open Access Download PDF	247
3. The Philosophy of Mythic Form Open Access Download PDF	249
4. The History of Philosophy Open Access Download PDF	258
5. The Anecdote of the Shell Open Access Download PDF	266
6. Dialogue and Dialectic Open Access Download PDF	270
7. Paterian Recollection: The Anagogic Mind Open Access Download PDF	277
Afterword Open Access Download PDF	282
Index Open Access Download PDF	285

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 290
Keywords: Walter Pater; Pater's prose; aesthetics; aestheticism; biography; rhetorical tropes; structures of argument

eBook

Published: November 1, 2016
ISBN: 9781501707124