Walter Pater

Walter Horatio Pater ( * August 4, 1839 in Shadwell, † 30 July 1894 in Oxford ) was an English essayist and critic.

Life

Walter Pater was born as the second son of the physician Richard Glode Father in Shadwell. After the death of his father (Walter was still a toddler ) the family moved to Enfield. In 1853 he was sent to the King's School in Canterbury. The beauty of the local cathedral made ​​such an impression on him that he should not forget this time of his life. As a student he read John Ruskin's Modern Painters, what really drew him for a time to the study of Fine Arts; Father showed no evidence of the literary taste, he should develop a time. Its development took place gradually. After all, he gained a scholarship to Oxford, where he studied from 1858 at Queen's College.

His life as a collegiate was unusually uneventful; Father was shy, an outspoken human book, and joined a few friends. The humanities scholar Benjamin Jowett recognized his potential and offered him private lessons. In his courses Father was certainly disappointing; He completed his study of literature in 1862 with the second- highest rating.

After graduating Father settled in Oxford and taught private students. As a child he had loved to play with the idea to join the Anglican Church, but in Oxford his Christian faith had been shaken. At the time of its conclusion, he thought, to be Unitarian clergyman, but also had this thought again. When he was offered at Brasenose College Scientists him a spot, he got involved in a university career.

However, Walter Pater did not want to put up with a crippling academic life. Since the beginning of his career, his sphere of influence extended; he developed great interest in the literature and began to write articles and reviews. His first work appeared in print, was a short essay on Coleridge, a contribution to the Westminster Review, 1866. Few months later ( January 1867 ) appeared in the same journal his essay on Winckelmann, the first expression of his idealism.

The following year his investigation appeared on " Aesthetic Poetry" in the Fortnightly Review, later followed by essays on Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Michelangelo. These and similar essays were collected in 1873 in his book Studies in the History of the Renaissance. Father, who now formed the center of a small but interesting circle in Oxford, gained recognition acquired in London and elsewhere; among other things, he was one of the Pre-Raphaelites to his friends.

Father had already found a considerable following, beginning in 1885 as his philosophical novel Marius the Epicurean, appeared to be the main contribution to the literature. In this work represents Pater his ideal of the aesthetic life fully worked out is: his cult of beauty as opposed to bare asceticism and his theory of a stimulatory effect of the pursuit of beauty as ideal in its own right. The basic ideas of the later aesthetic movement can be traced in part to Father, and his influence is particularly evident in one of the most prominent representatives of the Movement, Oscar Wilde, who was once student priest in Oxford.

In 1887 he published Imaginary Portraits, four essays biographies fictional persons, 1889 Appreciations, with on to essay style, 1893 Plato and Platonism and 1894 The Child in the House. His Greek Studies and his Miscellaneous Studies were posthumously collected in 1895, his posthumous novel of Gaston de Latour appeared in 1896, and his essays from the " Guardian" in 1897 were privately placed. A complete edition of his works appeared in 1901.

Towards the end of his life practiced Father of growing and considerable influence. His mind turned again, of course the religious zeal of his youth. Those who knew him best, believed that if he had lived longer, would have re- traced his plan from childhood: to receive Holy Orders. He died at age 55 from rheumatic fever. It is located on the St. Giles Cemetery buried in Oxford.

The Perfectionist Father wrote only with great effort and corrected his work always pedantic. His literary style, serene and contemplative, foreshadows ( Gilbert Keith Chesterton with the words ) an " enormous desire for impartiality ". Richness and depth of his language to fit his philosophy of life. His desire to " burn with a hard, gem -like flame " and to live in harmony with the Supreme, idealists will always be inspired anew.