Walter Horatio Pater (August 4, 1839 - July 30, 1894) was an English essayist and literary critic. August 4 is the 216th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (217th in leap years), with 149 days remaining. ... 1839 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... July 30 is the 211th day (212th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 154 days remaining. ... 1894 (MDCCCXCIV) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location (dark green) within the British Isles Languages None official English de facto Capital None official London de facto Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population – Total (mid-2004) – Total (2001... An essayist is an author who writes compositions which can be about any particular subject. ... Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. ...

Born in Shadwell, England, Pater was the second son of Richard Glode Pater, a doctor, who had moved there in the early 1800s and practiced medicine among the poor. He died while Walter was an infant, and the family moved to Enfield. Shadwell is a district of Stepney in Tower Hamlets, London. ... Arms of Enfield London Borough Council The London Borough of Enfield is the most northerly London borough and forms part of Outer London. ...

In 1853 Pater was sent to King's School, Canterbury, where the beauty of the cathedral made an impression that would remain with him all his life. As a schoolboy he read John Ruskin's Modern Painters and was, for a while, attracted to the study of art, showing no signs of the literary taste which he was to develop. His progress was always gradual. He gained a school exhibition, however, with which he proceeded in 1858 to Queen’s College, Oxford. 1853 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... St Peters St, Canterbury, from the West Gate, 1993 Canterbury (Latin: Duroverum) is a cathedral city in the county of Kent in southeast England. ... Upper: Steel-plate engraving of Ruskin as a young man, made circa 1845, scanned from print made circa 1895. ... College name The Queens College Named after Queen Philippa of Hainault Established 1341 Sister College Pembroke College Provost Sir Alan Budd JCR President Sushrut Yalamanchili Undergraduates 304 Graduates 133 Homepage Boatclub High Street entrance to Queens College, Oxford Queens Lane, Oxford The Queens College, founded 1341...

His undergraduate life was unusually uneventful; he was a shy, "reading man", making few friends. The scholar Benjamin Jowett was struck by Pater's potential and offered to give him private lessons. In his classes, however, Pater was a disappointment, taking only a second in literae humaniores in 1862. After graduating, he settled in Oxford and taught private pupils. As a boy he had cherished the idea of entering the Anglican Church, but at Oxford his faith in Christianity was shaken. By the time he took his degree, he thought of graduating as a Unitarian minister; he did not pursue this, however. Being offered a fellowship at Brasenose in 1864, he settled down into a university career. Benjamin Jowett (April 15, 1817 - October 1, 1893) was an English scholar and theologian, master of Balliol College, Oxford. ... 1862 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... The Anglican Communion is a world-wide organisation of Anglican Churches. ... Wikisource has original text related to this article: Unitarian Christianity Historic Unitarianism believed in the oneness of God as opposed to traditional Christian belief in the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). ... College name Brasenose College Named after Bronze door knocker Established 1509 Sister College Gonville and Caius College Principal Prof. ...

But it was not his intention to sink into academic torpor. As he began his career, the sphere of his interests widened rapidly; he became acutely interested in literature, beginning to write articles and criticisms. The first of these to be printed was a brief essay upon Coleridge, contributed in 1866 to the Westminster Review. A few months later (January, 1867), his essay on Winckelmann, the first expression of his idealism, appeared in the same review. This page is about the nineteenth century English poet. ... The Westminster Review was founded in 1823 by John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham as a journal for philosophical radicals, and was published from 1824 to 1914. ... It has been suggested that Johann Joachim Winkelmann be merged into this article or section. ...

In the following year his study of "Aesthetic Poetry" appeared in the Fortnightly Review, to be succeeded by essays on Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Pico della Mirandola, and Michelangelo. These, with other similar studies, were collected in his Studies in the History of the Renaissance in 1873. Pater, now at the centre of a small but interesting circle in Oxford, gained respect in London and elsewhere, numbering the Pre-Raphaelites among his friends. Leonardo Da Vinci ( Vinci, Italy, April 15, 1452 — May 2, 1519, Cloux, Amboise, France [1]) was an Italian Renaissance polymath: an architect, anatomist, sculptor, engineer, inventor, geometer, musician, and painter. ... This article is about Sandro Botticelli, the Italian painter. ... Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (February 24, 1463 - November 17, 1494) was an Italian humanist philosopher and scholar. ... Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (March 6, 1475 – February 18, 1564), commonly known as Michelangelo, was a Renaissance artist, sculptor, and poet. ... The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets and critics, founded in 1848 by John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt. ...

He next became a candidate for the Slade Professorship of Poetry at Oxford University. But he soon withdrew from the competition in the wake of personal criticism, part of it spawned by W. H. Mallock in a satirical novel entitled The New Republic. In it, Pater is depicted stereotypically as an effeminate English aesthete. The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... William Hurrell Mallock (February 7, 1849-April 2, 1923) was an English author. ... The New Republic or Culture, Faith and Philosophy in an English Country House by English author William Hurrell Mallock (1849-1923) is a novel first published by Chatto and Windus of London in 1878. ...

By the time his philosophical novel Marius the Epicurean appeared, however, he had gathered quite a following. This, his chief contribution to literature, was published early in 1885. In it Pater displays, with fullness and elaboration, his ideal of the aesthetic life, his cult of beauty as opposed to bare asceticism, and his theory of the stimulating effect of the pursuit of beauty as an ideal of its own. The principles of what would be known as the Aesthetic movement were partly traceable to Pater; and his impact was particularly felt on one of the movement's leading proponents, Oscar Wilde, a former student of Pater at Oxford. Marius the Epicurean is a philosophical novel written by Walter Pater, published in 1885. ... Asceticism denotes a life which is characterized by refraining from worldly pleasures (austerity). ... The Aesthetic movement is a loosely defined movement in art and literature in later nineteenth century Britain. ... Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal OFlahertie Wills Wilde (October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900) was an Anglo-Irish playwright, novelist, poet, short story writer and Freemason. ...

In 1887 he published Imaginary Portraits, a series of essays in philosophic fiction; in 1889, Appreciations, with an Essay on Style; in 1893, Plato and Platonism; and in 1894, The Child in the House. His Greek Studies and his Miscellaneous Studies were collected posthumously in 1895; his posthumous romance of Gaston de Latour in 1896; and his essays from The Guardian were privately printed in 1897. A collected edition of Pater's works was issued in 1901. The Guardian is a British newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. ...

Toward the end of his life, Pater exercised a growing and considerable influence. His mind, however, returned to the religious fervour of his youth. Those who knew him best believed that, had he lived longer, he would have resumed his boyish intention of taking holy orders. He died of rheumatic fever at the age of 55 and is buried at St. Giles cemetery, Oxford. Rheumatic fever is an inflammatory disease which may develop after a Group A streptococcal infection (such as strep throat or scarlet fever) and can involve the heart, joints, skin, and brain. ...

Pater wrote with difficulty, fastidiously correcting his work. His literary style, serene and contemplative, suggested, in the words of G.K. Chesterton, a "vast attempt at impartiality." The richness and depth of his language was attuned to his philosophy of life. Idealists will find inspiration in his desire to "burn with a hard, gem-like flame" and to live in harmony with the highest. For the town of Chesterton in Cambridgeshire, see Chesterton (Cambridge). ...

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Walter Pater

• Walter Pater: An Overview
• walterpater.org - Website devoted to Pater's life, writings, ideas, milieu and influence.
• Works by Walter Pater at Project Gutenberg

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