The Renaissance

1 Reading Pater for his ideas is like reading Wordsworth for his philosophy; what ideas he does have he took from others who expressed them better.1 His principal merit is style. His prose effectively impersonates the emotional center of his thought: the ecstasy to be felt before certain works of art, which then presents a… Continue Reading The Renaissance

Walter Pater

by Elyse Graham 1. Born in a slum in the East End of London in 1839, Walter Pater was the son of a professional family barely hanging on to the middle class.^1 When Pater was two, his father, a general practitioner, died suddenly of a brain hemmorhage. His uncle, who shared the family’s medical practice… Continue Reading Walter Pater