PATER, WALTER. - English critic and novelist, founder of the school of decadent aestheticism, b. at Shadwell on 4 Aug. 1839, d. at Oxford on 30 July 1894.

In his Studies in the history of the Renaissance (1873) he seems to identify melancholy as the dominant motif of Renaissance art. His Imaginary portraits (1887), portraits half historical and half fantastic, are likewise the projection of a melancholy contemplation of beauty, and his only novel, Marius the epicurean (1885), is a pretext for expounding the principles of a refined Epicureanism that halts at the threshold of Christian experience, barely touched upon by the protagonist, who nevertheless dies almost like a martyr. This idolatry of beauty as an essential experience of life fascinated P.'s disciples and in particular Oscar Wilde, often degenerating into a more empirical hedonism.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: the best biography of P. is that by A. Benson, English men of letters, London 1906; a selection of translations edited by M. Praz, Milan 1944. Recent bibliography in F. W. Batson, The Cambridge bibliogr. of English liter., III, Cambridge 1940, pp. 731-32.

@incollection{ec9_pater_walter, author = {Guidi, Augusto}, title = {Pater, walter}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IX}, pages = {940--941}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/pater-walter} }

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Pater, Walter

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