The Cambridge companion to Walter Pater / edited by Kate Hext.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Hext, Kate, editor.

Series:

Cambridge companions to literature.

Cambridge companions to literature

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pater, Walter, 1839-1894--Criticism and interpretation.

Pater, Walter.

English literature--19th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Great Britain--Intellectual life--19th century.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 239 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2026.

Summary:

This is the first and only comprehensive introductory study of Walter Pater, novelist, short story writer, literary critic, and philosopher. One of the late nineteenth century's most important and least understood writers, Pater evinced a new mode of hedonism that presented a fundamental challenge to the prevailing moral and social norms of his contemporaries, responding to post-Darwinian sensibility, waning faith, and new philosophies in ethics and epistemology. In his diverse and daring writings, Pater spoke for a generation that encompassed aestheticism, decadence and the emergence of a queer literary canon, including writers such as Oscar Wilde, Vernon Lee, and Michael Field. His defining influence continued to be felt long after his rise to fame and notoriety by such major writers such as T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf. Featuring exceptional detail and thematic breadth of coverage, this Companion accessibly introduces Pater's main works and demonstrates his ongoing significance.

Contents:

Introduction. Pater, now / Kate Hext

Pater as public intellectual / Sara Lyons

The private Pater / Stephen Cheeke

Pater and style / Catherine Maxwell

Pater, looking / Kate Flint

Pater's renaissance / Jonah Siegel

Pater's novels / Stefano Evangelista

Pater's short fiction / Lene Østermark-Johansen

Pater and philosophy / Giles Whiteley

Pater and religion / Michael D. Hurley

Pater on ancient art and mythology / Matthew Potolsky

Pater among the aesthetes / Nicholas Shrimpton

Pater among the decadents / Kate Hext

Pater among the modernists / Lesley Higgins

Pater and gender / Julianna K. Will

Pater and race / Dustin Friedman.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 01 Apr 2026).

ISBN:

1-009-03089-2