Like footsteps of imagination tracing my mind, Walter Pater encourages me to think outside the box.
"Art and poetry, philosophy and the religious life, and that other life of refined pleasure and action in the conspicuous places of the world, are each of them confined to its own circle of ideas, and those who prosecute either of them are generally little curious of the thoughts of others."
While I don't like the idea of being "confined," this seems to be the general trend to meet the ends of Victorian progress. It might be the result of popular philosophy of economic specialization bleeding into the world of aesthetics: an assembly line of ideas, any takers? Pater seems to be ahead of his time in 1873 foreshadowing the multifariousness of post-modernism. I can see how this statement could be seen as lacking any recognizable position other than chaos, and to me Pater is presenting an entirely different way of looking at the world, a way of existing outside of dogma and doctrine.
"For art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake."
Pater tells me the moment is a deep well of pleasure, that art should be accepted as honest and rejuvenating, and as I rethink his words, I contemplate how in return I can best reciprocate the favour.
A site to get your thoughts out and participate in a literary discussion with others about topics that interest you. Bring in your personal experiences, or stick with excerpts from whatever it is you are reading. Challenge others, challenge yourself, and get your Word out.
Wandering between two worlds, one dead,/ The other powerless to be born...
Get empowered!!!
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1 comment:
The intensity in the 2nd Pater quote, " For art comes to you proposing frankly...." I find refreshing.Your own words ineterest and excite me - "I contemplate how in return I can best reciprocate the favour" (that art does me?)
I've recently had a line from Tennyson's character ulysses pitter-pattering around in my head - "I am a part of all that I have met". I think I always misread the line. I now think the famous traveller was saying how important he was - how he left a little bit of himself behind as an influence everywhere he went. But I prefer another interpretation of the line, even if it wasn't intended. That all things, all people that I meet in my wanderings affect me, become a part of me.
And I include books, especially fiction, in "all that I have met". I have felt in my encounter with books "the highest quality to my moments as they pass". But not "simply for those moments sake".Maybe I fool myself, but I like to think that my reading encounters help form me, and as such have a lasting effect which I take to all my meetings with other people and with my environment. Sojourner
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