Walter Pater

Walter Pater

Walter Horatio Pater (4 August 1839 – 30 July 1894) was an English essayist, literary and art critic, and fiction writer, regarded as one of the great stylists. His works on Renaissance subjects were popular but controversial, reflecting his lost belief in Christianity.

Pater on Literature and Criticism

Pater distinguishes between ‘imaginative literature’ and ‘literature of fact’. Poetry is literature of imagination. Books on science, history, etc. are literatures of fact. Pater says that imaginative prose is also poetic, even though it does not have metre and rhythm. Religious prose is also poetic. Imaginative literature expresses the artist’s vision of life and nature. Pater says that labour and painstaking efforts are also necessary in writing poem. Hence poetry or literature in general is both an art and a science.

What is the function of great literature? Great literature serves to a) increase happiness  b) redeem the oppressed c) enlarge our sympathies d) present new and old truths from a new angle  e) fortifies and ennobles our minds and f) makes us aware of the glory of God. Great literature combats the corrupting influence of the age.

Pater on Style

Pater finds three important ingredients in style. They are i) diction  ii) design  and iii) personality. By diction, Pater means the use of proper vocabulary, shunning obsolete or worn-out words, and also uncommon and ornamental words. Pater says that the writer must use words economically, extracting the utmost from every word and meaning more than he writes down. It is the intelligent reader’s duty to discover the layers of meaning compressed and kept hidden in each word by the writer. It is like the miner using shovels and pickaxes to unearth the gold deposited deep down the earth.

   The second requirement of style is design by which Pater means combining words into a unified whole. It is not just a stringing together of sentences. The literary piece, whether it is a poem or a drama, must be imbued with a cpmmon purpose, an architectural design. Foreseeing the end  in the beginning and the end looking back to the beginning. Pater’s design reminds us of the Aristotelian plot, with its beginning, middle and end, organically inter-related.

    The third requirement of style is the writer’s personality which gives warmth and colour and even perfume to the writing. It is the writer’s responsibility, which inspires every word. The writer’s personality, in as much as the writer is noble and sublime, is not only individualistic but also universal. Everyman speaks through the writer’s mouth

Pater on Criticism

     Pater says that a critic should have three qualities. First, the critic should have tact and sensibility. Second, he should be well-versed not only in literature but also in science and philosophy. Third, the critic should have a noble vision. Only, he can detect the true grandeur and nobility of the writer.