Walter Horatio Pater was born on August 4^th, 1839, in London. When he was two years old, his father died. At fourteen, his mother died, leaving Pater and his three sisters with an aunt. Having grown up knowing death well, he was interested in religion and at one point considered taking up orders to join the church clergy. Much of his early poems were related to Christianity, but Pater went through a difficult period and split from the church upon entering university. He turned to classical studies and was tutored by those who rejected religion for cultural studies. At this point, the family was not doing well economically, and his sisters moved to Germany to live cheaper with an aunt’s care. (Brake)

Pater tutored and lectured about classics and philosophy at Brasenose College at Oxford. He attracted controversy as he often worked with homoerotic motifs. His first book, Studies in the History of the Renaissance, is a collection of essays, many of which were articles originally written for the Fortnightly Review. Having angered the religious aspects of the education system, he was told by the university to not seek another university post. He also censored himself in order to not get himself into legal trouble. His reputation, now linked with aestheticism, which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, means, “the pursuit of, or devotion to, what is beautiful or attractive to the senses, esp. as opposed to an ethically or rationally based outlook,” earned him followers like Oscar Wilde and George Moore among others.

Pater died on July 30, 1894, in Oxford.

Pater’s notable works include The Renaissance (1873), his only finished novel, Marius the Epicurean (1885), Imaginary Portraits (1887) which are shorter pieces of philosophical fiction, and Appreciations (1889), critical essays on English subjects.

Greek Studies (1895), Miscellaneous Studies (1895), Essays from the Guardian (1896, 1901), and the unfinished romance Gaston de Latour (1896) were published after Pater’s death.

Works Cited:

“aestheticism, n.”. Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford university Press, July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/6703520666.

Brake, Laurel. “Pater, Walter Horatio (1839-1894), author and aesthete.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, May 25, 2006. Oxford University Press, https://www-oxforddnb-com.er.lib-k-state.edu/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-978019814128-e-21525.

Further Reading:

Barolsky, Paul. “Walter Pater and the Aesthetics of Abstraction.” Notes in the History of Art, vol. 29, no. 4, 2010, pp. 43-45. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23208978.

Brake, Laurel. “Pater, Walter Horatio (1839-1894), author and aesthete.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, May 25, 2006. Oxford University Press. Accessed 15 September 2023, https://www-oxforddnb-com.er.lib-k-state.edu/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-978019814128-e-21525.

"Walter Pater." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 18 Dec. 2017. academic-eb-com.er.lib.k-state.edu/levels/collegiate/article/Walter-Pater/58708.