Greek Studies: a Series of Essays

Part 1

Produced by Alfred J. Drake, Ph.D.

GREEK STUDIES: A SERIES OF ESSAYS

By WALTER HORATIO PATER

E-text Editor: Alfred J. Drake, Ph.D. Electronic Version 1.0 / Date 10-17-01

DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES

I DISCLAIM ALL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, COSTS AND EXPENSES, INCLUDING LEGAL FEES, AND

YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

THE E-TEXTS ON THIS SITE ARE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS TO THE E-TEXTS OR ANY MEDIUM THEY MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you may have other legal rights.

GREEK STUDIES: A SERIES OF ESSAYS WALTER HORATIO PATER

NOTES BY THE E-TEXT EDITOR:

Reliability: Although I have done my best to ensure that the text you read is error-free in comparison with an exact reprint of the standard edition--Macmillan's 1910 Library Edition--please exercise scholarly caution in using it. It is not intended as a substitute for the printed original but rather as a searchable supplement. My e-texts may prove convenient substitutes for hard-to-get works in a course where both instructor and students accept the possibility of some imperfections in the text, but if you are writing a scholarly article, dissertation, or book, you should use the standard hard-copy editions of any works you cite.

Pagination and Paragraphing: To avoid an unwieldy electronic copy, I have transferred original pagination to brackets. A bracketed numeral such as indicates that the material immediately following the number marks the beginning of the relevant page. I have preserved paragraph structure except for first-line indentation.

Hyphenation: I have not preserved original hyphenation since an e- text does not require line-end or page-end hyphenation.

Greek typeface: For this full-text edition, I have transliterated Pater's Greek quotations. If there is a need for the original Greek, it can be viewed at my site, http://www.ajdrake.com/etexts, a Victorianist archive that contains the complete works of Walter Pater and many other nineteenth-century texts, mostly in first editions.

CONTENTS

GREEK STUDIES: A SERIES OF ESSAYS

WALTER PATER

London: Macmillan, 1910. (The Library Edition.)

E-text Editor: Alfred J. Drake, Ph.D.

Electronic Version 1.0 / Date 10-12-01

Disclaimer of Damages for All Texts on This Web

E-text Editor's Note

Preface by Charles Shadwell

A Study of Dionysus: The Spiritual Form of Fire and Dew: 9-52

The Bacchanals of Euripides: 53-80

The Myth of Demeter and Persephone I. 81-112

The Myth of Demeter and Persephone II. 113-151

Part 2

Hippolytus Veiled: A Study from Euripides: 152-186

The Beginnings of Greek Sculpture--I. The Heroic Age of Greek Art: 187-223

The Beginnings of Greek Sculpture--II. The Age of Graven Images: 224- 250

The Marbles of Aegina: 251-268

The Age of Athletic Prizemen: A Chapter in Greek Art: 269-end

PREFACE BY CHARLES L. SHADWELL

THE present volume consists of a collection of essays by the late Mr. Pater, all of which have already been given to the public in various Magazines; and it is owing to the kindness of the several proprietors of those Magazines that they can now be brought together in a collected shape. It will, it is believed, be felt, that their value is considerably enhanced by their appearance in a single volume, where they can throw light upon one another, and exhibit by their connexion a more complete view of the scope and purpose of Mr. Pater in dealing with the art and literature of the ancient world.

The essays fall into two distinct groups, one dealing with the subjects of Greek mythology and Greek poetry, the other with the history of Greek sculpture and Greek architecture. But these two groups are not wholly distinct; they mutually illustrate one another, and serve to enforce Mr. Pater's conception of the essential unity, in all its many-sidedness, of the Greek character. The god understood as the "spiritual form" of the things of nature is not only the key-note of the "Study of Dionysus"* and "The Myth of Demeter and Persephone,"* but reappears as contributing to the interpretation of the growth of Greek sculpture.* Thus, though in the bibliography of his writings, the two groups are separated by a considerable interval, there is no change of view; he had already reached the centre of the problem, and, the secret once gained, his mode of treatment of the different aspects of Greek life and thought is permanent and consistent.

The essay on "The Myth of Demeter and Persephone" was originally prepared as two lectures, for delivery, in 1875, at the Birmingham and Midland Institute. These lectures were published in the Fortnightly Review, in Jan. and Feb. 1876. The "Study of Dionysus" appeared in the same Review in Dec. 1876. "The Bacchanals of Euripides" must have been written about the same time, as a sequel to the "Study of Dionysus"; for, in 1878, Mr. Pater revised the four essays, with the intention, apparently, of publishing them collectively in a volume, an intention afterwards abandoned. The text now printed has, except that of "The Bacchanals," been taken from proofs then set up, further corrected in manuscript. "The Bacchanals," written long before, was not published until 1889, when it appeared in Macmillan's Magazine for May. It was reprinted, without alteration, prefixed to Dr. Tyrrell's edition of the Bacchae. "Hippolytus Veiled" first appeared in August 1889, in Macmillan's Magazine. It was afterwards rewritten, but with only a few substantial alterations, in Mr. Pater's own hand, with a view, probably, of republishing it with other essays. This last revise has been followed in the text now printed.

The papers on Greek sculpture* are all that remain of a series which, if Mr. Pater had lived, would, probably, have grown into a still more important work. Such a work would have included one or more essays on Phidias and the Parthenon, of which only a fragment, though an important fragment, can be found amongst his papers; and it was to have been prefaced by an Introduction to Greek Studies, only a page or two of which was ever written.

This is not the place to speak of Mr. Pater's private virtues, the personal charm of his character, the brightness of his talk, the warmth of his friendship, the devotion of his family life. But a few words may be permitted on the value of the work by which he will be known to those who never saw him.

Persons only superficially acquainted, or by hearsay, with his writings, are apt to sum up his merits as a writer by saying that he was a master, or a consummate master of style; but those who have really studied what he wrote do not need to be told that his distinction does not lie in his literary grace alone, his fastidious choice of language, his power of word-painting, but in the depth and seriousness of his studies. That the amount he has produced, in a literary life of thirty years, is not greater, is one proof among many of the spirit in which he worked. His genius was "an infinite capacity for taking pains." That delicacy of insight, that gift of penetrating into the heart of things, that subtleness of interpretation, which with him seems an instinct, is the outcome of hard, patient, conscientious study. If he had chosen, he might, without difficulty, have produced a far greater body of work of less value; and from a worldly point of view, he would have been wise. Such was not his understanding of the use of his talents. Cui multum datum est, multum quaeretur ab eo. Those who wish to understand the spirit in which he worked, will find it in this volume. C.L.S.

Oct. 1894.

NOTES

2. *See p. 34.

2. *See p. 100.

2. *See pp. 220, 254.

3. *"The Beginnings of Greek Sculpture" was published in the Fortnightly Review, Feb. and March 1880; "The Marbles of Aegina" in the same Review in April. "The Age of Athletic Prizemen" was published in the Contemporary Review in February of the present year.

A STUDY OF DIONYSUS: THE SPIRITUAL FORM OF FIRE AND DEW

WRITERS on mythology speak habitually of the religion of the Greeks. In thus speaking, they are really using a misleading expression, and should speak rather of religions; each race and class of Greeks--the Dorians, the people of the coast, the fishers--having had a religion of its own, conceived of the objects that came nearest to it and were most in its thoughts, and the resulting usages and ideas never having come to have a precisely harmonised system, after the analogy of some other religions. The religion of Dionysus is the religion of people who pass their lives among the vines. As the religion of Demeter carries us back to the cornfields and farmsteads of Greece, and places us, in fancy, among a primitive race, in the furrow and beside the granary; so the religion of Dionysus carries us back to its vineyards, and is a monument of the ways and thoughts of people whose days go by beside the winepress, and under the green and purple shadows, and whose material happiness depends on the crop of grapes. For them the thought of Dionysus and his circle, a little Olympus outside the greater, covered the whole of life, and was a complete religion, a sacred representation or interpretation of the whole human experience, modified by the special limitations, the special privileges of insight or suggestion, incident to their peculiar mode of existence.

Continue reading Greek Studies: a Series of Essays free in the Wunder reader →