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Epicurean aestheticism: De Quincey, Pater, Wilde, Stoppard

University of British Columbia

This is a study of what I argue is a neglected side of Aestheticism. A standard definition of Aestheticism is that its practitioners turn away from the general current of modernity to protest its utilitarian and materialistic values, but this generalization ignores the profound influence of contemporary philosophical and scientific thought on such major figures of British Aestheticism as Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde. This study focuses on Aesthetes who are not in flight from modernity. I call their type of Aestheticism "Epicurean Aestheticism" and argue that since this temperament is characterized by a willingness to engage with the flux of modern times it must be distinguished from the more familiar, escapist form of Aestheticism I call "Platonic Aestheticism." I propose that Aestheticism be viewed as a spectrum with Epicurean Aestheticism on one side and the Platonic variety on the other. While Platonic Aesthetes like W. B . Yeats and Stephane Mallarme continue the Romantic project of trying to counter modernity with various idealist and absolutist philosophies, Epicurean Aesthetes adopt materialist and relativistic strategies in their desire to make the most of modern life. I argue that the first unmistakable signs of Epicurean Aestheticism are to be found in Thomas De Quincey, that the sensibility is fully formulated be Pater, continued by Wilde, and finds a current representative in Tom Stoppard. All Aesthetes are dedicated to the pursuit of beauty, but Platonic Aesthetes seek beauty in an eternal and transcendent realm, while Epicurean Aesthetes have given up such absolutist habits of thought. Pater writes: "Modern thought is distinguished from ancient by its cultivation of the "relative" spirit in place of the "absolute." Epicurean Aesthetes want a new aesthetic that will parallel the paradigm shift from absolutism to relativism. While a nostalgic, quasi-religious longing for a purely ideal realm characterizes Platonic Aesthetes, Epicurean Aesthetes accept that the high, idealistic road to eternal beauty is closed. Instead of lamenting this fact, they start looking for beauty among the uncertainties of the phenomenal world: by viewing life as an aesthetic spectacle to be observed and experimented on with playful detachment they become Epicureans of the flux of modernity.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-05-29

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/8482

English

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace