The New Normative Disciplines of the Victorian Age: Cultural and Literary Criticism, Art History Comparatism, Aesthetic

Criticism and Aestheticism ! "atthew Arnold, #ohn $us%in, &alter 'ater and Their (ollowers After discussing several traditions in the last course on poetry, it is now necessary to end the course of Victorian lectures by looking at what the mid-century and turn of the century periods have bequeathed to us, nowadays, in what regards the theoretical side of the Victorian cultural conception. Bearing in mind the fact that, in principle, criticism serves as a set of guidelines and standards for the evaluation of the cultural objects, trends and ages in the long-term perspective, we will e amine the body of cultural and literary criticism created by three authors! "atthew Arnold - in the categorical statements of #$ulture and Anarchy# %&'()* and in the #+ssays in $riticism# %whose two series of modern criticism, of &'(, and &''', respectively, have served as reference te ts for several generations of readers and critics in the +nglish-speaking world &*- .ohn /uskin, who %literally0* wrote volumes on Modern Painters %but we are interested here only in his chapter 12n the /eal 3ature of 4reatness of 5tyle# in the &',( volume, where there also occurs a detailed description and legitimation of the 6re-/aphaelite label*, and who introduced and legitimated the Victorian 3eo-4othic style in 17he 5tones of Venice# %&',&-&',8*9alter 6ater who propounded the aesthetic critic as the protagonist for a new critical : and at the same time mystical understanding of %fine* art. 6ater;s renewal of the critical vocabulary %which, in his 16reface# to the Studies in the History of the Renaissance, and in the appendi to his 2 ford course, 1Appreciations with an +ssay on 5tyle#, reads very much like early :<th century prose, written, say, by Virginia 9oolf, in her novels*. Because 6ater was the 2 ford art professor of a whole generation, just like in the poetry of his student =opkins, the artistic perceptive momentum should be understood, in 6ater;s conception, to be mystical, while the account of inspiration should be critically>rationally handled. )! The *ses of Comparative Literature for the Construction and Legitimation of a National Tradition in "atthew Arnold+s Cultural and Literary Criticism ?n the Victorian age, "atthew Arnold occupies in +nglish letters a similar position to that of 4oethe and =erder in 4ermany %earlier* and 5ainte Beuve in @rance. =e compares in order to institute landmarks for the liberal8 culture of his age and makes normative assertions. 7his is why Arnold counts in Britain just as the American founding fathers count in the study of the local histories. 9e shall discuss the edifice of national and canonical reference system laid in place by Arnold, as the basis for what =ans 4eorg 4adamer, in the philosophical treaty 17ruth and "ethod# called Bildung. ?t is interesting to notice how Arnold;s system of criticism A both conforms to the cognitive %and productive* standards for modern science %or for any rational, liberal discipline* while, on the other hand, he is behaving as an inveterate fundamentalist who recommends too strongly set recipes5 in a given domain. 7his is due to the fact that behind Arnold;s system there lurks another intention than the pure liberal one and a practical purpose which, by 3ewman;s standards in #7he ?dea of a Bniversity#, is informed by other than the Ciberal 6ursuits, namely by what he would call #ulterior purposes#, those of the Bseful 6ursuits. ?n other words, the major flaw of Arnold;s system comes from his utilitarianism which sometimes runs counter to what he preaches as the norm for culture;s disinterestedness %cf. #7he @unction of $riticism at the 6resent 7ime#*. Arnold;s flaw, the internal contradiction of
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We are beginning with Arnolds works of the 1960s because his influence is more universal than Ruskins, and because the ideas in Ruskins essays ertain to the same domain as !aters, namely the domain of fine art criticism" # $%ritical& here should be seen as a synonym for $rational& and $liberal& and as referring to the manner in which individual men of talent can understand and must communicate the terms of their mystical contem lation" ' (n the conte)t of literary and *fine+ art criticism, the ad,ective $liberal& has a more general meaning" (t is synonymous with $humanistic& rather than with $rational& or $intellectual& *in the em iricist sense+" -n the other hand, however, it also has a connection with the more universal meaning of the word $liberal& in the $liberal arts& which were contrasted with theology and referred to the disci lines or sub,ects of lay modern culture studied in the first universities" . And it is im ortant to notice from the start that Arnold has be/ueathed not one, but two systems of criticism0 a cultural one *which is in fact a cultural theory+, and a cor us of solid literary criticism" 1 -nly with !ater does criticism actually become emanci ated from the kind of academism slavishly and eclectically recycling traditions2 this becomes es ecially clear in the conglomerate of Ruskins criticism, which is constructed from bits and ieces of idealised traditions in which is invested Ruskins ingenuity in $sanctifying& traditions"

his thinking is that he subordinates culture, criticism, poetry, literature in general, as well as what historical awareness he had been able to glean, to a utopian project! Arnold wanted to add education to the material happiness and e cellence of the Victorian empire. @or him culture counted as the Doh-?-3oor diamond added to the +mpress of ?ndia;s crown. 7he cultural conglomerate preached by Arnold aimed at adding the splendours of the past cultural empires %of Athens or +liEabethan +ngland* and the academic spirit that in his opinion still animated the contemporary esprit cultiv de la France %cf. #7he Citerary ?nfluence of Academies#*. 7hese e cellencies had to be added to the rather backward, or narrow-minded epoch of concentration characteristic for the still rather provincial British culture, which Arnold critically admitted the middle-class British culture to be in his day. ?t was, on the other hand, Arnold;s liberal project to direct Britain towards progress, by enabling it to enter a desirable epoch of expansion 5ome time before these thoughts were e pressed in 1+ssays in $riticism#, the first series, Arnold had also theoriEed about the modern age as an ideal goal for the progress of humanity! %Arnold defines a modern age as an age of advanced civili!ation! non-aggressive, tolerant, with multiplied conveniences of life, with a taste formed according to the best standards, an age supreme in intellectual maturity and speaking a modern language! that of a thoughtful, philosophic mind- in short, an all-humanist utopia*. ?n general Arnold;s views develop in an ever more utopian direction, growing prophetic, like $arlyle;s style. But while being prophetic, Arnold;s prose lacks $arlyle;s rhetorical and emotional surprises of all kinds- it is oral, conversational and free, without being witty in the least. ?t ends up as simply too copious and rambling, justifying the label applied to the entire Victorian age essay writers by 3orthrop @rye (, who calls it the style of 1tantrum prose#. Arnold;s synthesis of various contemporary cultural theories and>or practices includes the following elements! academism, in the 4erman %4oethean* and @rench sense %Arnold took for his model 5ainte-Beuve, #the celebrated @rench critic#, as he calls him in #$ulture and Anarchy#, 6+V ??, p. AA:*. ?t is the merit of "atthew Arnold;s criticism that he legitimated a modern, national tradition, in so far as he drew a lot of his cultural subjects and attitudes from $arlyle, either directly or via $ardinal 3ewman;s or ..5. "ill;s te ts of the &',<s, or simply because $arlyle;s ideas were very influential with the younger contemporary Victorians*. ?t is in view of this, that Arnold;s generally canonical cultural system and his critical system deserve to be treated according to the algorithm which permits recogniEing legitimate disciplines by the knowledge of fundamental aspects, grounds or assumptions! they are clear corpora of %nowledge defined and delimited by the interpretation of available data gleaned from the wider, grander, British imperial landscapethey are organised and in-formed by principles and by criteria of value into theories and a,iologies, respectivelythey are legitimated as new disciplines capable of generating value -dugments and predictions , also having at their disposal instruments suited for wor%ing in e,isting conte,ts. Arnold;s generally cultural ideas can be presented starting from principles, definitions and fundamental beliefs, as follows! &. %the first principle* 7here e ists an order of ideas vis-F-vis the order of nature, corresponding to a highly developed, spiritualised human nature %7his assumption is in keeping with what =ans 4eorg 4adamer, in his handbook of modern hermeneutics, #7ruth and "ethod#, indicates as one of the leading humanistic concepts, namely, .ildung or culture G retained in its primary 4erman form in the +nglish translation of the book.* %Arnold;s sonnet #?n =armony 9ith 3ature# develops this idea in the sceptical direction*:. %the widest notion* culture is a universal repository of the spiritual- Arnold defines it as #a study of perfection# "#$ulture and Anarchy# ? ! #5weetness and Cight#, 6+V p. AA8* By perfection, Arnold understands a harmonious conjunction of beauty and intelligence, sweetness and light. $ulture is for Arnold what knowledge was for 3ewman in #7he ?dea of a Bniversity#, the spring and cause which makes men good and, especially, endows them with a passion to do good. ?t is a spiritual entity . 5ince it determines human perfection and uses all forms of
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(n the Anatomy of Criticism, the first essay, when dealing with what he terms non3thematic literature"

e perience and it makes humanity grow, culture is conceived in religious terms, which is a proof of Arnold;s traditionalism or fundamentalism as it has been called. 8. %concrete assumptions > desiderata about culture* +ndowed with interpretive po$er, poetry is the main ministrant or, by a faded metaphor from the field of science, the main universal tool for culture, owing to its capacity of granting %intellectual but also moral* deliverance %Arnold;s unfelicitous use of language in prose makes these terms at best opaque, when not really infernal false friends*. By #interpretive power# Arnold actually means #the power of so dealing with things as to awaken in us a wonderfully full# %do you like the careless repetition of the syllable #full# in the middle of a master;s sentenceH But he is a didactic master, not a sylistic one, is he notH so!*. a wonderfully full, new, intimate sense of them G of things G and of our relations with them# %#"aurice de 4uIrin#, 6+V ??, p. :(<*. As for #deliverance#, poetry offers by it #the comprehension of the present and the past# and the possession of general ideas %#2n the "odern +lement in Citerature#, &',J*. A. 7he criterion for all cultural activities is their disinterestedness, a determination of #keeping aloof from what is called ;the practical view of things;- by resolutely following the law of its own nature, which is to be a free play of the mind on all subjects which it touches. %K* steadily refusing to lend itself to any of those ulterior, political, practical considerations about ideas, which plenty of people will be sure to attach to them#. As this last criterion comes from Arnold;s most theoretical essay on criticism, which defined criticism, we could pass on to describing what is practically the second Arnoldian normative discipline! criticism. 7he above assumptions underlying culture are also applicable to criticism, although, obviously, criticism is conceived as a separate discipline due to the systematic conception presented by Arnold in this first essay of the +ssays in $riticism, @irst 5eries, &'(,! #7he @unction of $riticism at the 6resent 7ime#. ,. %riticism %the actual name he should have given to culture itself, in so far as he had used it in #$ulture and Anarchy# to refer to #that criticism of life, that knowledge of ourselves and the world which constitutes culture#* was defined as #a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world, and thus to establish a current of fresh and true ideas.# %6+V ??, p :&(*. 7he critical activity represented for Arnold an e emplary activity, the pilot cultural activity because it forged the ideas with which poetry could then work, acting as the pedagogy of literature for transmitting to the successors #the practice of poetry, with its boundaries and wholesome regulative laws, under which e cellent works may again, perhaps, at some future time, be produced#%cf. the last paragraph of the #6reface to the @irst +dition of 6oems#, &',8, in 6+V ??, p. &)'*. Arnold transformed criticism into a spiritual power, trying to make it as #respectable# a power as his own notion of the poet;s creative po$er, but he also declared it to be as much of a formative power as &no$ledge was for 3ewman or "ill, in the earlier decades of the Victorian age 'n this respect, (rnold is as much a humanist as )oth Mill and *e$man $ere $hen they personali!ed and, $e may even +ocosely put it, personified, a)stract ideas )y incorporating them as human faculties. 7he protagonist of Arnold;s re-enactment of $ulture %capital letter* is, of course, the critic, an embodiment of the $arlylean #man of letters#, the hero of culture, therefore. 7his is obviously a fundamentalist or traditionalist feature of Arnoldian criticism. 2ne more addition is necessary here! Arnold drastically opposes his +ust critic, a guardian of the /epublic of $ulture, as 6lato would put it, to the the dilettante, a 4oethean term- #the dilettanti#, Arnold writes in the #6reface to the @irst +dition of 6oems#, #cannot think clearly, feel nobly, and delineate ideas firmly# %6+V, p.&)'* (. 7here e ists one criterion for assessing the power of an age in history, which Arnold calls ade/uacy %and which =ans 4eorg 4adamer includes in his list of leading humanistic concepts as +udgment, in the +nglish translation of &)J,, the equivalent of #good sense#*. 9here there e ists adequacy, Arnold says, in his inaugural lecture as 6rofessor of 6oetry at 2 ford, #2n the "odern +lement in Citerature# %&',J*, an age will have #the representations of highly developed human nature, endowed with the charm of noble serenity which accompanies true insight- it will have maturity and freedom at the same time.# ?f we compare these attributes with the ones illustrated by .. 5. "ill and enumerated by 3ewman, respectively, as criteria for the liberal discussion or for the liberal university, #freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom#, it is obvious that we are in the heart of Victorian liberalism with Arnold as well. 9hat remains to be done is to see whether he will remain here $hen applying what he conceived liberally.

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?n practical terms, Arnold;s systematic thinking provided the British middle-class nation with an instrument for creating an intellectual culture, capable to radiate all around, and to be like the contemporary @rench culture, inclined towards 1the things of the mind, towards culture, towards clearness, correctness and propriety in thinking and speaking# %6+V ??, pp :8J and :A8*J. 1$ulture and Anarchy# offers a ractically cultural guidebook for im lementing modern culture" But this humanistic plea for culture as against anarchy has a curious doublefold orientation! on the one hand it looks towards the past for salvationist models, Arnold;s being a typical case of classicist cultural revivalism- on the other hand, it contemplates an immense future, already, and not directly in poetry %like in #7he 5tudy of 6oetry#* as yet, a future only waiting for the middle-classes G whom he calls philistines G to awaken to culture by education. Arnold;s prophetic visionarism envisages the return of the phantom of Hellenism, the culture of sweetness and light, subsequent to the defeat of He0raism, that narrow-minded concentration of the puritans, whom he calls philistines, upon their own materialistic navels %the underlying allusion here being to a man who studies Loga and to 3orman "ailer;s ironic fiction of the same title*. ?n his entire career, Arnold had given various names to his utopian idealism e pecting the second coming of the spiritual from above, down into the world of materialism. At first, in #2n the "odern +lement in Citerature#, it had been the ideal 1modern age1 %whose definition proved how little modern it was by purely historical standards*- then he had implicitly called it 12oethe1 or 2ermany, then 1"aurice de 2u3rin1 %and so! 1(rance1* G and he abstracted from each case a feature which he had praised and advocated so insistently until he had turned it into a concept! that of #disinterestedness# or of the #interpretive power#- at last, in #7he 5tudy of 6oetry# it would be poetry whose transformative power for the whole human race will assume the functions of the earlier #modern age#. ?n #$ulture and Anarchy#, there are polarities that clearly indicate that we have to do with a myth, a high-mimetic, enhanced model of life, indicated by the clear-cut oppositions between 0ar0arians versus philistines, playing the two possible pre-ordained roles of respectively negative versus positive characters, soon to be alchemically transmuted into cultural gold %the populace does not enter Arnold;s cultural calculus*. #7he 5tudy of 6oetry# crowning his second series of #+ssays in $riticism# and his cultural theory offers a full, clear national canon, in so far as it seeks epochs of e pansion in the past %the +liEabethan Age- it is compared with the Age of 6ericles*- it seeks writers capable to function as protagonists of the traditions%for e ample he declares $haucer the primum inter pares in the national +nglish pantheon*. Arnold recommends that readers should select their own touchstones as references for testing and developing a sure literary taste 4! Two Similarly Inaugurated Disciplines: Literary and (Fine) Art riticism

After analy4ing the system of cultural criticism established by 5atthew Arnold in $%ulture and Anarchy&, which uts into ractice the rinci les of criticism outlined earlier in the lecture, when discussing his theoretical system, in the remaining art of the lecture shall be discussed two further ractices which im lemented similar. modern rinci les0 the ractice or disci line of literary criticism, as encountered in two sam le3te)ts by 5atthew Arnold, the $Preface to the 6irst 7dition of !oems& *181'+ and $-n 9ranslating :omer& *1861+, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the body of ractical observations about art encountered in ;ohn Ruskins $5odern !ainters& *18.'31860+ and in $9he <tones of =enice& *18113181'+" 9he main difference between these two systems of ctiricism *or disci lines+, however, is that whereas 5atthew Arnold lays the foundations for modern, liberal criticism, Ruskin remains a traditionalist, or $an ancient& commentator and synthesi4er of the old traditions" Ruskins art theory, therefore, remains im ossible to use in the conte)t of modern art, since it is too rigid and too slavishly enthralled by this or that of the older masters" 9his difference reveals the cultural olarities *and ambiguities+ so characteristic for the =ictorian age, which was much indebted to the traditions it handled while it was also beginning to transcend them" (n addition, the difference mentioned makes clear the fact that whereas Arnold can be trusted with establishing a genuinely roductive ractice, which im lemented creatively and rigorously astrong set of rinci les transmissible to later
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9hese, of course, evoke?ewmans and 5ills lea for the desideratum of develo ing e/uitableness and calmness as the main attributes of the rational, liberal mind and knowledge" (t can be stated that Arnold roduced

ages, Ruskin wrote a mere glossary of im ressions which will count as a set of beautiful observations about fine art and the old masters and about architecture as they could be erceived and understood in a certain age" Ruskins =ictorianism is that of an age that will remain ast and traditionalist for later readers, like a beautiful illuminated manuscri t to be erused in a restigious but dusty library" (f Ruskin titled his monumental work $Modern !ainters&, his modernity was not radically modern" As characteri4ed in the second cha ter of -scar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray by the artist @asil :allward, the radically modern minds want to $catch&8 the moment when $the a earance of a new medium for art& and $the a earance of a new ersonality for art& occurs" Ruskin remains a traditionalist in s ite of his desire to be to ical, because he did not also desire to be radical" @y contrast to Ruskin, though 5atthew Arnold the essay3writer may have had his own traditionalist or fundamentalist setbacks, he definitely looked forward to a universal future for culture and criticism both in rinci le and in his ractice" (n the &Preface to the 6irst 7dition of !oems&, Arnold decreed that oetry must imitate great actions *and not morbid feelings+, since it was to be an ideal education for the human race that needed models ca able of dee ening and elevating its understanding of life by the inter retive ower it wielded9" ;ust like a structuralist of today, for e)am le Roman ;akobson, Arnold mentioned a /uality for oetry borrowed from Aoethe, which he rendered by a strange word in 7nglish, &ArchitectonicB&, a /uality to be obtained by sub,ecting actions to selection and C *no, not &combination&D but with an even more &liberally constructive word&+ construction"
7here are two te ts by "atthew Arnold that inaugurate the practical discipline of literary criticism ! the #6reface to the @irst +dition of 6oems# %&',8* and #2n 7ranslating =omer# %&'(&*. ?n this part of the lecture, the evaluating criteria applied there will be shown to lead to judgments of taste very similar in Arnold;s literary criticism with .ohn /uskin;s judgments on painting and architecture, respectively, in #"odern 6ainters# %&'A8 G &'(<*, and #7he 5tones of Venice# %&',& G &',8*. %9ith /uskin it is not true, of course, that, like Mickens he published his long essays in instalments. But his essays are formed of long books published during long years, because /uskin has even more to teach his contemporaries than Arnold*. ?n the #6reface to the @irst +dition of 6oems#, Arnold decreed that poetry must imitate great actions %and not morbid feelings*, as, you remember, poetry was an ideal education for the human race that needed models . And if, just like a .akobsonian structuralist of today, Arnold mentioned a quality for poetry borrowed from 4oethe, which he rendered by a strange word in +nglish, #ArchitectonicN#, a quality to be obtained by subjecting actions to selection and K %no, not #combination#0 but with an even more #liberally constructive word#* construction G if all these were indeed part of Arnold;s teachings in literary criticism, it is not less true that such laudable principles were counteracted if not really contradicted by the presence in precisely the same essay by Arnold of a vapid, empty sample of ill-applied fundamentalism! the concept of #the grand style# which characterises, according to Arnold the e pression of the 4reek unapproacheable masters. ?n fact Arnold will return in #2n 7ranslating =omer# to this pompously empty critical idiom when he praises #the grand style# of the classics and he e plains that there are two Aristotelian brands of grand style! the severe one, noble, elevated or spoudai-s %=omer;s style* and the simple one, direct, spontaneous in e pression, the faulos %Mante;s style*. 9hen considering the %abstract or accountable content* of Arnold;s concepts or terms, it is striking how similar in their impressionistic relativity /uskin;s concepts, statements and judgments of taste are to Arnold;s. ?n #"odern 6ainters#, /uskin speaks about #greatness of style# which he defines by steps, i.e., according to some criteria which have got nothing to do with what we would e pect style to be. =is criteria come from the most miscellaneous regions of life, art and morality, and they are #choice of noble subject#, #love of beauty#, #sincerity#, #invention#- these allow /uskin to classify artists intoK highest, second order, and third order artists %it all sounds like in $aragiale;s sketchy pedagogy of "arius $hicoO /ostogan, to us, but maybe it is all our fault*- these criteria allow /uskin also to define, in the guise of a corolary, therefore not as his main critical purpose, #great art# as
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9he meaning of the word $catch& here is as com le) as in the *analysis to the+ $9he Windhover& D 6or which, see item ' supra in the enumeration of the Arnoldian rinci les or theoretical assum tions"

recogniEable for being #distinct#, #large in masses and in scale#, #delicate#. All these would be good and nice, were they not so K indistinct&<, vague and especially so delicate as to leave no traces whatsoever in the reader;s intellectual memory.... 3o trace of analytical precision in /uskin;s criticism, just like in Arnold;s worst te ts. 7hus we might just record in passing that this was the aesthetic taste of the Victorian 2rthodo y &&, were it not again for the good part of another faulty concept of /uskin;s by :< th century standards. /uskin selects an ideal age, just like Arnold, in his utopian modern age, or in his Athenian, +liEabethan or @rench academical epochs of e pansion. 7his is the 're5$aphaelite age which will be used to connect the non-academic Victorian avant-garde;s taste %in the most artificial way conceivable romantic, so post-romantic* to a period in the real history of the world-art which is the earliest /enaissance still retaining traces of the "iddle Ages, the period of #4iotto, Angelico, 2rcagna, .ohn Bellini# %6+V ?, p. J8<*. 2ne thing is sure, that the puritanical middle-class taste contenteted itself with speakers and teachers of taste whose pure impressions or obsessive statements about world-art Victorians took for normative criticism. Also, Victorians seemed to think that the systematic form %which we could assimilate to the liberal constructivism in appearance only * was sufficient to make perfectly credible these cultural and moral activists devoted to the community. By another accident, /uskin was also the man who inaugurated the 4othic fad in Victorian architecture, so despised by the bitter =ardy who deplores it in #.ude the 2bscure# where he also transforms the $ollege 9alls into the walls of a Bastille impossible to demolish by .ude in his bare-handed obscurity alone. ?n #7he 5tones of Venice#, where he makes it clear that he is describing an ideal Venice, not necessarily the real one, he proposes 4othic architecture as a concrete universal, an ideal, a myth, owing to its alleged qualities %which are actually virtues already, so no pretense of objectivity is even implied, sorry0*. 7hey are ! 5avageness, or /udeness$hangefulness, or Cove of $hange- 3aturalism or Cove of 3ature- 4rotesqueness or Misturbed ?magination/igidity or 2bstinacy! /edundance or 4enerosity. 7he same mi ture of morality with aesthetic criteria and with empirical observations, these would be the Victorian ingredients of taste in matters of architecture, just as they had been for painting %with /uskin* or for literary criticism %with Arnold*. ?n this last catalogue of impressions and ideals, however, there can be noticed a clearer penchant towards nature and the rules of sensibility than had been the case in any of the previous inventories. ?ndeed, this testifies to the faster changes in taste that were under way earlier in aesthetic criticism than in the literary one, and which would immediately lead to the ne t stage in aesthetic criticism, 9alter 6ater;s hedonism. !. The change of Faith and hange of "anner#$ in %alter &ater's Aesthetic riticism.

?n the preface to the #5tudies in the =istory of the /enaissance# %&'J8*, 9alter 6ater suddenly transported aesthetic criticism down to earth, placing it into a familiar stream-of-psychological impressions of a flesh and blood person, from the point of view of a :<th century reader. 6ater tied aesthetic criticism to the individual perception and the phenomenal world rather than to any idealistic system, social practice or to mere speculation as had happened before for so long tedious pages in Arnold and /uskin. ?n the #Author;s 6reface# %6+V ???, p. ::A G ::'* , 6ater already uses the word #aesthetic#- it had been missing from the cultural case studies of /uskin;s books - it appears in the syntagm #the aesthetic critic# which forms the object of one of the first paragraphs. Another striking element appears as early as the first paragraph of the preface! the rejection of abstractions in the aesthetic discussion. 7hen immediately, the statement inconceivable for either /uskin or Arnold! #Beauty, like all other qualities presented to human e perience, is relative#. @rom here, only one step separates the :<th century reader from the relieving declaration that , for the aesthetic critic #all periods, types, schools of taste, are in themselves equal#. 2ne has a feeling of something d+. vu and the reading flows smoothly, making one think of .ohn 5tuart "ill or 7homas =enry =u ley, although the topics and judgments are completely different in 6ater;s prose. 7here is a sense of total agreement with the commonsensical ideas, empirical, verifiable, that you feel you understand completely. 7his is the result of the natural, deliberative prose of sensibility that 6ater writes.
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9he reader is invited to recall here the final art of Arnolds The Buried Life which laments the fact that $our hidden selfC (s elo/uent, is well E but Ftis not trueD& 11 As it is called by 5artin Gay, in his @ritish $:istory of Hiterature&, the section from 18'> to the !resent" 1# 6rom the oint of view of a #0th century reader, this amounts to a ma,or change of tradition, since it ushers the radically modern conce tion about art" As all solid conce tions, this consisted of a theory and a ractice E which in the history of literature ers ective was to be called 5-G7R?(<5"

3owadays it is easy to recogniEe that 6ater;s conception is acutely liberal>intellectual>rational and that it was, in fact, following the cognitive algorithms of science %as it is accepted in the :< th theory of science as a branch and a practice of cognition, for e ample in Darl 6opper;s studies in the methodology of science*. ?t is as a result of applying the scientific rigor to the body of artistic perception and inspiration that criticism becomes less obsessed by the canons of traditions, i.e., it becomes substantially modern. As stipulated by .ohn 5tuart "ill;s or .ohn =enry 3ewman;s standards, it is in the capacity to generate free, new, fresh knowledge that the value of any liberal, critical enterprise can be assessed. 7he generation of 6ater;s followers! =opkins and 9ilde in the &) th century, 9oolf and the Bloomsbury aesthetes of the British :<th century, who also benfitted by "atthew Arnold;s clear-sightedness in practical and cultural criticism, were ostensibly the ones to revolutioniEe +nglish letters. 7hey introduced G as precursors or as protagonists G the new literary modernist aesthetic which programmatically makes everything new, while plentifully using the refinement of the tradition &8. renewed the +nglish belles lettres have 2ne proof scientific intellectual, rational ing is rigorously rational grasping is rigorously rational, capable to be described clearly in three stages. is highly individual is due to the informed by both liberal individualistic rationalism the strangest combination of modern individualistic revolutionary idea that the aesthetic

?n the #$onclusion# to what everybody calls in short #7he /enaissance# %6+V ???, pp. 8:A- 8:J*, 6ater offers the methodology that probably has served him in producing the corpus of aesthetic criticism contained in the book. 7hus 6ater confirms his intuitions discursively! &. 7he first step in aesthetic criticism %he does not indicate it by an abstract name, # observation#, even #empirical observation#- rather he uses plain, descriptive words* ! #seeing one;s object as it really is# %this is in keeping with 5ainte-Beuve #$auseries du Cundi#, of &'A)* :. 7he second step! educate your perceptions to obtain #the right susceptibility# %?s this not something like a preliminary step for the phenomenologist;s bracketing of e perience in view of better concentrating upon the essential features to be observedH* 8. 7he third step consists in the affirmation of faith in the power of the senses #to maintain ecstasy# and grant #success in life# by the #failure to form habits#. ?t is obvious that the power or faculty of 6ater;s model man has shifted from the liberal thinker;s )rain and even from the outwardly projected heart of the pure idealists to the power of the senses, the sense of sight, touch and so, to sensualism. Another, more elevated word for the cultural faith in sensualism is of course hedonism, while the more scientifically ringing one is psychologism. @rom here there is one more step Gor rather, one more turn! of the century G to the downright impressionism of the :<th century avant-garde painters. 6! Aestheticism 6ater;s methodology and theory were followed practically and creatively by the aestheticist writers &A, among whom 2scar 9ilde was and will remain the most outstanding +nglish artistic voice. /eading 2scar 9ilde;s pronouncements in his most famous novel in conjunction with the 9alter 6ater;s own fictional presentation of the doctrine in 1"arius the +picurean#, it appears that aestheticism is based on the following parado ! it has at its core ontological scepticism paired with the worship of art as the 7ideal order of the 0eautiful. ?n the guise of a 6latonic Miotima or feminine daimon, the order of the beautiful is capable of refilling the universe with sense, which means that it has a normative function, from the theoretical point of view. %@rom the practical point of view,
1'

(n this res ect, one recogni4es the same ambiguities of rofessed liberty and rofessorial, refined handling of traditions in all the @ritish #0th century writers who inherited from !ater and Wilde the intention to be com letely detached from tradition, in what the individual ower of concentration is concerned, while, at the same time, using the tra ings of tradition not only com etently, but also as s ecialistsIgreat masters" 1. 9he 6re-/aphaelite aspect of =opkins;s verse constitutes an important tributary to the new aestheticist trend which constitutes, from a
scientific perspective, the implementation or practice following the new doctrine of aesthetic criticism. ?n /omanian translation it becomes obvious that 1aesthetic criticism# can be assimilated to 1aesthetics#! 1critica estetica#

>

it has the power of a generator *. ?f, prompted by the former 6latonic association, we compare the position occupied by art %poetry* in 6lato;s /epublic, an extra muros and pariah/s position, we realiEe that with the aestheticists just as with the criticism in Arnold;s or /uskin;s line, art is invited to take the place of the former ruler of the city-state or the republic as 6lato calls it, and so the role of the queen or king, as you like it. 7his signals the major reversal of functions in the traditional chain of being or diagram, which must have also something to do with the more liberal and scientifically succesful history of mankind in the modern centuries, and, of course, with the generalised lay spirit. Art, the contemplation of the beautiful, grants freedom and intensity of life to man in the act of perception which is transfigured into an aestheticist, fastidious act of taste. Aestheticism is tantamount to the art of refined perception and through it, of hedonistic pleasure, i.e., refined, contemplative but essentially phenomenal or immanent pleasure. ?n the aestheticist scenario or the summariEing diagram %applied with Arnold and earlier on with 6ater himself in the #Author;s 6reface# to #7he /enaissance#* conscience becomes the subject or protagonist, but not formal and habitual conscience, rather, the channel for #a powerful current of feeling and observance# %cf. 6ater;s #"arius the +picurean#, &'',, chapter ? *. 7he content of consciousness is mainly given by the practices of perfecting the senses first by the improvement in their capacity of being moved and made ready, refined for rich, genuine e ternal perception, secondly, by their accomodation to the task of internal perception. "arius the +picurean is declared to be aware and endowed with great seriousness, namely! #an impassibility to the sacredness of time, of life and its events and the circumstances of family fellowship#- the other name for this great seriousness would obviously be scepticism. 7his implies moral or ethical relativism, moral stoicism as another form of agnosticism. But there is one absolute in this world of scepticism and relativism, it is the individual;s communion with the flu of e istence through the senses, which communion or participation is effected through art. 7he new hierophant is the artist seconded by the hedonistic connaisseur. 7he severance with the wider flock of philistines and with the general mass of the outsiders effected through the watershed of art, art being understood as this study of perfection through and of the senses, is both proclaimed and enacted by reduction to its most absurd and fantastic implications in 2scar 9ilde;s #7he 6icture of Morian 4ray# and the book;s preface. 7hus, aestheticism also termed #art for art;s sake# lo$ered and reversed the striving for perfection "read #the study of perfection#0, the greatness and the seriousness of all the 1ictorians $ho formed the o)+ects of the former lectures on the essay, i e , of the aesthetic, literary and cultural critics ta&en together . ?t was the most e treme form of liberalism, dogmatic in the opposite direction from the fundamentalist one, namely a scepticism &,. 7he variations upon the theme of tradition%s* and the combination of the old and the new in the art and criticism of the Victorian age is maybe the most important lesson to understand about and from this past age of precursors to both modernism and postmodernism nowadays.

11

When regarding aestheticism from the ers ective in the last course on oetry * and the %hristian versus the :edonistic+ mysticism, it can be noticed that :edonism is based on a 5anicheistic, gnostic or dualistic *rather than ontological, %hristian+ understanding of the universe"