Béatrice Laurent (ed.), Sleeping Beauties in Victorian Britain, Cultural, Literary and Artistic Explorations of a Myth

Sleeping Beauties in Victorian Britain is a remarkable collection of articles which uses the interdisciplinary approach to examine a whole network of correspondences between the arts, literature and science, thus conjuring up a new powerful picture of Victorian culture and its tensions over the last three decades of the 19th century. In her article “The Strange Case of the Victorian Sleeping Maid”, Béatrice Laurent, who edited the collection, describes the motif of the Sleeping Beauty as “a c..

From commodity fetishes to symbols: Danny Boyle’s simulations of British culture in the London Olympic Games Opening Ceremony

Hosting the Olympic Games in 2012 was a wonderful opportunity for Britain to advertise for its position as a hub in the global leisure economy. The Games Opening Ceremony, which was watched by millions of viewers nationwide and billions worldwide, whether on television or via digital applications, presented a great opportunity for the mediatisation of British culture in ways appealing to domestic and global consumers. A film director, producer, screenwriter and theatre director with international recognition, Danny Boyle was well-positioned to create a show that both conformed to Olympic ethos and presented evolving images of British cultural and technological contributions down to the digital age. Moreover Danny Boyle’s simulations in the show can be interpreted as investigations into consumerism, especially in the leisure industry. While Danny Boyle featured the network of signs surrounding consumers – from emblematic tourist hotspots to British musical and cinematographic hits –, he also suggested personal and collective re-appropriations of products to counter the commodification of goods. Thus he chose to present products crafted by human labour as symbols – rather than fetishes – for human values such as solidarity, social rights and the promotion of ethnic diversity. The use of digital technology in the show was effective to spread those values, presented as part of British nation-building, across cultural borders. Though sometimes viewed as an implied criticism of the Conservative government’s policies, the Opening Ceremony was generally praised by the British press, which was responsive to the collective symbols Danny Boyle chose to present of British culture

Béatrice Laurent (ed.), Sleeping Beauties in Victorian Britain, Cultural, Literary and Artistic Explorations of a Myth

Sleeping Beauties in Victorian Britain is a remarkable collection of articles which uses the interdisciplinary approach to examine a whole network of correspondences between the arts, literature and science, thus conjuring up a new powerful picture of Victorian culture and its tensions over the last three decades of the 19th century. In her article “The Strange Case of the Victorian Sleeping Maid”, Béatrice Laurent, who edited the collection, describes the motif of the Sleeping Beauty as “a c..

Pater’s Scholar and the Hypertext

The hypertext is becoming a new medium for scholarship, allowing quick and universal sharing of knowledge as well as providing for scholarly criticism a new text model. Walter Pater raised the issue of scholarship in his time and his view may help us assess how the hypertext could best be used in Paterian studies. The hypertext may be appropriate for highlighting intertextuality and presenting Pater’s extensive culture. However, is the author’s intention not undermined when texts are opened to other texts while Pater saw his works as fully composed structures? The problem is even more complex when it comes to hypermedia. The hypertext suggests a new area of research around time/space scale shifts in Pater’s works, for which Jacques Fontanille’s comparative semiotics provide a methodology. After raising the issue of scholarship, the hypertext then leads us to consider Pater’s style in a new light and to explore relations between literature and the spatial arts in his works

Walter Pater et la vieillesse : humanité et esthétique de la culture

International audienceOld age in Walter Pater's works is the time when the individual has the opportunity to think thoroughly upon life and culture. The feeling of growing old may first engender melancholy and bitterness as one considers all those lost days of youth. However, Pater's characters generally take the opportunity to start again and fulfill their quest of wisdom. Old people are more sympathetic with the sorrows of humankind. Looking back upon their own past, they remember their childhood and their first experiences and reflect on their own identity, on the human condition and on culture. Ageing is also an essential element in the arts, especially in architecture as buildings mature and ripen in the course of years and centuries. Old worn stones, old aesthetic forms are for future generations witnesses of immemorial times, allowing Pater's nineteenth-century arts critic to spiritually restore the past and contribute to the development of culture thoughout the ages

John Coates, The Rhetorical Use of Provocation as a Means of Persuasion in the Writings of Walter Pater (1839–1894), English Essayist and Cultural Critic. Pater as a Controversialist

Coates presents the convincing image of Walter Pater as a controversialist in a collection of 11 chapters—each focusing on a specific essay or book—which develop various aspects of his writings, from art and literary criticism to the study of myths and fiction. His method is inspired from intertextuality—an approach which was used by Billie Inman with great mastery—, here fulfilling the new aim of portraying Pater as a talented polemicist who keeps challenging conventional ideas and intellect..

Walter Pater et la vieillesse : humanité et esthétique de la culture

Old age in Walter Pater's works is the time when the individual has the opportunity to think thoroughly upon life and culture. The feeling of growing old may first engender melancholy and bitterness as one considers all those lost days of youth. However, Pater's characters generally take the opportunity to start again and fulfill their quest of wisdom. Old people are more sympathetic with the sorrows of humankind. Looking back upon their own past, they remember their childhood and their first experiences and reflect on their own identity, on the human condition and on culture. Ageing is also an essential element in the arts, especially in architecture as buildings mature and ripen in the course of years and centuries. Old worn stones, old aesthetic forms are for future generations witnesses of immemorial times, allowing Pater's nineteenth-century arts critic to spiritually restore the past and contribute to the development of culture thoughout the ages

Bénédicte Coste, Walter Pater critique littéraire. “The Excitement of the Literary Sense”

Le livre de Bénédicte Coste est de grande qualité. Il comble un manque dans les études patériennes en présentant la pensée critique de Walter Pater comme un héritage essentiel pour saisir les rapports du sujet à l’œuvre dans la période fin de siècle. Bénédicte Coste utilise simultanément deux angles d’approche, l’un théorique pour souligner la manière dont l’œuvre est abordée par le critique, l’autre temporel pour mettre en évidence le caractère novateur d’une « histoire » littéraire dominée ..

« A reality that almost amounts to illusion »

La description que Walter Pater fait de La Joconde dans The Renaissance (1873) donne une dimension symbolique à un tableau qui, pourtant, est aussi une imitation fidèle d’une personne réelle. Léonard de Vinci a doté son portrait de la beauté et de la vie en se posant en rival de la nature et en faisant de la jeune femme l’incarnation d’un idéal – celui de la Renaissance, dont l’attachement à l’expérience et aux sens trouve un écho dans l’esprit de modernité fin-de-siècle. Le passage de l’imitation au symbole est préparé par la perspective des couleurs, en particulier le sfumato, jeu de lumières et d’ombres inauguré par Vinci, qui semble couvrir la toile d’un voile opaque. Par ce procédé, le peintre exprime sa quête d’harmonie et de fécondité dans le cosmos, sens qui est détourné, selon l’interprétation décadente de Pater, en une image funèbre et diabolique.Walter Pater’s description of Mona Lisa in The Renaissance (1873) turns the famous picture – which as a portrait gives the faithful image of a real person – into a symbol of human aspirations. Considering the painter as a rival of nature, Leonardo da Vinci creates beauty and life in his art, while Mona Lisa embodies the ideal of the Renaissance with its emphasis on experience and the senses which fin-de-siècle writers find so akin to the modern spirit. The transition from mimesis to symbolism in the painting is conveyed by the colour perspective, in particular the sfumato, the interplay of light and shadow introduced by Leonardo which seems to veil the picture in darkness. Thus “behind the veil” the painter expresses his quest for harmony and fertility in the cosmos, a meaning decadent writers are keen to subvert to make the picture a symbol of corruption and passion

Pater’s Scholar and the Hypertext

International audienceThe hypertext is becoming a new medium for scholarship, allowing quick and universal sharing of knowledge as well as providing for scholarly criticism a new text model. Walter Pater raised the issue of scholarship in his time and his view may help us assess how the hypertext could best be used in Paterian studies. The hypertext may be appropriate for highlighting intertextuality and presenting Pater’s extensive culture. However, is the author’s intention not undermined when texts are opened to other texts while Pater saw his works as fully composed structures? The problem is even more complex when it comes to hypermedia. The hypertext suggests a new area of research around time/space scale shifts in Pater’s works, for which Jacques Fontanille’s comparative semiotics provide a methodology. After raising the issue of scholarship, the hypertext then leads us to consider Pater’s style in a new light and to explore relations between literature and the spatial arts in his works