Moments, Monuments, and Modernism
Moments, Monuments, and Modernism
The coda juxtaposes two canonical aesthetic positions from the nineteenth century that continued to inform twentieth century views of art: Mathew Arnold’s pledge of faith in “the best that is known and thought” and Walter Pater’s exhortation to burn with a gem-like flame. These criteria provoke a crucial question: is the belief in critical judgment at odds with the criterion of intensity for intensity’s sake? I suggest that these apparently irreconcilable views became the defining traits of modernism, which sought to retain them both in agitated interplay rather than attempting a reconciliation.
Keywords: Mathew Arnold, Walter Pater, critical judgment, intensity, modernism
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