File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_1997/phillitcrit.9711, message 527


Date: Mon, 10 Nov 1997 08:32:57 -0500
From: George Trail <gtrail-AT-UH.EDU>
Subject: Re: PLC: Romanticism & higher pantheism


>> You mistake the word "high" for a hierarchical designation. It is
>>  descriptive. It includes Blake, Keats, Shelley, Rossetti, the later
>Ruskin,
>>  Pater, Swinburne, Wallace Stevens, and Alan Ginsberg, for a start. And the
>>  divisions of vegetarianism are staring to anyone paying attention.
>>  g..
>
>George,
>
>What do you think of Ruskin? I'm esp. interested in Seven Lamps of
>architecture, Stones of Venice, and anything he wrote on Canaletto or Titian.
>
>pat

I find Ruskin's story, like Whitman's fascinating. There is a sense which
he spent the greatest part of his life watching the concept of
"objectivity" in which he believed, fall apart, but he had the courage of
the _loss_ of his faith to come through in the splendid later work. He is
symptomatic of the very best of the Victorians. Moral to a fault and
tortured by the idea that morality must fall with the concept of a God. His
relationship with the P.R.B. is, I think splendid, for an established lion,
and his legal encounter with Whistler is, I think paradigmatic.

I'll pull out my books and make some recommendation if you would like. He
is a prolific writer. Re the _7 Lamps_ there is a long passage from _Fors
Clavigera_(1871) that I suggest is must reading to appreciate the earlier
book, and if I could transcribe it efficiently I would render it for you
here, but do look at it. It is in the first few pages, and ostensibly about
the number 7.

cheers,
g




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