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 --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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