Walter Pater, Circe, and the Paths of Darkness

Abstract

Provides a reading of Gaston de Latour that explains the comparison of Queen Marguerite to Circe. Claims Pater is not following Homer, but drawing upon a little-known allegorizing of Circe by Giordano Bruno, who, following in the Platonic tradition of the stilnovisti, finds the imperfect and the fallen to be an avenue to the ideal. Argues the key to Gaston’s prolonged dalliance in decadent Parisian society is the Platonic “law” enunciated in the Phaedrus that the carnal cannot obliterate the spiritual. Insists Circe’s spell is neither permanent nor fatal; like Ulysses, Gaston possesses a counter-charm, a youthful consecration that cannot be wholly expunged and that transforms his perception of fallen beauty into an aesthetic and spiritual vision. Concludes that Pater, indebted to Oxford idealism, avoids John Ruskin’s exaggerated moralizing yet posits a relationship between the good and the beautiful that Oscar Wilde had denied.