Synopsis
Pater's novel was painstakingly composed over the course of six years in the 1880s to stand as both the most complete exposition of his philosophy and as a concrete example of his aesthetic ideals. The narrative follows the fictional character, Marius, from boyhood through to his education and young manhood as he searches for the governing principles of a suitable life philosophy in the turbulent political and social landscape of Aurelian Rome (2nd century A.D.). Under this general framework, Pater is able to display his own particular version of the religious and philosophical issues of the time. Marius examines and rejects the principles of stoicism, hedonism, Heraclitean cosmology, the pagan Roman beliefs, and the ethics of Marcus Aurelius--even the ideals of Epicurus are unsatisfactory. Eventually, he clings to the nascent form of Christianity as his salvation, and more or less becomes a martyr to save a Christian friend. The personal justifications for his choice, however, are partially obscured by Pater's broader concerns in dealing with the pivotal historical moment during which art, morality, and science were all subsumed by the Christian religion.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1985-06-01 |
| Size | | Height: | 8.5 in | | Width: | 6.0 in | | Thickness: | 1.8 in | | Weight: | 24.0 oz |
Industry Reviews
"The wise labor that has been spent upon the book has effaced all marks of labor; but, undoubtedly each sentence has been often touched by the file which, to use an expression that the author is fond of repeating, adds more value for each particle of gold which it removes."
Academy - J. M. Gray (03/21/1885)
"['Marius the Epicurean'] is not only the supreme intellectual and artistic effort of Pater's career, but it represents the ultimate reach of the dialectical impulse that had governed so much of his earlier career. More over, the ethical and intellectual thrust of Pater's dialectic is closely parallel to the control line of Matthew Arnold's development in the sixties and seventies."
"Hebrew and Hellene in Victorian England" - David J. De Laura (01/01/1969)
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