[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-seo-415603-105":3,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":81,"doc-detail-415603-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"ok",{"site_id":7,"language":8,"slug":9,"title":10,"keywords":11,"description":12,"schema_data":13,"social_meta":74,"head_meta":76,"extra_data":78,"updated_unix":80},105,"en","walter-pater-style","Walter Pater - Style","","Explores how literary criticism should account for the distinctive beauties of prose and poetry within literature as a fine art. Argues against confusing distinctions that reason has separated, while also rejecting overly narrow definitions that confine prose to merely practical ends. Traces differing emphases from Dryden through Wordsworth, contrasting metrical presence and imaginative power, and develops criteria for judging excellence across verse and prose. Also examines the difficulty of separating fact from an author’s sense of it, especially across persuasive writing, science, and history.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/","Literature",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/walter-pater-style/415603/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/walter-pater-style/415603.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"WPS_1790064749","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-30","2026-09-28",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":55},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",9,{"@type":57,"mainEntity":58},"FAQPage",[59,65,69],{"name":60,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":62},"Why does the text warn against confusing distinctions between poetry and prose?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"It argues that reason has already separated them, and losing those achieved distinctions undermines critical understanding of their distinctive excellence.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"What false limitation does the text criticize regarding the proper functions of prose?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"It criticizes the attempt to restrict prose to mainly practical ends, treating it as if it cannot contain imaginative power and its own poetic qualities.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"How does the text relate Dryden and Wordsworth to the debate over prose and poetry?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"It notes Dryden emphasized the distinction between poetry and prose but that his verse showed a prosaic excellence that affected it. It then presents Wordsworth as enlarging literature’s poetic force and framing the distinction in terms of metrical beauty or restraint.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":75,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":77,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":79,"site_id":7},415603,1790931839,{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":83},"success",[84,88,91,95,100,105,110,115,119,122,126],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":85,"show_sort_weight":86,"slug":87},"Story & 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\nStyle………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………1  \nWalter Pater………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………1  \nStyle  \nWalter Pater  \nVisit us at http://www.kessinger.net  \nSINCE all progress of mind consists for the most part in differentiation,in the resolutionof an obscure and complex object into its component aspects,it is surely the stupidest oflosses to confuse things which right reason has put asunder,to lose the sense of achieveddistinctions,the distinction between poetry and prose,for instance,or,to speak moreexactly,between the laws and characteristic excellences of verse and prose composition.On the other hand,those who have dwelt most emphatically on the distinction betweenprose and verse,prose and poetry,may sometimes have been tempted to limit the properfunctions of prose too narrowly;and this again is at least false economy,as being,ineffect,the renunciation of a certain means or faculty,in a world where after all we mustneeds make the most of things.Critical efforts to limit art a priori,by anticipationsregarding the natural incapacity of the material with which this or that artist works,as thesculptor with solid form,or the prose-writer with the ordinary language of men,arealways liable to be discredited by the facts of artistic production;and while prose isactually found to be a coloured thing with Bacon,picturesque with Livy and Carlyle,musical with Cicero and Newman,mystical and intimate with Plato and Michelet and SirThomas Browne,exalted or florid,it may be,with Milton and Taylor,it will be useless toprotest that it can be nothing at all,except something very tamely and narrowly confinedto mainly practical ends —a kind of \"good round-hand;\"as useless as the protest thatpoetry might not touch prosaic subjects as with Wordsworth,or an abstruse matter aswith Browning,or treat contemporary life nobly as with Tennyson.In subordination toone essential beauty in all good literary style,in all literature as a fine art,as there aremany beauties of poetry so the beauties of prose are many,and it is the business ofcriticism to estimate them as such;as it is good in the criticism of verse to look for thosehard,logical,and quasiprosaic excellences which that too has,or needs.To find in thepoem,amid the flowers,the allusions,the mixed perspectives,of Lycidas for instance,thethought,the logical structure:—how wholesome!how delightful!as to identify in prosewhat we call the poetry,the imaginative power,not treating it as out of place and a kindof vagrant intruder,but by way of an estimate of its rights,that is,of its achieved powers,  \nStyle  \nthere.  \nDryden,with the characteristic instinct of his age,loved to emphasise the distinctionbetween poetry and prose,the protest against their confusion with each other,comingwith somewhat diminished effect from one whose poetry was so prosaic.In truth,hissense of prosaic excellence affected his verse rather than his prose,which is not onlyfervid,richly figured,poetic,as we say,but vitiated,all unconsciously,by many ascanning line.Setting up correctness,that humble merit of prose,as the central literaryexcellence,he is really a less correct writer than he may seem,still with an imperfectmastery of the relative pronoun.It might have been foreseen that,in the rotations ofmind,the province of poetry in prose would find its assertor;and,a century afterDryden,amid very different intellectual needs,and with the need therefore of greatmodifications in literary form,the range of the poetic force in literature was effectivelyenlarged by Wordsworth.The true distinction between prose and poetry he regarded asthe almost technical or accidental one of the absence or presence of metrical beauty,or,say!metrical restraint;and for him the opposition came to be between verse and proseof course;but,as the essential dichotomy in this matter,between imaginative andunimaginative writing,parallel to De Qu","cbCainqynBSQaJxb","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCainqynBSQaJxb","pdf",2308718,52,"English","# Style\n## Prose vs poetry distinctions\n## The business of criticism in style\n## Dryden and Wordsworth on prose and verse\n## Fact, imagination, and literary form","[{\"question\":\"Why does the text warn against confusing distinctions between poetry and prose?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that reason has already separated them, and losing those achieved distinctions undermines critical understanding of their distinctive excellence.\"},{\"question\":\"What false limitation does the text criticize regarding the proper functions of prose?\",\"answer\":\"It criticizes the attempt to restrict prose to mainly practical ends, treating it as if it cannot contain imaginative power and its own poetic qualities.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the text relate Dryden and Wordsworth to the debate over prose and poetry?\",\"answer\":\"It notes Dryden emphasized the distinction between poetry and prose but that his verse showed a prosaic excellence that affected it. It then presents Wordsworth as enlarging literature’s poetic force and framing the distinction in terms of metrical beauty or restraint.\"}]","Walter Pater - Style | PDF",1790602089]