ABSTRACT
The following essay challenges a common view of the career of Walter Pater: that he criticized Victorian religious beliefs and social mores in his first book, Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873), then spent the rest of his life backing down. 1 Such a retreat appears to be evident in his decision to delete the notorious Conclusion from the second edition, now retitled The Renaissance (1877). 2 Nevertheless, I will argue that his decision was made in order to avoid entangling himself in further arguments with his critics at Oxford, critics who had already shown an ability to damage his academic career. At the same time, he added to the opening chapter an attack on religious and moral bigotry that refers to his own difficulties at Oxford. Writers on Pater have scarcely noticed another major change in the second edition, the addition to the first chapter of passages discussing The Friendship of Amis and Amile,a thirteenth-century French romance centered on male friendship. 3 Analysis of the romance and of Pater's interpretation indicates that in adding this discussion, he made both more explicit and more nuanced his view of the value of the body in human relationships and of the importance of libidinal elements in Christianity and in medieval culture. His historical analysis parallels a theoretical analysis whereby Pater argues the necessity and worth of the libidinal aspects of culture generally. 4 The rapprochement with Christianity that a critic like David DeLaura sees in Pater's revision exists, but alongside his continuing opposition to organized religion.
