Carolyn Williams is Chair and Professor of English at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She is the author most recently of Gilbert and Sullivan: Gender, Genre, Parody.

• Part One: Opening Conclusions1. "That Which Is Without"2. "The Inward World of Thought and Feeling"3. Aestheticism4. Answerable Style5. Historicism6. Aesthetic Historicism and "Aesthetic Poverty"7. The Poetics of RevivalPart Two: Figural Strategies in The Renaissance1. Legend and Historicity2. Myths of History: The Last Supper3. The Historicity of Myth4. Myths of History: The Mona Lisa5. Types and Figures6. Low and High Relief: "Luca Della Robbia"7. The Senses of ReliefPart Three: Historical Novelty and Marius the Epicurean1. The Transparent Hero2. Autobiography of the Zeitgeist3. The Transcendental Induction4. Typology as Narrative Form5. Typological Ladders6. Christian Historicism7. Literary History as "Appreciation"Part Four: "Recovery as Reminiscence": The Greek Studies and Plato and Platonism1. Histories of Myth: The Greek Studies2. The House Beautiful and Its Interpreter3. The Philosophy of Mythic Form4. The History of Philosophy5. The Anecdote of the Shell6. Dialogue and Dialectic7. Paterian Recollection: The Anagogic Mind

In addition to her superb analysis of the style and thought of Pater's individual writing, demonstrates that Pater was far more philosophically coherent and complex, and of far more interest for contemporary critical thought, than has previously been recognized. Her book is the best critical study on Pater yet written.(Victorian Studies) A convincing account of the unity of Pater's thought and probably the most detailed treatment ever attempted of the intricacies of his prose; a book that is likely to be an essential source for future readings of Pater.(Nineteenth-Century Literature)