Walter Pater as Mythmaker

After a brief review of Pater"s interest in classical mythology, the essay discusses the applications that he made of myth in order to highlight Victorian social anxieties. In this context, special attention is given to his treatment of the Dionysian-Apollonian antithesis. With a view to demonstrating that Pater had a genuine capacity for creating myths which reflect the consciousness of his own time, the second half of the essay concentrates on his discussion, in Hegelian terms, of Leonardo"s Mona Lisa. This is followed by an examination of the impact that the Mona Lisa passage made on the work of such outstanding representatives of English Modernism as Henry James, James Joyce and W. B. Yeats.