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English Literature / Unit 14   ENL 1340 short lesson, about 20 seconds

The Aesthetic Movement in Verse

Captions available

The idea

Aestheticism held that art should be beautiful rather than teach a lesson, the slogan being "art for art's sake." It flourished in the eighteen seventies and eighties with Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde, and the anchor notes aesthetes made art a substitute religion.

In practice

Beauty, not morals.

Where people slip

Aestheticism rejects the didactic.

Your place on the trail

Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.

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