The One and the Many

Abstract

Abstract The philosophical question of the One and the Many is the subject of Chapter 5, which explores Pater’s interest in metempsychosis (the many persons through whom the individual transmigrating soul passes), one of the organizing perspectives for his thought. I trace the philosophical background to metempsychosis and show how it is linked in Pater’s writings with the Platonic idea of anamnēsis (knowledge as recollection). The second half of the essay connects metempsychosis and anamnēsis to Pater’s use of the Gods in Exile theme, to offer a new reading of Pater’s Imaginary Portrait ‘Apollo in Picardy’ (1893) in relation to the sections on Pythagoras in Plato and Platonism (published in the same year).