Project Gutenberg 2021-08-04 Public domain in the USA. 174 Ransome, Arthur 1884 1967 Portraits and Speculations Art for life's sake -- Aloysius Bertrand -- Alphonse Daudet -- The retrospection of François Coppée -- Friedrich Nietzsche -- Walter Pater -- Remy de Gourmont -- The poetry of Yone Noguchi -- Kinetic and potential speech. Tim Lindell, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) "Portraits and Speculations" by Arthur Ransome is a collection of essays written in the early 20th century. This work explores various themes around art, literature, and philosophy, offering critical insights and reflections on a range of writers and thinkers, including Aloysius Bertrand, Alphonse Daudet, and Friedrich Nietzsche. The essays provide a platform through which Ransome examines how these figures influenced the notion of art and its relationship to life, morality, and personal experience. At the start of "Portraits and Speculations," Ransome introduces his essay on the doctrine of "art for art's sake," analyzing its emergence in Britain and its evolution in response to societal attitudes. He discusses key figures, such as Whistler and Wilde, who advocated for this principle, and goes on to elaborate on the shifting perspectives towards art that emerged as the 19th century closed. Ransome notes the dissatisfaction with the limitations of this doctrine, proposing instead that art should serve a greater function—improving our consciousness of life itself. Thus, he sets the stage for a broader discussion on the purpose and impact of art, laying the groundwork for the more detailed essays that follow. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Reading ease score: 62.9 (8th & 9th grade). Neither easy nor difficult to read. en Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- History and criticism PN Text Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches Category: Art Category: Philosophy & Ethics 293471 2025-06-26T07:10:37.280970 text/html 271555 2024-10-18T15:20:38 text/html 339701 2025-06-26T07:10:42.433910 application/epub+zip 337364 2025-06-26T07:10:38.458891 application/epub+zip 220423 2025-06-26T07:10:37.875930 application/epub+zip 419540 2025-06-26T07:10:45.500387 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 392081 2025-06-26T07:10:41.787886 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 275852 2022-09-29T17:21:29.247171 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 253585 2025-06-26T07:10:36.898944 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 233656 2024-10-18T15:20:38 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 16500 2025-06-26T07:10:45.628362 application/rdf+xml 21555 2025-06-26T07:10:38.017917 image/jpeg 2409 2025-06-26T07:10:37.945909 image/jpeg 364240 2025-06-26T07:10:37.306924 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia