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The Anxieties of Idleness: Idleness in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and
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The Anxieties of Idleness: Idleness in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture Hardcover - 2003

by Sarah Jordan

From the publisher

The Anxieties of Idleness: Idleness in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture investigates the preoccupation with idleness that haunts the British eighteenth century. Jordan argues that as Great Britain began to define itself as a nation during this period, one important quality it claimed was industriousness. However, this claim was undermined and complicated by many factors, such as leisure's importance to class status. Thus idleness was a subject of intense anxiety. One result of this anxiety was an increased surveillance of the supposed idleness of those members of society with less power to wield: the working classes, the nonwhite races, and women. Jordan analyzes how the "idleness" of these groups is figured, in traditional literature and in extra-literary works. Idleness was also a concern for writers of the day, as writing became a money-earning profession. Jordan examines the lives and works of two writers especially obsessed with idleness, Samuel Johnson and William Cowper.

Details

  • Title The Anxieties of Idleness: Idleness in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture
  • Author Sarah Jordan
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Bucknell University Press, Cransbury NJ
  • Date 2003
  • Illustrated Yes
  • ISBN 9780838755235 / 0838755232
  • Library of Congress subjects English literature - 18th century - History, Working class writings, English - History
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2002026056
  • Dewey Decimal Code 820.935

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