Idleness, Indolence and Leisure in English Literature

Front Matter....Pages i-xi
Introduction....Pages 1-16
Otium, Negotium, and the Fear of Acedia in the Writings of England’s Late Medieval Ricardian Poets....Pages 17-39
The Dangers and Pleasures of Filling Vacuous Time: Idleness in Early Modern Diaries....Pages 40-59
The ‘Sweet Toyle’ of Blissful Bowers: Arresting Idleness in the English Renaissance....Pages 60-85
Idleness, Apprentices and Machines in Deloney and Dekker....Pages 86-106
Idleness, Class and Gender in the Long Eighteenth Century....Pages 107-128
The Performativity of Idleness: Representations and Stagings of Idleness in the Context of Colonialism....Pages 129-153
Dramas of Idleness: The Comedy of Manners in the Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Oscar Wilde....Pages 154-173
Idleness and Creativity: Poetic Disquisitions on Idleness in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries....Pages 174-194
Versions of Working-Class Idleness: Non-Productivity and the Critique of Victorian Workaholism....Pages 195-214
Against Busyness: Idling in Victorian and Contemporary Travel Writing....Pages 215-234
Tramping: The Cult of the Vagabond in Early Twentieth-Century England....Pages 235-251
Englishness, Summer and the Pastoral of Country Leisure in Twentieth-Century Literature....Pages 252-272
Sociology of Leisure and the Wars of the Lifestyle Gurus....Pages 273-292
Epilogue: Remember that Time Is Knowledge, Health and Happiness: On the Mysterious Disappearance of Leisure....Pages 293-297
Back Matter....Pages 298-309