Idleness, Indolence and Leisure in English Literature

Marc Notes: 'Idleness, Indolence and Leisure in English Literature' is the first study to provide transhistorical perspectives and cutting-edge critical analyses of debates concerning idleness in English literature. The topicality of the subject is emphasized by two pieces of sociological analysis. Biographical Note: Monika Fludernik is Professor of English at the University of Freiburg, Germany. She is the author of several monographs, among them Towards a 'Natural' Narratology (1996) and has (co-)edited numerous collections, most recently Postclassical Narratology: Approaches and Analyses (2010) and Beyond Cognitive Metaphor Theory: Perspectives on Literary Metaphor (2011). Miriam Nandi is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Freiburg, Germany, and alumna of the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University. She is the author of two monographs and has published on early modern autobiographical writing, critical mixed-race studies and postcolonial theory. Table of Contents: List of illustrationsNotes on the ContributorsIntroduction; Monika Fludernik and Miriam Nandi 1. Otium, Negotium and the Fear of Acedia in the Writings of England's Late Medieval Ricardian Poets; Gregory M. Sadlek 2. The Dangers and Pleasures of Filling Vacuous Time: Idleness in Early Modern Diaries; Miriam Nandi3. The 'Sweet Toyle' of Blissful Bowers: Arresting Idleness in the English Renaissance; Abigail Scherer4. Idleness, Apprentices, and Machines in Deloney and Dekker; Emily Anglin 5. Idleness, Class, and Gender in the Long Eighteenth Century; Sarah Jordan6. The Performativity of Idleness: Representations and Stagings of Idleness in the Context of Colonialism; Monika Fludernik 7. Dramas of Idleness: The Comedy of Manners in the Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Oscar Wilde; Kerstin Fest 8. Idleness and Creativity: Poetic Disquisitions on Idleness in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries; Richard Adelman9. Versions of Working-Class Idleness: Non-Productivity and the Critique of Victorian Workaholism; Benjamin Kohlmann10. Against Busyness: Idling in Victorian and Contemporary Travel Writing; Barbara Korte11. Tramping: The Cult of the Vagabond in Early Twentieth-Century England; Simon Featherstone12. Englishness, Summer, and the Pastoral of Country Leisure in Twentieth-Century Literature; Leonie Wanitzek13. Sociology of Leisure and the Wars of the Lifestyle Gurus; Ken RobertsEpilogue: Remember that Time is Knowledge, Health and Happiness: On the Mysterious Disappearance of Leisure; Hartmut RosaBibliography Index

Contributor Bio:  Fludernik, Monika Monika Fludernik is Professor of English Literature at the University of Freiburg. She has published widely in the areas of narratology, post-colonial theory and eighteenth-century aesthetics. Author of Reading Eating Disorders (Lang 2003).