Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind

Pirmais vāks
University of Chicago Press, 1995 - 290 lappuses
As malady or inspiration, boredom looms large in our culture. Forever egging the writer on to new feats of interest, new forms of poetry, new, more engrossing ideas and creations, boredom both haunts and motivates the literary imagination. This book offers a witty literary explanation of why this should be. Investigating boredom's imaginative functions during the last two and a half centuries, Patricia Meyer Spacks reveals the shifting cultural purposes served by this often lamented state. The figure of the "bore" entered the language in the eighteenth century, marking, Spacks suggests, a significant cultural shift. Until then boredom, though not explicitly classified as a sin, was to be strenuously resisted by spiritual endeavor. With the coming of the "bore," however, the responsibility for boredom shifted from the bored observer to whatever failed to hold his or her interest. Progress should banish boredom by making life more stimulating.

No grāmatas satura

Saturs

Preface
9
READING WRITING AND BOREDOM
11
VACUITY SATIETY AND THE ACTIVE LIFE
31
3 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE DULL
60
SELF IS A TIRESOME SUBJECT
83
A DULL BOOK IS EASILY RENOUNCED
129
THE NORMALIZATION OF BOREDOM
164
SOCIETY AND ITS DISCONTENTS
191
THE ETHICS OF BOREDOM
218
CULTURAL MIASMA
249
Works Cited
273
Index
281
Autortiesības

Citi izdevumi - Skatīt visu

Bieži izmantoti vārdi un frāzes

Atsauces uz šo grāmatu

Par autoru (1995)

Patricia Meyer Spacks is the Edgar F. Shannon Professor of English at the University of Virginia. She is the author of eleven previous books, including Desire and Truth: Functions of Plot in Eighteenth-Century English Novels and Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

Bibliogrāfiskā informācija