Book contents
- Idleness and Aesthetic Consciousness, 1815–1900
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
- Idleness and Aesthetic Consciousness, 1815–1900
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Idleness, Moral Consciousness and Sociability
- Chapter 2 Political Economy and the Logic of Idleness
- Chapter 3 The ‘Gospel of Work’
- Chapter 4 Cultural Theory and Aesthetic Failure
- Chapter 5 The Gothicization of Idleness
- Conclusion
- Epilogue Substitutive Satisfaction
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
Chapter 4 - Cultural Theory and Aesthetic Failure
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 July 2018
- Idleness and Aesthetic Consciousness, 1815–1900
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
- Idleness and Aesthetic Consciousness, 1815–1900
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Idleness, Moral Consciousness and Sociability
- Chapter 2 Political Economy and the Logic of Idleness
- Chapter 3 The ‘Gospel of Work’
- Chapter 4 Cultural Theory and Aesthetic Failure
- Chapter 5 The Gothicization of Idleness
- Conclusion
- Epilogue Substitutive Satisfaction
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
Summary
We saw, in Chapter 3, how idle contemplation is repeatedly villainized in mid-century theorizations of ideal labour, as well as in the meditative poetry of aesthetic consciousness that stands in that ideology’s shadow. The field we are to turn to now – the cultural theory of the 1850s, 1860s and 1870s – represents, by contrast, a discourse that accommodates aesthetic consciousness in strikingly positive terms even as contemporary poetry turns against that category.
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- Information
- Idleness and Aesthetic Consciousness, 1815–1900 , pp. 114 - 148Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2018