Chapter La riscoperta dell’ozio nella letteratura inglese di fine Ottocento: Robert Louis Stevenson, Jerome K. Jerome, Oscar Wilde
Abstract
The Victorian era is often considered to have been dominated by the 'Gospel of work', that is, the ideology that identified work as one of the supreme virtues. However, starting from about the 1870s, this ideology started to be more and more radically questioned by several writers who claimed in favour of idleness. In this essay, I analyse and compare three of the most relevant British partisans of idleness of the period – Robert Louis Stevenson, Jerome K. Jerome and Oscar Wilde –, in order to show how idleness played a key role in the development of their poetic and how they contributed to its reevaluation as an alternative value for the modern times.
Keywords
Idleness; work; Stevenson Robert Louis; Jerome K. Jerome; Oscar WildeDOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0319-7.79ISBN
9791221503197, 9791221503197Publisher
Firenze University PressPublisher website
https://www.fupress.com/Publication date and place
Florence, 2024Series
Studi e saggi, 257Classification
General and world history