Abstract
Review] Idleness and Aesthetic Consciousness, 1815-1900
Highlights
Idleness and Aesthetic Consciousness, 1815-1900 comprises eight sections: an introduction, five main chapters, a conclusion, and an epilogue
Richard Adelman neatly summarises his latest study as ‘an attempt to reconstruct and explore the nineteenth century’s many debates over idleness and aesthetic consciousness’.1. This prompts an important question right away: what is ‘aesthetic consciousness’? Adelman is reluctant to provide an exact definition of the term, he indicates that it is a state of mind brought about by idle contemplation and ‘the free play of imagination’ 2, a state that allows the contemplator to apprehend his or her surroundings before they go on to encounter a higher knowledge or truth about their surroundings/that object
For the many Romantic poets who describe this ‘transcendent repose’ in their various writings, it is ‘always [an] obliquely but powerfully and earnestly, political’activity because it opposes the burgeoning ideology that belongs to the work-centric, commercial society in which they were writing.[3]
Summary
Idleness and Aesthetic Consciousness, 1815-1900 comprises eight sections: an introduction, five main chapters, a conclusion, and an epilogue.
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