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.
Catholic University of Sacro Cuore of Milan, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0001-8434-0384
Chapter Title
La riscoperta dell’ozio nella letteratura inglese di fine Ottocento: Robert Louis Stevenson, Jerome K. Jerome, Oscar Wilde
Authors
Federico Bellini
Language
Italian
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0319-7.79
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2024
Copyright Information
© 2024 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
Idee di lavoro e di ozio per la nostra civiltà
Editors
Giovanni Mari, Francesco Ammannati, Stefano Brogi, Tiziana Faitini, Arianna Fermani, Francesco Seghezzi, Annalisa Tonarelli
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
1894
Publication Year
2024
Copyright Information
© 2024 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0319-7
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0245-9
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0319-7
eISBN (epub)
979-12-215-0320-3
Series Title
Studi e saggi
Series ISSN
2704-6478
Series E-ISSN
2704-5919