Bonjour Paresse: Literary Waste and Recycling in Book 4 of Gower’s Confessio Amantis
Bonjour Paresse: Literary Waste and Recycling in Book 4 of Gower’s Confessio Amantis
Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture
This lecture discusses the durable hostility to idleness, particularly idle reading. It presents a claim that late medieval, pre-Reformation textual practice is not driven by a need to define and expel cultural waste; rather, idle reading is an important part of a cultural economy. The lecture concludes that a literary education can easily feed the psyche's capacity for delusive satisfaction.
Keywords: idleness, idle reading, textual practice, cultural waste, cultural economy, literary education, delusive satisfaction
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