Idleness, Indolence and Leisure in English Literature

M. Fludernik, M. Nandi, M. Fludernik, M. Nandi

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137404008
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Idleness, Indolence and Leisure in English Literature is the first study to provide transhistorical perspectives and cutting-edge critical analyses of debates concerning idleness in English literature. The topicality of the subject is emphasized by two pieces of sociological analysis.

1

Otium, Negotium, and the Fear of Acedia in the Writings of England’s Late Medieval Ricardian Poets

Gregory M. Sadlek

Now you are in no way ordered to do anything except to do no work and to learn how to rest.

(Petrarch)

But los of tyme shendeth us […] / It wol nat come agayn, withouten drede […] Lat us nat mowlen thus in ydelnesse. (‘But lost time ruins us. […] Without a doubt, time will not come again […] Let us not grow mouldy in idleness’.)

(Chaucer’s Host)

1.1 Introduction: Ricardian Poets on Personal Otium

Having written De vita solitaria in 1346 and De otio religioso in 1356, Francis Petrarch might well be considered the great fourteenth-century champion of otium, which can be roughly translated as ‘leisure’.¹ In the first epigraph printed above, for example, he urges religious monks in the strongest terms to withdraw from labour and seek repose. Nevertheless, this quotation gives a rather false impression of his overall project, for in both his treatises, he is a strong proponent of productive otium, otium negotiosum, rather than simple idleness.² Indeed, in both, Petrarch defends the importance of withdrawal from the world of busy practical labour, negotium, to pursue the life of solitary intellectual pursuits, a life dedicated to thought and writing. For religious monks, this meant a withdrawal from ‘the world’ to the life of study and quiet contemplation. For secular scholars like Petrarch, who drew heavily on a classical ideal of otium as found in the writings of Cicero, Horace, Seneca and the Scipios (Bondanella 2008: 22), this meant a withdrawal from the cacophony of urban living and a retreat to the countryside, to enjoy the companionship of good books and close male friends. Far from being idle, however, both the dedicated monk and the secular scholar were to use their leisure time to produce something of value, such as new writings. Hence, Petrarch quotes Scipio the Elder, who reportedly commented that ‘numquam se minus otiosum quam cum otiosus, nec minus solum quam cum solus esset’ (Petrarch 1955: 522; ‘he was never less idle than when at leisure, and never less lonely than when alone’).

One seeks in vain for a similar militant encomium to otium in the writings of the major English Ricardian poets, who produced their literary works about a generation after Petrarch, during what may be characterized as the golden age of English medieval literature.³ All obviously valued intellectual pursuits and were able to produce major works of literature in their lifetimes, but none emphatically embraced the classical ideal of otium enunciated by Petrarch in De vita solitaria. Instead, their writings were more influenced by Christian teachings that insisted upon the importance of keeping busy and of living within accepted social models of labour. Geoffrey Chaucer knew Petrarch’s works well, but the self-presentation we are given in the House of Fame shows a poet who engages in rigorous negotium during the day; only at night does he find the time to spend on such leisurely pursuits such as the writing of poetry, though, due to fatigue, with a ‘dazed look’.⁴

It is true that in the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women, Chaucer presents himself as a dedicated reader and a preserver of old wisdom.⁵ He also presents himself as a devotee of the month of May, when he has the leisure to take time off from his books and walk in the flower-covered meadows to pay tribute to the daisy. But he immediately emphasizes that this time of pure leisure is due to the ‘holyday’ and that it is an unusual occurrence (1987: F, II. 33–9). While this could be interpreted as a celebration of otium, in the larger context it is clear that Chaucer places himself in the May fields in order that he may receive instructions for his next literary commission: to write the Legend of Good Women. Here Chaucer the narrative persona allows himself to be scolded by the God of Love for his previous works because they not only discouraged people from loving (as in his translation of the Roman de la rose) but also denigrated women as untrustworthy (as in Troilus and Criseyde; Chaucer 1987: F, II. 320–34). As a penance for these works, he is ordered to write the Legend of Good Women, showing how it is more often the case that women are betrayed by men rather than vice versa. So, rather than an encomium to otium, this Prologue is much more of a challenge to the writer to get back to work.

It is also true that, at the end of the Confessio Amantis, the privilege of clerical otium is conferred upon the protagonist John Gower, another Ricardian poet. The poet writes:

A Peire of Bedes blak as Sable

[Venus] tok and heng my necke aboute;

Upon the gaudes al withoute

Was write of gold, Por reposer. (Gower 1979: 8, ll. 2904–7)⁶

Venus took a pair of beads, black as sable, and hung them around my neck. Upon the ornamented rosary beads was written in gold ‘for reposing’.

But repose is given to Gower not as a positive gift for writing, but as a consolation prize because he is found to be too old to serve in Venus’s court. Amans/Gower receives the repose of an aged man and is instructed to spend his time praying for peace. This, then, is hardly a strong endorsement of poetic otium negotiosum.

And in the C-text of Piers Ploughman, William Langland, yet a third Ricardian poet, associates himself with ‘lollares’, idlers, because he does not perform agricultural labour and instead spends his time writing poetry.⁷ He is accosted by personified Reason, who notes that Langland looks very much like an idle man (Langland 2011: C, 5, l. 27) and asks what kind of occupation he can serve in. Langland replies that he is unfit for agricultural work, and, moreover, that he is a cleric. Therefore, echoing the standard understanding of the social compact of the Three Estates, he has no obligation to labour in the fields, nor is he obliged to take up arms. His work is to say prayers for the salvation of souls. Although he admits that he has sometime misspent his time, he concludes:

Forthy rebuke me ryhte nauhte, Resoun, Y ȝow praye;

For in my consience Y knowe what Crist wolde Y wrouhte.

Preyeres of a parfit man and penaunce discrete

Is the leuest labour Þat Oure Lord pleseth. (Langland 2011: C, 5, ll. 82–5)

Therefore rebuke me not, Reason, I pray you, for in my conscience I know very well what Christ wants me to do. The prayers of a perfect man and well considered penance are the dearest labour that pleases the Lord.

Of course, this rationalization covers the time that the narrator, Long Will/Langland, spends in clerical duties, but it obviously does not answer for the time he spends writing poetry, which he skilfully suppresses in the C-text. He does not ignore his poetry-making, however; in the B-text, where he encounters a character named ymaginatif, which is the power to form mental images, Langland writes:

‘I am Ymaginatif,’ quod he; ‘ydel was I neuere,

Thouȝ I sitte by myself, in siknesse ne in helþe.

I haue folwed þee, in feiþ, þise fyue and fourty wynter.

[…]

Amende þee while þow myȝt; þow hast ben warned ofte

[…]

And þow medlest þee wiþ makynge – and myȝtest go seye þi Sauter,

And bidde for hem þat ȝyueþ þee breed; for þer are bokes ynowe

To telle men what Dowel is, Dobet and Dobest boþe.

(B, 12, ll. 1–3; 10, 16–18)

I am ymaginatif, he said, and I was never idle. Though I sit by myself in sickness and in health. I have followed you, in faith, these forty-five winters. […] Amend yourself while you might, for you have been often warned. […] And you dabble with poetry-making when you might go read your Psalter, and pray for those that have given you bread, for there are enough books to tell men what Do Well is, and Do Better, and Do Best.

Here Imaginative scolds Long Will/Langland for ‘dabbling with’ poetry when he should be praying. This, too, is hardly a ringing endorsement of poetic otium. On the contrary, Langland’s treatment of his own manner of living, although it is rationalized through an appeal to the division of labour in Three Estates theory, betrays an uneasy conscience over the otium he takes for himself as a poet.

In fact, an uneasiness about indulging in otium and an inclination to encourage proper work both play key roles in the writings of all three. Especially Chaucer and Langland move beyond the traditional Christian understanding of work – that is, a punishment for sin as well as an antidote to idleness – toward a fuller, late-medieval appreciation of the value of labour productivity. Nevertheless, as I hope to demonstrate, the influence of otium can be found, either implicitly or explicitly, running through the narratives of all four of the major Ricardian poets, including the anonymous Gawain-poet. Moreover, if we delve deeply into their writings, Chaucer, Langland, and Gower end up, surprisingly, not far from Petrarch on the question of otium.

1.2 Otium: Ancient and Medieval Backgrounds

The Middle Ages in the West inherited the concept of otium from classical Roman culture. Otium, the meaning of which developed in contrast to the occupation of war and fighting, first meant the state in which one could engage in non-warlike activities, such as tending one’s estate. Later, it came to be contrasted with engagement in practical matters or business affairs, nec-otium or negotium (André 1966: 20–1, 125–6). As J. M. André has shown, otium was a complicated concept, with multiple, often narrowly differentiated meanings, and, indeed, it developed both positive and negative connotations. On the one hand, for example, otium negotiosum was to be a time of active and productive activity, ‘joyous work’. On the other hand, otium otiosum was associated with non-productive or frivolous use of time (André 1966: 22). While the aristocratic ideal was encapsulated in the concept of the former, idlers, poets, and lovers were judged guilty of the latter. Ovid, who presented erotic pursuits as a form of labour in his Ars amatoria, playfully rejected the charge of being otiosus, yet in the Remedia amoris he soberly accepted the accusation and instructed his readers, if they wished to free themselves from the grip of love, to get to work (Ovid 1961: ll. 135–40).

Otium passed into medieval culture with positive and negative connotations intact, but it took on its particularly medieval cast from the new cultural surroundings into which it was placed. On the one hand, it held particular meaning based on the classical medieval social model of the Three Estates, which first articulated in the eleventh century (Duby 1980: 13). Under this model, the only class that ‘laboured’ was the Third Estate, the class of the vast majority of medieval citizens. In theory, the privilege of otium was granted to the First and Second Estates, particularly contemplatives and the aristocrats (50–3). As enunciated in Petrarch, religious men and women enjoyed the otium necessary to study religious literature and to contemplate divine mysteries. Aristocrats enjoyed otium in the sense that they were free of the obligation to labour in the fields. Writing in the eleventh century, Adelbero de Laon, for example, notes ‘Triplex ergo Dei domus est quae creditur una. / Nunc orant, alii pugnant aliique laborant’. (‘The house of God, therefore, which seems one, is triple: Some pray, others fight, and still others labour.’).⁸ Nevertheless, in theory, the clergy and aristocrats were allowed the privilege of otium negotiosum, not otium otiosum. Monks and clerics as well as aristocracy could be guilty of idleness and time wasting if they did not use their time in productive ways. Aristocrats could be denigrated if they did not engage in combat, either in earnest or in game, as happens in Chrétien de Troyes’ romance Erec et Enide (1987: ll. 2421–4). With respect to the life of monks, in a later part of the De otia monastica, Petrarch makes it clear that monks were to avoid unproductive idleness and cites the Book...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Notes on the Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Otium, Negotium, and the Fear of Acedia in the Writings of England’s Late Medieval Ricardian Poets
• 2 The Dangers and Pleasures of Filling Vacuous Time: Idleness in Early Modern Diaries
• 3 The ‘Sweet Toyle’ of Blissful Bowers: Arresting Idleness in the English Renaissance
• 4 Idleness, Apprentices and Machines in Deloney and Dekker
• 5 Idleness, Class and Gender in the Long Eighteenth Century
• 6 The Performativity of Idleness: Representations and Stagings of Idleness in the Context of Colonialism
• 7 Dramas of Idleness: The Comedy of Manners in the Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Oscar Wilde
• 8 Idleness and Creativity: Poetic Disquisitions on Idleness in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries
• 9 Versions of Working-Class Idleness: Non-Productivity and the Critique of Victorian Workaholism
• 10 Against Busyness: Idling in Victorian and Contemporary Travel Writing
• 11 Tramping: The Cult of the Vagabond in Early Twentieth-Century England
• 12 Englishness, Summer and the Pastoral of Country Leisure in Twentieth-Century Literature
• 13 Sociology of Leisure and the Wars of the Lifestyle Gurus
• Epilogue: Remember that Time Is Knowledge, Health and Happiness: On the Mysterious Disappearance of Leisure
• Select Bibliography on Idleness, Indolence and Leisure
• Author Index
• Subject Index