Idle Pursuits

Download or read book Idle Pursuits written by Virginia Krause and published by University of Delaware Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Throughout this study, idleness is shown to be a key element of self-presentation beginning with the figure of the idle aristocrat. The extravagant display of a life of leisure made Gilles de Rais the icon of aristocratic idleness. But even the hardworking humanist was anxious to assume a studied posture of idleness. If both figures were eager to display idleness, it was because oisivete was an important source of what modern theorists have termed symbolic capital. Finally, the Renaissance also saw the birth of a new figure of the "idler": the consumer of leisure. For it was leisure itself along with chivalric and amorous adventure that was consumed by the readers of the popular Amadis series. At once a commodity and form of capital, idleness (otium) clearly belonged to the realm of social exchanges ostensibly reserved for affairs (negotium)."--BOOK JACKET.