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Pleasure, Happiness and Romanticism: A Critical Survey
Author(s) -
Boyson Rowan
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
literature compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.158
H-Index - 4
ISSN - 1741-4113
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2010.00726.x
Subject(s) - pleasure , romanticism , happiness , theme (computing) , context (archaeology) , ideology , deconstruction (building) , aesthetics , affect (linguistics) , psychology , romance , literature , sociology , psychoanalysis , social psychology , history , philosophy , art , politics , political science , law , ecology , archaeology , communication , biology , computer science , operating system , neuroscience
This survey article offers a brief history of literary studies of pleasure, and describes the intellectual context in which these appeared in the 1980s and 90s, when consumption was a major theme in the humanities and social sciences. More recently, a turn to ‘happiness’ in economics and neuroscience invites a new attention to ideas of positive affect in texts of the Romantic period. Other shifts, including the return to prominence of the aesthetic, and a turn away from certain aspects of ideology critique and deconstruction, have also encouraged a new look at pleasure in Romanticism, especially in the writing of Wordsworth. It details some recent publications on this theme, and points to potential avenues for future research.