{"title":"De Quincey's Slowness","authors":"Jonathan Sachs","doi":"10.3366/rom.2021.0519","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Much has been said about De Quincey's fascination with the speed and mobility of contemporary life. This essay argues that we need also to recognize an acute sense of slowness that develops alongside De Quincey's fascination with speed. Activities like walking and reading and the figure of the crocodile offer examples of slowness that complicate De Quincey's fixation with speed. Ultimately, this essay suggests that the fraught relationship between speed and slowness that colours De Quincey's experiences of media and mobility clarifies the emotional landscape of the ‘Confessions’, marked as it is by drawn-out affective experiences, including boredom, longing, and nostalgia.","PeriodicalId":42939,"journal":{"name":"Romanticism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2021-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Romanticism","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3366/rom.2021.0519","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Much has been said about De Quincey's fascination with the speed and mobility of contemporary life. This essay argues that we need also to recognize an acute sense of slowness that develops alongside De Quincey's fascination with speed. Activities like walking and reading and the figure of the crocodile offer examples of slowness that complicate De Quincey's fixation with speed. Ultimately, this essay suggests that the fraught relationship between speed and slowness that colours De Quincey's experiences of media and mobility clarifies the emotional landscape of the ‘Confessions’, marked as it is by drawn-out affective experiences, including boredom, longing, and nostalgia.
期刊介绍:
The most distinguished scholarly journal of its kind edited and published in Britain, Romanticism offers a forum for the flourishing diversity of Romantic studies today. Focusing on the period 1750-1850, it publishes critical, historical, textual and bibliographical essays prepared to the highest scholarly standards, reflecting the full range of current methodological and theoretical debate. With an extensive reviews section, Romanticism constitutes a vital international arena for scholarly debate in this liveliest field of literary studies.