"Leisure is gone." George Eliot's depiction of old leisure suggests a craving nostalgia for the leisure she remembers. At the same time, Eliot thinks of old leisure as some force that powers life itself, and she implies that without the feeling of it around, society slowly begins to wither away. Her leisure has changed into a type of leisure where simplicity and relaxation has died off. Eliot personifies leisure as a simple person that is ignorant of life.
Eliot has a strong passion towards older leisure because her idea leisure is the apotheosis of simplicity, but with the change of time from dominantly manual work to the productive industrial age, leisure has been taken over by the idea of production to better the lives of people. The way Eliot views leisure is different in that she longs for the continuation of spinning wheels, slow waggons, pedlars, and the pack-horses, but the change has rendered her hopeless of the leisure of society's current times. She tells the audience not to believe what people say about leisure because it is a vacuum for eagerness. By stating, "even idleness is eager now-eager for amusement," Eliot alienates the leisure of current time, and implicitly shows how her type of old leisure is essentially better.
The personification of leisure as a man who reads only one newspaper, is innocent of leaders, and is free from that periodicity of sensations which we call post-time, supports Eliot's notion of old leisure. By portraying an innocent, not yet corrupt society, Eliot implies that the change of leisure has done nothing but harm society itself. The man portrayed is ignorant of everything around him, and that is good because the knowledge of such topics would only cause him harm. The man is "happy in his inability to know the causes of things, preferring the things themselves."
Eliot shows a desire for the old leisure back and a passionate animosity for the what leisure has turned into in her time. She talks about the purity of preindustrial society and the devil that lives inside the change of leisure after productiveness and eagerness dominated people's minds. By personifying old leisure as a man that is innocent at heart, Eliot promotes the leisure she longs for.
I believe you answered the prompt well and thoroughly. You used really good vocabulary and examples from her poem to really add substance to your essay. Job well done!
ReplyDelete"a craving nostalgia..." part doesnt make sense.
ReplyDelete"her idea OF leisure"
minor grammatical issues, but much better than your other essay.
you sound like you know what you're talking about and that you understood the passage
I also used the word nostalgia! Eliot wants to return to the old ways and I think nostalgia is the perfect word that embodies her feelings.I totally agree with your points because they are a lot alike my points. I also like that you used quotes to back up your stements which is also very good!
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yeah this was kinda the high point of my writing today. sooo I agree that this one is better than the other
ReplyDeleteOver all you did well. However, there were some grammar errors and sometimes you used words in the wrong way. For example, "Eliot promotes the leisure she longs for." Promotes? It does work, but try using a different word or try changing the sentence structure. I liked all the examples you used, there was a good amount of them in there, as it should be and btw I love the music on your blog :).
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