Bułat-Silva, Zuzanna. (2020). Lexical-Semantic Analysis of ‘Comfort’: A Contrastive Perspective of English, European Portuguese, and Polish. In Dorothee Birke, Stella Butter (Eds.), Comfort in Contemporary Literature and Culture: The Challenges of a Concept. (21-42). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839449028-002
Abstract
This paper investigates the relationship between the concepts of comfort and sloth. While we intuitively assume a proportional correspondence between the two – more comfort results in more sloth and vice versa – I draw on the writings of American author Thomas Pynchon to elucidate why such a straightforward conclusion fails. In fact, Pynchon points to many possible modes of sloth in different cultural contexts, which I label »Writerly Sloth«, »Readerly Sloth«, »Watcherly Sloth«, and »Laugherly Sloth«, that all individually bring about a characteristic form of comfort and discomfort. Following Pynchon’s concise overview of the historical ramifications of the philosophy of sloth since Thomas Aquinus, I attempt to connect the poetics of slothfulness with specific events of US-American literature and politics from within their respective zeitgeists, such as the refusal to work during the heyday of Wall Street capitalism or watching TV in California in the 1960s.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
