A Biography of Loneliness

Despite 21st-century fears of an 'epidemic' of loneliness, its history has been sorely neglected. A Biography of Loneliness offers a radically new interpretation of loneliness as an emotional language and experience. Using letters and diaries, philosophical tracts, political discussions, and medical literature from the eighteenth century to the present, historian of the emotions Fay Bound Alberti argues that loneliness is not an ahistorical, universal phenomenon. It is, in fact, a modern emotion: before 1800, its language did not exist. And where loneliness is identified, it is not always bad, but a complex emotional state that differs according to class, gender, ethnicity and experience. Looking at informative case studies such as Sylvia Plath, Queen Victoria, and Virginia Woolf, A Biography of Loneliness charts the emergence of loneliness as a modern and embodied emotional state.

Product details

• Authors: Fay Fay Bound Alberti, Fay Bound Alberti, Fay Fay Bound Alberti
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.09.2019
• EAN: 9780198811343
• ISBN: 978-0-19-881134-3
• No. of pages: 320
• Dimensions: 145 mm x 225 mm x 30 mm
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > Psychology, esoterics, spirituality, anthroposophy > Applied psychology; Popular Culture, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture, History of Ideas, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General, PSYCHOLOGY / Personality, 20th Century, HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, Society & culture: general, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, 21st Century, 21st century history: from c 2000 -, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, 21st century, c 2000 to c 2100, The self, ego, identity, personality, c 1500 onwards to present day, Psychology: the self, ego, identity, personality, Social and cultural history, Society and culture: general, Modern Period, C 1500 Onwards