Literary Criticism (1400-1800) | Gascoigne, George - Dale B. Billingsley (essay date summer 1993)

Dale B. Billingsley (essay date summer 1993)

SOURCE: Billingsley, Dale B. “The Pastime of Master F. J.” Renaissance and Reformation 17, no. 3 (summer 1993): 5-18.

[In this essay, Billingsley suggests that The Adventures of Master F. J. portrays reading as leisure pastime that is also a mode for the attainment of power.]

To one class of literary works, variously descended from the Platonic dialogue, the representation of leisure is a necessary prerequisite. Without it, philosophical conversation in the gymnasium or at dinner parties is impossible; night-long discourse about the best courtier, unlikely; garden-talk about perfect societies, merely utopian. For another class of works, leisure is a central problem. Where philosophy provides no occupation, leisure transforms itself from luxury into burden. Faced with empty hours, the characters must either fall into lassitude or find a pastime. Many of these characters turn for such...

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