ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 historically contextualizes its neologism and etymology in English and in Russian through the lens of modernity, characterized by a breakdown of tradition and ubiquitous identity confusion, coupled with its pivotal event of the industrial revolution, which created both a middle class and the idea of and time for leisure. It identifies that ‘bored’ was first published in English in Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy in 1621 while in Russian, boredom’s equivalent, ‘skuka’ was first published and defined in 1704 in dictionaries. This chapter applies Riesman’s archetype of the tradition-directed, inner-directed, and other-directed person to boredom’s particular expression in Anglo and Russian society. It delimits literary causes of boredom, literary reactions to boredom, and a narrative continuum of explicit rejection/denial to reframing/celebrating, including the literary concept of the superfluous man. It discusses its study and framing from biological to sociological epistemology, Schopenhauer’s epistemology, and from the perspective of the American Psychological Association. Importantly, this chapter elaborates on the following Russian equivalents of ‘boredom’: skuka, tomleniye, khandra, and toska, contextualizes them in literature, and analyzes their nuances and insights about Russian society.
