Journal of Early Modern Studies, n. 6 (2017), pp. 133-155
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.13128/JEMS-2279-7149-20392
ISSN 2279-7149 (online)
www.fupress.com/bsfm-jems
2017 Firenze University Press
Killing Time:
Ennui in Eighteenth-Century English Culture
Marjo Kaartinen
University of Turku (<marjo.kaartinen@utu.fi>)
Abstract
The article explores the meanings of ennui in eighteenth-century England. Based on text
searches, it proposes that the French term ennui was adopted into everyday usage in England
around the mid-century, and was from the 1770s onwards used to signify especially the
temporal aspects of the word, that is, boredom. Ennui was closely tied to social rank: it was
thought to plague the wealthy if they had too much time on their hands. Interestingly, ennui
was not particularly gendered, but plagued both men and women. It was intrinsically related
to lifestyles. A multitude of activities were proposed to avoid ennui, from reading to physical
exercise. Avoidance was a question of life and death: ennui could lead to moral collapse and
ultimately to suicide, killing not only the body but also the soul.
Keywords: Boredom, British Cultural History, Eighteenth Century, Ennui, Temporality
1. Introduction
This essay explores the temporal meanings of ennui in eighteenth-century Eng-
lish usage.1 It is an attempt to show the many ways in which ennui was linked
with time. It looks especially at the element of boredom in ennui, and argues
that boredom was the most important temporal aspect of eighteenth-century
ennui. Both simple and existential boredom can be found in ennui, and for
many eighteenth-century authors, simple boredom led to existential boredom.
Ennui was a moral concept too, and strongly linked to the negative, corrupting
influences of affluence, which reinforced the effects of boredom. In the eight-
1 Most of the texts quoted in this essay were printed in London, but a few elsewhere in England,
and quite a considerable number in Dublin, which I would like to think suggests that ennui was not
limited only to London high society. I wish to thank my anonymous reviewers, the participants of
the ISCH Bucharest 2015 session, and members of my research group for their valuable suggestions
and comments. Special thanks to Eleanor Underwood for checking my English.
marjo kaartinen134
eenth century ‘boredom’ as a term did not yet exist but the concept of boredom
did. As has often been noted, boredom was an ancient feeling, a plague of the
desert fathers who named it acedia, the noontide demon which made the mid-
day hours of hunger last forever. In the high Middle Ages, acedia meant the
sin of boredom with the life of prayer (Kuhn 1976, 40-46, 64; Kessel 2001,
20-21; Knuuttila 2004, 141; Toohey 2011, 107-111; Johannisson 2012, 82-89).
In French, ennui was an old term, deriving from Latin (in odio). As Martina
Kessel puts it, ennui as a human condition was born in the Renaissance and
in seventeenth-century philosophy of mind (2001, 22), but as we will see, the
word was not used in English as early as this.
Looking at ennui across genres, from fiction to religious texts, and from
medical tracts to conduct literature, gives a broad basis for understanding the
meanings of ennui. It shows that in eighteenth-century English usage, firstly,
ennui was inextricably linked to time and to what we would call ‘being bored’;
secondly, that ennui was also an existential problem which could put a person
in mortal danger; and thirdly, that ennui was not gendered unequivocally
male or female. It also confirms the findings of earlier scholarship that
ennui was highly class-oriented and was thought to plague particularly the
elite. The essay takes the reader from a brief review of earlier scholarship to
a discussion on method, and proposes a new timeline for the term ‘ennui’
in English. After this, the character of ennui in various genres is discussed,
followed by an exploration of the birth of ennui and the ways by which one
could avoid it. The temporal moralities relating to ennui are then examined,
and the discussion closes with a look at gender and class.
1.1 Earlier Scholarship
Most scholarly interest in ennui has been manifested by literary scholars. This
is also noted by Martina Kessel in her immaculately researched Langeweile.
Zum Umgang mit Zeit und Gefühlen in Deutschland vom späten 18. bis zum
frühen 20. Jahrhundert (2001; Ennui. On dealings with time and emotions in
Germany from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century), exploring the
concept Langeweile in its many German contexts (2001, 11).2 Another rare
exception to the rule is the Swedish historian Karin Johannisson’s inspiring
2009 Melankoliska rum (Melancholy Rooms), which unfortunately has not been
made available to English readers. This volume explores the many forms of
melancholy in the history of Western culture, and it devotes one of its nine
chapters to ennui. Opening her discussion, Johannisson goes to Goethe’s
Werther’s Weltschmerz and argues that ennui is existential melancholy. She
proposes that there were two emotions involved in ennui: disgust and boredom
2 Kessel’s focus is strongly on gender and politics, and is essential reading for
understanding the German Enlightenment.
killing time 135
(Johannisson 2012, 134, 139),3 thus allowing for a temporary dimension to
ennui as well.
This is not far removed from Reinhard Kuhn’s position in his classic
study of ennui in literature, the magisterial The Demon of Noontide. Ennui in
Western Literature (1976). Again discussing Werther and his Langeweile, he
argues that ‘This boredom – Langeweile places the emphasis on the endless
duration of time – is not contrasted with ennui as it is in Rousseau, but
complements it to such an extent that it is difficult to distinguish the one
from the other’. For Kuhn, ennui is ‘inextricably linked with the notion of
time and space’ (1976, 5).4 This, as we shall see below, is what the English
sources in my study will argue as well; this association becomes perhaps even
more emphasized when one leaves the ‘high’ literary sphere, since short term
temporality then gains more space.
In my interpretation, this is in contrast to what Patricia Meyer Spacks
argues in her Boredom. The Literary History of a State of Mind. She writes
that ‘Boredom was not (is not) the same as ennui, more closely related to
acedia. Ennui implies a judgment of the universe; boredom, a response to
the immediate’ (1995, 12). While this may be or may have been true in the
metaphysical sense – ennui implied a judgment, boredom not – I will suggest
that eighteenth-century English ennui as a concept and lived experience
included much more boredom than has often been thought. In other words,
ennui had much more immediacy and held a stronger temporal element than
has earlier been assumed.
Very usefully for the present purposes, in his Boredom. A Lively History,
Peter Toohey divided boredom into two forms: simple boredom and existential
boredom. Simple boredom included situational boredom – which can be
brought on in a classroom or a meeting – and boredom of surfeit, which is
brought on by excess and repetition (2011, 4-5, 12-13, 17). Toohey is interested
in this simple boredom which, he points out, is usually considered not worth
the effort of studying and is overlooked by scholars since it carries the ‘stigma
of childishness’ (5-6). Kuhn, for example, considers this kind of boredom
‘hardly worth serious study’ since ‘it is a temporary state dependent almost
entirely on external circumstances’ (1976, 5-6). While Kuhn dismisses simple
boredom as an uninteresting subject of study, and focuses – like most scholars
have done – on existential boredom, especially Toohey and Billy Ehn and
Orvar Löfgren have paid attention to the less glamorous (simple) boredom
of queuing, listening to boring sermons and so on. Even though Ehn and
3 Because it is readily available to me, I am using the excellent Finnish translation of
Johannisson’s work, but it would be relatively easy to locate this discussion in the original
Swedish version or in other translations.
4 For Elizabeth Goodstein, too, boredom means the drawing out of time and an
existential state (2005, 107).
marjo kaartinen136
Löfgren focus on present-day culture, the temporal definition of boredom is
testable on, if not directly applicable to, past cultures as well, as they argue
that ‘when people have nothing to do, they “experience time as just that –
time” ’, and when they are bored, ‘time is then experienced as an oppressive
void. This kind of time must be killed before it kills’ (2010, 55-56). In this
sense temporality, and ennui, can be deadly, and for the eighteenth-century
people it was that in a very literal sense.
1.2 On the Search Method Used
Extensive database searches are key to reaching the many uses of ennui in
eighteenth-century culture. I searched the staggering 33 million pages of text
(more than 180,000 titles) from the eighteenth century available in Eighteenth
Century Collections Online (ECCO)5 for the keyword ‘ennui’. Using the
advanced search facility, I limited the search for ‘ennui’ by year, but allowed
texts without a known publication year to be included, and by language (=
English). Language limitation in the database is not perfect, and titles with
other languages, especially many French and some Latin, are included (these
are wrong hits). The French cases are problematic, as they are usually correct,
but they are often rather remote from the English discussion. This, however,
is not always the case, as will be seen with Molière. The French cases certainly
cannot be completely dismissed, as these French books were mostly printed
in London and were most probably intended for the English reader. Table 1
lists the total number of titles found.6
1700-1709 2
1710-1719 6
1720-1729 7
1730-1739 27
1740-1749 22
1750-1759 27
1760-1769 49
1770-1779 115
1780-1789 328
1790-1799 590
‘Table 1 - Number of works containing ennui’
5 This Gale database covers, as said, more than 33 million pages, and includes various
sorts of publications (excluding newspapers). The OCR quality of the database is high, and
wrong hits are relatively rare. I have used the database under the University of Turku licence.
6 Numbers rechecked April 1, 2016.
killing time 137
While these numbers include some wrong hits and many reprints and double
volumes, the numbers give a clear indication of the history of the term’s usage
in English. In the first decades, ennui is offered almost only in French books,
grammars and dictionaries. To confirm that ennui was not used in English
before the eighteenth century, I searched Early English Books Online (EEBO)
for ‘ennui’, and found nothing in English usage, which further confirms that
the term came in later.
The preliminary search result in the ECCO database is always a title,
and one title of course can include several hits of the keyword. A preliminary
perusal of the titles containing the word ‘ennui’ quickly revealed that until
the 1780s ‘ennui’ was so rare (1700-1779; altogether 255 hits) that it was, in
fact, possible to go through all the hits of ‘ennui’ from the database manually.
In the 1780s and 1790s the titles were, however, so numerous (328 and 590
respectively), that checking all of them manually was no longer possible for
the purposes of the present essay. Nonetheless, for the last two decades of the
century I checked through most of the titles of fiction that I found, all the
medical works, and most of those from other fields as well, omitting mostly
only reprints, new editions and duplicates.
The increase in the number of titles mentioning ‘ennui’ cannot be
explained only by the expansion of printing itself, or by the great number
of reprints. The increase clearly confirms that use of the term ‘ennui’ was
growing during the second half of the century. Therefore, the findings here
can be considered more than mere guidelines, and I can confidently propose
that ‘ennui’ was adopted into the usage of the English elite in the very middle
of the eighteenth century, that for the next generation, in the 1770s, the
term – and very likely the feelings attached to it – was already well known,
and that by the third generation, in the 1790s, ‘ennui’ was already a familiar
term. However, more sophisticated data mining, especially topic modelling
and particularly into newspaper and journal material, will be needed, and
will be welcomed, to make these findings even more nuanced.
2. A New Timeline for Ennui
In the last decade of the eighteenth century, John Bennett wrote some advice
to young women in which he made visible the blurred lines between having
too much time, feelings of ennui, and the moral difficulties that arose from
trying to fill time in the wrong way:
It is a great unhappiness to many ladies of fortune, that they have not sufficient
employment to fill up their time; and in order to prevent that languor and ennui,
which are the most unpleasant feelings of human life, either fall into a low state of
spirits, or have recourse to play, public pleasures, or a perpetual round of visits, for
their amusement. (1789, II, 11)
marjo kaartinen138
As we see, Bennett quite confidently uses the term ‘ennui’. As the discussion
above shows, I am able to suggest a new timeline for the term in English.
By the time of his writing, in 1789, ‘ennui’ was a well-known term, but it
had not been in use for as long as has been supposed. Patricia Spacks notes
that ‘ennui’ came into English usage in the seventeenth century (1995, 14),
but this is not the case. It was well into the eighteenth century before the
term became naturalised. Early in the eighteenth century, however, the
word ennui was certainly familiar to many who knew or studied French.
In early- and mid-eighteenth century grammars and dictionaries, ‘ennui’
was typically translated as weariness (e.g. Malard 1716, 26; Durand 1746,
80; Chambaud 1750, 87; Elphinston 1756, 2), but uneasiness was also used
(Buffier 1734, 5). Samuel Boyse translated ‘ennui’ as despairing (1738, 58).
The word ‘ennui’ was also included in French grammars in guidelines for
pronunciation, as an exception to the rule for pronouncing ‘en’, for example as
‘En keeps its proper Sound when followed by another n; as, ennemi, prenne,
&c. except’ (Anonymous 1718, 15);7 one could also find ‘ennui’ in Nathan
Bailey’s Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1721) as the origin of the
word ‘annoyance’.
For the reading elite, the word ‘ennui’ would perhaps first have been
encountered in French literature. Molière’s Le Misanthrope (first performance
1666) was, for example, available from local London printers from 1732.8
This particular volume offered parallel texts, with the original French on the
left-hand page and an English translation (by an anonymous translator) on
the right. Here the fluent French reader would encounter the word ‘ennui’ on
several occasions, but see it translated with a variety of words: ‘uneasiness’,
‘tedious pain’, ‘pain’, ‘being ruffl’d’ (1732, 20-21, 32-33, 108-109, 134-
135). The fact that ‘ennui’ was not used once in the translation suggests the
assumption that the word was not familiar to the English reader, and that it
probably was not in spoken use in the early 1730s.
It seems to have taken some years more for the term to emerge in English
usage. When it did so, sometime around the mid-century, it did so with such
force that by 1754 ‘ennui’ could be satirically considered by the bluestocking
Sarah Scott to be a necessary condition of those with ‘refined Sentiments and
an elegant Mind’ (1754, I, 55). In fact, the very first occasion on which I have
found ennui being used in an English text in a naturalised way, without any
mention of its French origin, is five years before Scott, that is, in 1749. The
volume is Joseph Beaumont’s Original Poems in English and Latin. It was
printed in Cambridge 50 years after Beaumont’s death in 1699 (and reprinted
in 1799, again to mark the anniversary of his death). ‘Ennui’ is found in
7 The same work also lists ‘ennui’ as an example of masculine nouns ending in -i
(Anonymous 1718, 57).
8 Based on material in EEBO and ECCO, checked 28 March 2016.
killing time 139
the preface, written by ‘J.G.’, the editor John Gee.9 When describing what
motivated Beaumont to write poetry after he was banished from Cambridge
during the Revolution, he claimed it was to avoid the ennui of being without
his books. Writing was an escape ‘from that ennui and irksomeness of being,
which in that long divorce from Books, could not but oppress his active and
vigorous mind’ (Beaumont 1749, xxiv). Gee seems to have considered this
oppression to have been quite strong, as he chose as the first, opening poem
one entitled, ‘Reasonable Melancholy’, and as the second, ‘Death’ (1-5).
3. The Character of Ennui
Lacking the term ‘ennui’ did not mean that the English lacked emotions
related to ennui before the term itself came into use. Interestingly, Jean-
Bernard Le Blanc wrote in his Letters on the English and French Nations that
the English suffered greatly from ennui but that they did not have a word for
it. He thought spleen, vapours and consumption would be ennui ‘carried in
its highest pitch’, and that it would ‘become a dangerous, and sometimes a
mortal disease’ (1747, I, 64-65). The synonyms given for the term in literature,
or translations, also reveal that ennui was a concept easily understood by
English speakers. In the case of Molière, as I said before, ennui was translated
as ‘uneasiness’, ‘tedious pain’, ‘pain’, and ‘being ruffl’d’.
Perhaps the most typical understanding and synonym for ennui was
‘weariness’, and very close to that was ‘lassitude’. Going further in time, in
the novel Columella (1779) the protagonist simply has too much time and
feels ennui, which here is understood as lassitude:
since my place has lost the force of novelty, and reading and other amusements are
become indifferent, or rather insipid to me, I own that I find my time hang heavy
upon my hands, and feel a consequent lassitude, or ennui as the French call it; and
expect with impatience the state returns of the ordinary functions of life; and many
a day do nothing but count the hours from breakfast to dinnertime, and from dinner
to supper; not for the pleasure I take in eating or drinking (for I have no appetite) but
merely for some little variety which those periods produce. (Graves 1779, 116-117)
Here, as the notion of reading and amusements having ‘become indifferent’
or ‘insipid’ and the loss of appetite reveal, ennui is partly existential in nature.
Ennui is also clearly linked to the protagonist’s having too much time to kill,
and especially to days going slowly; the only variety there was in the day was
waiting for time to pass from one meal to the next. It is nearly impossible
9 Confirmation that J.G. is John Gee can be found in the Dictionary of National
Biography: John Gosse: Joseph Beaumont, <https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Beaumont,_
Joseph_%281616-1699%29_%28DNB00%29>, accessed 15 February 2017.
marjo kaartinen140
to read this without considering the state of ennui to be related to boredom:
boredom and ennui were relatives, perhaps siblings.
Often ennui was boredom itself, an immediate, temporal feeling which
hardly contained cognizance of life’s darker mysteries. Of course, in comedy,
one would recover from ennui very speedily: ‘Yes, Doctor, I find myself greatly
recovered from my yesterday’s ennui’ (Andrews 1781, 38). The comical in
this case, dating from 1781, derives from the understanding that ennui was
in principle somewhat deeper than a passing feeling, but it also reflects the
fact that it was often nothing more than a moment of weariness, and hints
at fashionable people’s short-term thinking. This is instanced in Richard
Watson’s apology to Edward Gibbon: ‘I am afraid, Sir, I have tired you with
scripture quotations; but if I have been fortunate enough to convince you
… I shall not be sorrey10 for the ennui I may have occasioned you’ (Watson
1776, 65-66). Watson realized that listening to a series of quotations might
have been tedious and could have given rise to feelings of ennui, although
he hoped it had not. Similar ennui could be caused by uninteresting people.
This happened to Emma, the protagonist of a sentimental novel from 1773:
‘O the Bore! I was dieing with ennui whenever he spoke! so talkative, there
was no possibility of escaping the head-ach with him’ (Anonymous 1773a, II,
203). Again, ennui presented itself in bodily terms, in a headache. In 1776,
Laurence Sterne felt ennui in France due to
the eternal platitude of the French characters – little variety, no originality in it at
all – than to any other cause – [illegible] they are very civil – but civility itself, in
that uniform, wearies and bodders one to death – If I do not mind, I shall grow
most stupid and sententious … (1776, 78)
If we glance back, we quickly notice that from Graves’ Columella to Sterne’s
ennui with the boring Frenchmen, the quotations above originated between
1773 and 1781. They all describe the same temporal dimension of ennui. This
suggests that in the 1770s ennui was often understood as simple boredom
(Toohey 2011, 17). This is in fact borne out by further contemporary evidence:
the Bon Ton of the 1770s, the cream of society, were considered by their
contemporaries to suffer from this. A song written in 1775 – which was,
perhaps not altogether coincidentally, the same year as David Garrick’s play
Bon Ton, or High Life About Stairs was first performed at the Theatre Royal
– suggested humorously that ‘drowsy ennui’ was a modish infirmity of the
fashionable set of the 1770s (Anonymous 1775, 4). Further, in 1778, The
Theatrical Bouquet combined ‘weak nerves, bon-ton, ennui and foreign graces’
(Anonymous 1778, 10). Ennui was entirely fashionable, but being a quality
of the Bon Ton, it was something that could be mocked as well.
10 I have retained the original spelling throughout.
killing time 141
After this, ennui stayed in fashion, but it did not lose its temporal
dimension. Gregory Griffin’s 1787 description of the sufferings of genteel
society from boredom and their difficulties in finding a not-so-boring location
in which to spend their idle hours is extremely interesting:
Dear Greg, Your Mic. [microcosmos] is dead Lounge, – dissipates insufferable Ennui
of tea table, – fills boring intervals of Conversazione, – Exquisite substitute for switch,
– and in short quite the Ton: – By the by, in your next propose some new Lounge
– they are all so dingle at present, they are quite a Bore. – Lud, how much I have
written. – You charming creature, hint at some new Lounge. Your’s, Narcissus. (25)11
And in 1792, Robert Bage’s novel, Man as he is, described a situation in which
Mr. Bardoe was clearly bored, suffering from time-related ennui. He had
arrived at an inn, and had to suffer a long wait for his meal:
All the inn was quickly engaged in the service of the honourable Mr. Bardoe, whose
major domo ordered a supper, which for plenty and variety might have served the
Duke of Tuscany at least. In the three hours taken in preparing it, his honour had
walked a little in his apartment, lounged a little upon his sofa, looked a little in the
mirrors, read a little in each of half a score travelling classics, and at length was taken
with a little fit of ennui, which he thought very impertinent and provoking. (III, 265)
‘A little fit of ennui’, ‘impertinent and provoking’ sound similar to the ennui
suffered by the earlier generation, the Bon Ton of the 1770s, and suggests
that the nature of ennui did not completely change. Ennui rather received
new audiences; boredom continued to plague the ‘jet set’ of the time.
By the end of the century, if not earlier, ennui had begun to receive
the attention of medical writers. It was even recognized as a form of mental
derangement. We can find this in Sir Alexander Crichton’s An inquiry into
the nature and origin of Mental Derangement, published in 1798. For him,
ennui was ‘irksomeness of mind’ but interesting to us is the fact that ennui
holds a temporal aspect here as well. In fact, ennui was caused by the very
slowness of the passing of time:
The slowness hinted at is necessarily relative to the nature of the ideas. New ideas
please much better when they succeed each other with a certain degree of slowness,
than when quickly presented to the mind; but when a person is confined to the
house, and is deprived of society, and has no opportunity of seeing a succession of
new objects, and is not under the influence of any desire, or passion, which can give
11 ‘Narcissus’ as the signee tempts one to make a detour to the interesting discussion
of the somatisation of feelings in the culture of sensibility developed in the chapter, ‘Ennui
and Narcissism’, in Stolberg 2011, 191-195, as Griffin’s Narcissus very much seems to dwell
in emotional perturbation.
marjo kaartinen142
rise to a flow of thoughts, he necessarily falls into this distressing state, from the too
slow succession of old or accustomed thoughts. (1798, I, 321-322)
For Crichton, this slowness could lead to a chain of misery and torture, even
delirium. Ennui presented itself along with restlessness and weariness, and
took over the whole body of the sufferer, who ‘yawns frequently, his senses
become dull, his attention unsettled, and he at last falls asleep’. In the young
and active, ennui if prolonged (another aspect of time), could present itself
in startling activity:
I have seen a person in company after suffering impatiently these kind of tortures
for a long time, at last totally forgetting where he was, suddenly start from his chair
like a frantic person, walk about the room for a minute or two with a quick pace,
panting for breath, as if he had not breathed freely for some hours before, until the
expressions and astonishment of the people around him awakened him from his
delirium, and brought him a proper sense of the indecorum he had been guilty of.
(I, 323)12
This is fascinating. Crichton’s description shows that ennui was not only
listlessness, but could take the form of action which, being irrational,
suggested madness. Even though space does not allow us here to go into
nineteenth-century expressions of ennui, it should be noted that the
eighteenth-century understanding of ennui gives a sound basis for reading
the madness of ennui of the following century, the Romantic boredom of
Byron and his companions, or Maria Edgeworth’s much studied novel,
Ennui (1809),13 in which aristocratic ennui takes forms that bring on disease,
including hypochondriasis, and can lead to moral or spiritual crisis, even the
possibility of suicide.
4. The Genesis and Prophylaxis of Ennui
To understand ennui, it is useful to take a look at the birth of ennui, its causes
and its origins in humans, and to reflect on the role of time in all this. The
countryside seems to be the place to begin, as it was the birthplace of ennui
for many people. For the socially privileged, the countryside stood in many
ways in stark contrast to the town, especially to London, even though many
of what were perceived to be the good and beneficial elements of country
life, such as walking, were deliberately introduced into city life as well, and
12 This exploding ennui can be seen as a reaction to the rigid rules of the culture of
sensibility. See, again, Stolberg 2011, 191.
13 On ennui in Edgeworth, see for example Woodworth 2011, chap. five. Interestingly,
Hollingworth (1997) reads Edgeworth’s novel as a metaphor of Irish politics.
killing time 143
the difference between the two was not always as clear-cut as it at first seems
to be (Kaartinen, forthcoming). What the country especially lacked was
the endless round of entertainment that the city offered night after night
during the season. For many the country, like the city, did indeed offer an
active round of visits, but it was recognized that even the ‘constant round
of pleasure, perpetual engagements, is not able to secure’ one from ennui
(Anonymous 1767, I, 8). Even though summer in the country was for many
people a delightful change from the city, even a welcome season of rest, some
novels of the time presented the countryside as a place of ennui, even to such
an extent that it could be fatal.
In the novel Edward, the countryside itself was the culprit, the cause of
ennui: ‘you are reduced to seek amusement in the dull scenes of rural life –
which fills you with spleen and ennui’ (Anonymous 1774, I, 2). Remoteness
was the danger: ‘in a remote province, where one is in danger of dying of
ennui’ (Mackenzie 1777, 34). In other descriptions the country could be
tolerable, given proper company: in a novel by Frances Brooke, a Lady Anne
‘declares she can no longer support the country without [Mr. Mandeville] but
shall die with chagrin and ennui’ (1763, II, 67). What was most dramatically
lacking in the country, and, as is shown in the following, what could be fatal,
was the lack of amusement. In the novel The Relapse (1780), Clara refuses
marriage, and cannot think of living in the country, as she would die of ennui
there. The expanded dashes in the following quotation emphasize the horror:
The Country! –––––– Horrid! ––––– Sauntering, dozing over a book, yawning
at what is called the conversation of the rustics of our neighbourhood, or yawning
by ourselves, for want of something to say; each day repeating over and over the
same dull scene we trod before:– mere vegetation! I should die in a twelve-month,
of downright ennui’. (Anonymous 1780, I, 62-63)
The vegetative nature of country life was also the cause of the ennui of
the lovely Maria in a popular collection, The Weekly Entertainer. A mean
spinster aunt, jealous of the beauty of Maria, who was ‘formed to shine in
courts’, denied her this possibility. Instead, she ‘condemned this flower to
droop unseen, and wither in the shade’. This was the ‘dull scene of vegetative
existence’, to combat which Maria’s only resource was books (For Monday
Dec 8 1783: Anonymous 1783, 539), an aspect to which we will return later.
The countryside as the scene of a merely vegetative existence is an extremely
strong metaphor and one that appears in late eighteenth-century literature
so many times that it very likely reflects the term’s use in real life: life in the
country was so dull that many saw it as nothing but a vegetative existence
(Parson 1799, I, 18).
The countryside was at least similarly, if not even more traumatically, in
Mrs Thomson’s novel, Excessive Sensibility, in which a fashionable lady with
terrible memories of the country could not understand why she ‘should suffer
marjo kaartinen144
[her] elegant figure to be carried down to the family mansion-house, just like
a new piece of furniture’, and while the house itself was ‘well enough’, there
were – the key to the definite superiority of London in the pursuit of avoiding
ennui – ‘no Operas, no Ranelaghs, no Routs, and, to sum up all, there are
not pretty fellows, to put one in a good humour with one’s self ’ (1787, 47). It
could not be helped, and in August at Haddington Hall she was ‘devoured
with Ennui’, and complained that
I can’t think what people of fashion do with country houses, unless it be to make
nursery: or to confine a daughter in it. – My mother kept me confined in an old
antiquate castle, until she got a second husband; – It pleased heaven to release me;
but even the name of the country has given me the spleen ever since’. (45-47)
As we see, popular novels considered, there was a link between ennui and the
country, and they suggest that the quiet social life and especially the lack of
entertainment would make the time excessively long, and thus cause ennui.
However, to be fair, as Fanny Burney notes in her Evelina, it was not
entertainment that one needed, but it was the company one had when
entertaining oneself that really mattered. One could therefore feel ennui even
in the amusements at Ranelagh: ‘Those whose – whose connections, and so
forth, are not among les gens comme il faut, can feel nothing but ennui at
such a place as Ranelagh’ (1779, I, 193). The importance of company, of good,
suitable society, comes out very strongly in these passages. The country was
dull especially because company was limited and what there was lacking in
quality: ‘Heavens! I expire with ennui: thirty miles from the metropolis and
not a pretty fellow to dissipate the melancholy reflection’ (Anonymous, A
Lady, 1774, 28), or ‘How long she would have borne patiently, and without
ennui, the society of three persons, who seemed to be no more animated
with what animated her, than the ancestors in effigy were, I cannot possibly
guess …’ (Craven 1779, 15) – hinting further that it was precisely country
society that was dull and boring. Yet we must remember that dull company
was not something one ran the risk of encountering only in the countryside;
Steele suffered from ennui in France because of the ‘eternal platitude’ of the
company (Sterne 1776, 78). On the other hand, a city, even a melancholy
one like Rome, did not lead to ennui because it had much to offer in terms
of fine arts and antiquities (Miller 1777, II, 222).
In the most dramatic cases, where a protagonist was being kept a
prisoner, the countryside could lead to the vegetative existence mentioned
in the two quotations above, which hint at true loneliness. However, being
alone in literal terms was rarely a significant problem for the upper classes in
the eighteenth-century – especially for women in fiction, as has been clearly
presented above. Friendship was a great preservative against ennui: ‘When
dissipation fatigues, [fine ladies] fly to [friendship] as a resource from ennui’
(Anonymous, A Lady, 1774, 143), and Lady Mary Walker advised that ‘the
killing time 145
business of a family is the most profitable and honourable study a woman
can employ herself in: this employing a great part of her time, will prevent
her feeling that ennui attending fine ladies, and she will have no time for
complaint’ (1776, 206).
If one wanted to prevent ennui, then, one had to seek pleasure and
good company, stay active, and take both mental and physical exercise.
John Bennett suggested religious exercises instead of public pleasures and ‘a
perpetual round of visits’ for young ladies to avoid ennui (1789; II, 11).14 As
in the case of the beautiful Maria above, and others, books were a typical,
simple and recurring remedy against ennui (Stanhope 1774, 109; Griffith
1782, 63; Anonymous 1783, 539; 109; Hervey 1788, 183; Moore 1790, 212).
This discussion of the benefits of reading, especially to women, and especially
of reading novels, is interesting.
In the avoidance of ennui, the cultivation of letters and the study
of science and other fields had a strong moral connotation (Karppinen-
Kummunmäki 2015, 195-218). This can be seen in advice literature for
women, for example in Hannah More who, writing on dissipation, pointed
out that serious interests would prevent ‘a strong passion for promiscuous
visiting’ and other less favourable pastimes, including gambling, and were
particularly useful because study ‘induces a relish for domestic life, the most
desirable temper in the world for women’. For her, study was poignantly ‘a
relief against that mental disease, which the French emphatically call ennui’.
For Bennett, study was, at its best, if pursued through suitable reading, ‘an
act of religion’ (1789, II, 23-24). Unsurprisingly, study and avoidance of ‘that
monster’ ennui were urged in connection with the promotion of education
for both young men and young women – importantly, education would help
women to enjoy time instead of trying to kill it:
were women early taught to reason and reflect, they soon would direct their feelings
aright – they would be virtuous from reflected principles, not from policy: and a
less frivolous education would enable them to find resources at home, really to enjoy
time, in place of that monster Ennui driving them into folly, riot, and dissipation, to
kill it at the expence of peace, honour, and reputation. (Anonymous [Lady Wallace]
1787, 15)
In addition to reading, music and the study of nature were good remedies
(Griffith 1782, 63; Bute 1785?, 4; Moore 1790, 212), and medical authors
prescribed moderate physical exercise (Rymer 1785, 26; Adair 1799, 69-71).
Ironically, so was playing at cards, which not only killed time but saved one
14 James Boswell noted that ‘Belief is favourable to the human mind, were it for
nothing else but to furnish it entertainment. An infidel I should think, must frequently
suffer from ennui’ (1768, 252).
marjo kaartinen146
from the dullness of the conversation of any awkward company: ‘when People
of a certain turn are got together, they shou’d prefer doing any thing to the
ennui of their own conversation’ (Berkeley 1755, 74-75). Edward Topham
recommended pleasure, ‘the darling object of the mind, the dispeller of care,
melancholy, and that ennui, which makes life itself so burdensome, was some-
how or other to be obtained’ (1776, 247). We get a hint what this pleasure
could be in The Modern Couple. Here it included conversation, which in this
case was beneficial, visits and walking, dressing, meals, and writing letters
(for which there would be hardly any time if days were properly filled with
activities; Anonymous 1776, 57). Very similar advice is given in Hadleigh
Grove, where ennui was prevented by a whole series of delightful things to
do: reading books, making music, walking, drawing, and meals; and then
‘Our hours glided on the soft downy pinions of delight; not a moment was
there allowed for lassitude or ennui. Our time was continually employed
either in something useful, or something instructive, at the same time that
it was entertaining’ (Anonymous 1773b, 39-40).
5. The Temporal Moralities of Ennui
As we have seen, if one used his or her time well and properly, one would not
be plagued by ennui. At times a person who suffered from ennui could be
driven to killing time in unprofitable ways, and was then considered morally
weak. It was especially serious when ennui might lead to immorality, for
example in connection with marriage or its failure, and ultimately to suicide.
Ennui was a danger to marriage, and thoughtless, senseless behaviour would
lead to ennui. Marital infidelity could come about because of ennui, boredom:
An eternal round of sameness and insipidity disgusts them; and, as a refuge from
ennui, they form a connection with one in nearly the same insipid line. The intrigue
keeps attention alive, and the parties, having a sort of business on their hands, drive
on at an extraordinary rate, till, by growing too bold, they cannot escape destruction.
(Anonymous 1782?, 27-28; see also Hayley 1783, 137-138)
To illustrate this moral side of ennui, I will next take a look at two short novels
which were written for educational and morally elevating purposes. Both
stories were very likely written in the 1760s. The first of them is fictitious, but
its anonymous author15 says that everyone knows that the stories in it are true.
The novel is a collection of falling-into-sin-biographies of former prostitutes,
now ‘penitents in the Magdalen-House’. For our purposes it can be assumed
at least that the stories of the fallen women rang true to their readers.
15 Sarah Fielding is a very likely author of this text.
killing time 147
The anonymous author of The Histories (1760) carefully introduced a
moral into each of the ‘autobiographies’ of the fallen women in her novel. The
moral in each case had very much to do with time – time had to be well spent:
Novels should be wrote and read as books which are to teach by illustrating the moral
by the facts, where precept is enlivened by examples, and imagination brought in to
strengthen reason, not to confound it. If the writer loses sight of this design, still the
reader may, if he pleases, keep it always in view; tho’ such novels as require much
effort in the mind to discover a good moral in them are certainly very pernicious;
for works of imagination are fit only for the entertainment of an idle hour; when
we should do by the reader, as indulgent parents act by their children, teach them
in play, and blend instruction so closely with amusement, that the design shall be
scarcely perceivable to the mind in that childish state of inactivity. (Anonymous
1760, I, xxii-xiii)
In the story of a wealthy merchant’s daughter, the declines stems from the fact
that she has fallen in love with a poor man but at the age of fifteen or so is
forced to marry an old man of fifty, to her an utterly disgusting brute called
Mr Merton. She eventually forgets her vow of fidelity, reasoning to herself
that love must be a higher force than marriage vows, and begins an affair
with her true love, Captain Turnham. Mrs Merton is caught, imprisoned by
her husband, saved by Captain Turnham, and they run away. Time passes.
The lovers live separately but she gives birth to a son, and then suddenly
Mr Merton finds her and kidnaps her when she is on her way back home
from her lover. She is taken to Mr Merton’s dreary estate in the country and
imprisoned there. She is upset because her baby has been left in London.
She manages to escape from this prison too and, returning to London, gets
in touch with Captain Turnham, finds her baby well, and they resume their
blissful way of life. Mr Merton gets a divorce, the couple move to Scotland,
where they present themselves as a married couple, and they have two more
sons, but gradually the situation changes. Captain Turnham is overwhelmed
by ennui. The couple see each other too much, and especially he grows bored
with her: ‘But when, by being seen every hour, our follies and our frailties
become conspicuous, the love which was founded on a supposition we were
free from them [the frailties], must decay’ (Anonymous 1760, 224-225). Mrs
Merton’s interpretation of their situation seems to be linked to their living
without regard to social conventions, being outsiders and therefore alone.
She explains what happens:
Of this I was very sensible; but yet I could not avoid being greatly affected, when I saw
Captain Turnham’s fondness abate. I was always at work; his vivacity could not for
ever be proof against a dismal situation, and a total want of company. Conversation
would flag, and even playing with his children would often become tedious. Ennui,
that great destroyer of the happiness of those who have no misfortunes to distress
marjo kaartinen148
them, reached even our solitude, and oppressed Captain Turnham’s spirits. I had
no particular reason to complain; for he grew as weary of every thing about him,
as of me. (225)
Ennui is the moral culmination point of the story, although what finally
destroys Mrs Merton is brought on by Turnham’s death while they are
stationed in Gibraltar, where everyone knows their situation and where they
are therefore completely isolated from decent society. When Turnham dies
of a fever, she is left desolate, penniless, and with children, far away from
Britain. In the end she has no other way out of the tangled web she is in but
to become a prostitute.
The second moral biography is ‘The Miseries of Idleness and Affluence’,
attributed in a collection to Dr Smollett. This story of Pichromacus16 is a moral
tale in which too much wealth destroys a loving, this time married, couple’s
happiness. Pichromacus and his future wife fall in love but they marry against
the will of her father, who then refuses to give her any support. Pichromacus
himself is an army officer on half-pay, the second son of a wealthy country
gentleman, whose only inheritance was a decent education and his position in
the army. After marrying, the couple lived on his income and the interest on a
small inheritance she had from her aunt. They bought a house with some land
in the country, and rented a large farm. Even though they were not blessed with
children, he says, their life was bliss: ‘The labours of the field, the little domestic
cares of the barn-yard, the poultry-yard, and the dairy, were productive of such
delights as none of your readers will conceive, except those who are enamoured
of a country life’ (Smollett 1772, 104).17 This bliss was destroyed and complete
devastation of their happy lives followed. Within the period of a few weeks, the
husband’s nephew, who had received a large inheritance from his father, died
of smallpox, and the wife’s only brother died in an accident, and they inherited
a fortune. Suddenly, they were unbelievably wealthy, and began to live the life
of the rich and idle: ‘we quitted our romantic solitude, and rushed into all the
pageantry of high life ... we became enamoured of tinsel liveries, equipage, and
all the frippery of fashion’ (104).
Because of this moral decay, ennui follows, and the couple come to hate
each other: ‘we find ourselves in a state of mutual disgust; and all the enjoye-
ments of life we either taste with indifference, or reject with loathing’ (106).
He suffers from ennui:
16 It seems very likely that the name, Pichromacus, of the tale is derived from the
Greek pikrÓs (bitter) and machÓs (fighter), reflecting the protagonist’s state at the time of
telling the story, when he was suffering from ennui.
17 The story was published before this collection but unfortunately I have not been able
to locate the first printing, nor have I found this text used by other scholars. The identity of
the author as Smollett therefore rests solely on this publication’s Table of Contents, which
attributes this text to him.
killing time 149
a confirmed imbecility of mind, and a want of relish, attended with a thousand
uneasinesses, which render life almost insupportable. I sleep without refreshment;
I am fatigued without labour; I am scarce risen when I wish the day was done;
and when night comes, I long for morning: I eat without appetite, drink without
exhilaration; exercise affords no spirits, conversation no amusement, reading no
entertainment, and diversion no pleasure. (106)
His wife has ceased to be an object of love: ‘even she that was once the de-
light of my eyes, and the joy of my heart, is now become the subject of per-
petual disquiet’ (107).
As we see, ennui could have devastating effects on a marriage, but of
all the moral dangers of ennui, the gravest was suicide. Perhaps especially in
the aftermath of Werther, ennui tempted its prey to suicide;18 when ennui,
the ‘leaden mountain’ (Burroughs 1798, 131) became overwhelming, there
was the fear of suicide. So serious was ennui considered to be that, as Robert
John Thornton put it in 1797 in his Medical Extracts, ‘men often make the
cruel choice, and seek death as a welcome release from that insupportable
ennui which thus overpowers them’ (879). Crichton pointed out that ‘this
tormenter of human happiness’, ennui,
often occasions a degree of inquietude which is productive of the most alarming
and fatal consequences; for the desire of relief becomes, in some cases, so great as
totally to destroy all judgment, and consequently hurries the person on to the most
criminal violence against nature. It is in this way that ennui, like melancholy, may
terminate in suicide. (1798, 322)
Thus, ennui could be fatal not only for the body but also for the soul.
6. Gender and Class
In her Melancholy Rooms, Karin Johannisson points to the maleness of ennui.
This is perhaps partly due to the nineteenth-century focus of her discussion.
For her, ennui becomes flesh in the characters of the dandy and the flâneur. She
suggests that ‘ennui is an emotion of the young, the elite, and of men’ (2012,
138). As many of the examples discussed above show, perhaps surprisingly,
in eighteenth-century English usage ennui was not clearly gendered. Having
said that, it must be admitted we are on very uncertain ground here. This is
very much a genre-sensitive question: it is possible that ennui as an existential
problem was a slightly more male feature, because it is manifest in male
genres. Whether this is a sign of gendering or an issue of genres cannot at
18 This is perhaps visible in Craven 1779, Dedication.
marjo kaartinen150
this point be stated conclusively; for example, in scientific treatises the generic
‘man’ may also have referred to women. This is a point which demands more
comprehensive research, and cannot be solved here.
In the above discussion, we have seen both men and women suffering
from ennui. The evidence points to a certain equality of the sexes in this
respect. With married couples, both the husband and the wife were at risk of
infidelity as a result of ennui, and in the educational advice literature ennui
was present in the lives of both boys and girls. This apparent equality was
probably related to the fact that ennui arose from life’s temporal dimension,
that everyone’s life was affected by time. Choosing different sources and
genres would have an effect on the gendering of ennui: after reading only
advice books for young women, ennui would look like an overwhelmingly
female issue, and after reading some volumes of French philosophy, ennui
would become rather an existential question for the male. A brief look across
genres, and one that calls for further (especially genre-comparative) study,
shows that in eighteenth-century English usage ennui was not gendered,
and not even bores were gendered: both men and women could be boring
company. Both sexes were advised against ennui and members of both sexes
were accused of being boring.
As we saw above, Pichromacus’ bitter ennui was born out of wealth,
fulfilment and surfeit. Even though an extreme, and fictitious, case,
Pichromacus’ tale is essentially a tale of ennui: a tale of riches, boredom, and
losing interest. When all the senses are satisfied a thousand times, nothing
makes a difference, but even in that existentialist issue, there was a slight
thought of temporality in this suffering too:
A full gratification of the sense would constitute a perfect satisfaction of the mind.
But in such a state as this, when every passion is indulged, and every wish, the senses
can suggest, gratified, the mind is as far as ever from enjoying a plenary satisfaction:
it palls and sickens under an undescribable languor; which the Latins called the
taedium vitae; and the French term ennui; and for which our language, though we are
not strangers to such kind of sensation, does not afford a name. (Shepherd 1779, 80)
Ennui was therefore heavily dependent on social rank: it was an ailment of the
rich who let themselves be idle and bored, who had too much time on their
hands. Clearly, when Pichromacus had to live frugally, albeit not living in
utter poverty, he was happy and felt strong, and when he gained an enormous
fortune he lost everything important. Too much wealth was a danger, but
this only meant that those with fortunes had to employ themselves in suitable
ways, not that their wealth in itself would destroy them.
The vast majority of sources across genres seem to suggest that ennui was
an ailment only of the upper levels of society. The Earl of Bute is the only
source I found that suggests a less class-oriented definition of the ailment:
killing time 151
short as our existence is, how many find the day too long, how many tedious hours
are past in absolute idleness, where even thought is banished: nor does this prevail
in solitude only, nor is it peculiar to any age, rank or sex; we meet with it in the
greatest cities, as well as in the desert … (Stuart 1785?, 1)
Interestingly, there is evidence to suggest that a laborer could not suffer from
it, as they simply did not have time for that kind of existential problem: René
Girardin’s An essay on landscape described the countryside:
Farther on, in another inclosure, the husbandman drives his plough; whilst he sings,
the youngest of his children play around him, and the eldest, who are able to work,
hoe up the weeds in the fields that are already sown. – Labour prevents the disorder
of the passions in youth; it gives health and strength, and prolongs the days of old
age: and at night one may at least say, that these good people have escaped that
ennui which is but too often the lot and the torment of the rich and great. (1783, 62)
While sympathizing with the hard toil of the country peasant, Girardin points
out the advantage that he is after all saved from the dangers from which the
rich and great suffer. This is seconded by Lord Monboddo:
But there is another thing as necessary as money for the enjoyment of leisure; and that
is to know how to employ it. If he does not know that, he falls into a sore disease, which
the French call ennui, and which, as it is a lasting and lingering disease, makes a man, I
believe, more miserable than perhaps any other; for it is a disease of our mind or better
part. It is the source of almost every vice and folly; for a man, who does not know what
else to do, will do any thing rather than do nothing; and I maintain, that the richest
man, who is haunted by this foul fiend, as it may be called, is a much more unhappy
man than the day labourer who earns his daily bread by the sweat of his brow, and who,
therefore, only submits to the sentence pronounced upon our first parents after their fall,
and which, if it be understood, as I think it ought to be, of the labour of the mind as well
as of the body, we must all submit to, or be miserable if we do not. And, accordingly,
those, who can find nothing to do, endeavour to fly from themselves; and many of
them fly from their country, and go abroad, for no other reason. (Burnett 1779, 92)
Ennui was the plague not only of the aristocracy but of the elite in general; it
was considered to be ‘a thing not unusual in the brightest circles’ (Anonymous
1769, I, 150; see also Goodstein 2005, 110).
7. Conclusions
The Earl of Bute interpreted ennui in very temporal terms: for him, ennui
haunted those ‘whose hours hang heavy on their hands’ (Stuart 1785?, 1).
He believed ennui to be born in idleness and empty hours, and it is very
interesting that for him ennui did not discriminate between male and female
or, as we saw above, between ranks. A look at many genres and a multitude of
marjo kaartinen152
sources has shown that in eighteenth-century English usage, ennui was a fluid
concept which was interpreted and used in various ways. This is a remarkable
finding. Perhaps because the English language did not have a term similar to
Langeweile,19 the term ‘ennui’ bent to the use of those who wanted to express
the temporality of their suffering, the moments of boredom. These were due
to repetition and sameness, which then created frustration and plain dullness.
Country life showed that dullness could lead to ennui both in company,
in the endless repetitive rounds of social life and, of course, if one was left
without company. The literature studied here very strongly suggests that in
the eighteenth-century ennui was a synonym for boredom, both simple and
existential boredom, with the emphasis on the latter.20
The vast majority of the texts mentioning ennui did not gender ennui
strongly; it was generally understood as an ailment of the elite of either sex,
generated by their way of life, if they were not careful. Too much time on one’s
hands led to ennui, and could in the worst cases lead to complete destruction.
Importantly, English ennui was not only existential, which has less to do with
temporality, as it included much of what we would call boredom: a terrible
weariness, lassitude, frustration even. In this meaning it comes up in humorous
contexts too, to make fun of the nervous, restless elite. In this sense it was very
temporal. This is why Kuhn’s definition of ennui as ‘independent of any external
circumstances’ (1976, 12) rings very foreign to eighteenth-century uses of the
term. As we saw, it was feared that the existential crisis of ennui would lead to
suicide. That being the case, we can agree with Kuhn that
we can tentatively define ennui as the state of emptiness that the soul feels when it
is deprived of interest in action, life, and the world (be it this world or another), a
condition that is the immediate consequence of the encounter with nothingness,
and has as an immediate effect a disaffection with reality. (13)
But it was more than that: it was an immediate reaction to time dragging.
The eighteenth-century history of ennui is multifaceted, and shows
that the term was used then in many different ways and with a number of
meanings. People in the eighteenth century were keen to make the term
their own, even at the risk of suggesting foreign ways and inclinations. They
were extremely sensitive to time and its passing, and to the tedious moments
when it did not pass quickly enough and one was desperate to find ways of
killing time. They also recognized that if they failed in that, time could kill.
19 Or Finnish, which is rather inventive in its expressions for ‘the time becoming long’,
with for example ‘aikatuleepitkäksi’ or ‘pitkästyä’.
20 Contemporary correspondence confirms this finding. I am indebted for this
observation to Henna Karppinen-Kummunmäki, who kindly looked at her collection of
eighteenth-century correspondences and diaries for ‘ennui’.
killing time 153
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