Anthropology/Pre-history of Leisure

Abstract

Edward Burnett Tylor, widely regarded as the founder of anthropology, titled Chapter XII in his 1881 text, Anthropology, ‘The Arts of Pleasure’. In that chapter, Tylor described aspects of poetry and rhyme, music and musical instruments, dance, drama, art, play, and games among ancient and tribal cultures. The chapter contrasted with the four previous chapters in his book, each of which he titled ‘The Arts of Living’ (noting chapters IX through XI as ‘continued’ as each addressed a somewhat different set of topics). Tylor’s separation of the Arts of Life and the Arts of Pleasure foreshadowed the later division of human culture by anthropologists into its utilitarian aspects and its expressive aspects. In a very general sense, the former relates to the ways in which we make our livings and raise our families while the latter addresses how we imbue our lives with meaning. Tylor is better known, however, for providing one of the first, and most influential, English-language definitions of culture in his 1871 book, Primitive Culture:

Culture, or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. (Tylor, 1871: 1)