Signs of Masculinity: Men in Literature 1700 to the PresentAntony Rowland, Emma Liggins, Eriks Uskalis Masculinity is becoming an increasingly popular area of study in areas as diverse as sociology, politics and cultural studies, yet significant research is lacking into connections between masculinity and literature. Signs of Masculinity aims at beginning to fill the gap. Starting with an introduction to, and intervention within, numerous debates concerning the cultural construction of various masculinities, the volume then continues with an investigation of representations of masculinity in literature from 1700 to the present. Close readings of texts are intended to demonstrate that masculinity is not a theoretical abstract, but a definitive textual and cultural phenomenon that needs to be recognised in the study of literature. It is hoped that the wide-ranging essays, which raise numerous issues, and are written from a variety of methodological approaches, will appeal to undergraduate, postgraduates and lecturers interest in the crucial but under-researched area of masculinity. |
Contents
| 3 | |
| 31 | |
| 37 | |
Representations | 64 |
Sarah Ellis Anne Brontë | 89 |
Literary Evolution and Masculinity | 117 |
Edward Carpenter and findesiècle | 139 |
The Abjection of Pornography | 162 |
Sex Drugs and the Economics of Masculinity in William | 178 |
Class and Masculinity in Tony Harrisons Me Tarzan | 199 |
The Fiction of Ian McEwan | 218 |
Performing Masculinities | 246 |
Notes on Contributors | 270 |
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Common terms and phrases
abject Agnes Agnes Grey Anne Brontë anxieties argues articulate attempt become behaviour Benny Benny's bodily Brontë cannibalism Carpenter Carpenter's child Colley Colley's constructions of masculinity criminal Crusoe's Cunningham death desire Dickens discourse dominant Edward Carpenter Ellis erotic execution father female feminine Feminism feminist fiction fin de siècle fucking gender identity George Gissing Gissing Gissing's Golding's Grub Street hanged Harrison hegemonic masculinity Helen heterosexual homosexuality homosocial Ian McEwan images implied author Jasper linked literary literature London Lynne Segal male body male sexuality manliness masculine identity McEwan men's middle-class moral murder narrative narrator nature Newgate novel norm patriarchal poem poet pornography postmodern reader reading Reardon recognise relations relationship representation Rites of Passage role Routledge Segal sense silence skinhead social society sodomy Stephen subject positions suggests Talbot Tarzan threat traditional University Press Uranian violence Whilst woman womanly women working-class writing
Popular passages
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Page 80 - ... on very dark, he began to think of all the men he had known who had died upon the scaffold; some of them through his means. They rose up, in such quick succession, that he could hardly count them. He had seen some of them die and had joked too, because they died with prayers upon their lips.
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