Man-made Fibres? The Split Personalities of Victorian Manliness
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13008323 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ruth Robbins (Leeds Beckett University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 139-155 |
| Publication date | 2014-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Victoriographies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2044-2416 • E-ISSN: 2044-2424 |
| Publisher | Edinburgh University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3366/vic.2014.0167 |
| OpenAlex | W1970295511 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
This essay investigates the textual traces of a split that was central to the Victorian conception of manliness: the contradiction of gentlemanliness which demanded both the capacity to commit violence and the requirement to be ‘civilised’. It suggests that there is a fault line running through the fabric of masculinity which can be seen in the texts which train boys to become men, which remember and reconstruct that training, and which consider manliness in its mature forms. A man is a subject who acts; he is also subjected to forces which he does not control. In fiction, long and short, and in poetry, masculinity is repeatedly shown to be both contested and constructed – a man-made fibre, not a natural or god-given status. From Tennyson to Wilde, there is a tear in the cloth
Aesthetics · Art · Commit · Contradiction · Epistemology · Literature · Masculinity · Natural (archaeology · Personality · Personality psychology · Poetry · Psychoanalysis · Subject (documents · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Computer Science · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Philosophy · Psychology
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |