Search Results

Nervous Sensibility and Ideals of Manliness

Jane Wood

in Passion and Pathology in Victorian Fiction

Nervous dreads are a characteristic feature of a condition known as ‘hypochondriasis’. Among the educated classes, ‘mental exertion and fatigue, or prolonged or overstrained attention and devotion to ... More

Nervous dreads are a characteristic feature of a condition known as ‘hypochondriasis’. Among the educated classes, ‘mental exertion and fatigue, or prolonged or overstrained attention and devotion to a particular subject’, are likely to occasion the disease. It is for this reason that it has often been called ‘the disorder of literary men’. The perception of the male nervous sufferer was one of social, sexual, and psychological anomaly in a culture of robust manliness. This chapter considers portrayals of hypochondriacal males in fiction work, such as Charlotte Brontë's The Professor and George Eliot's ‘The Lifted Veil’, which highlight and challenge the prevailing definitions of manliness that shaped and fostered this perception.Less

Brave Men and Manliness

Jarrod L. Whitaker

in Strong Arms and Drinking Strength: Masculinity, Violence, and the Body in Ancient India

Chapter 2 examines the use of the terms vïrá and vïryá, which signify a man’s role as a brave warrior and his manly virile powers and qualities. R̥gvedic poet-priests promote various ways that men ... More

Chapter 2 examines the use of the terms vïrá and vïryá, which signify a man’s role as a brave warrior and his manly virile powers and qualities. R̥gvedic poet-priests promote various ways that men can prove their masculinity, but the dominant role is that of man as warrior. Poets expect that men defined by the terms vïrá and vïryá will acquire wealth from violent excursions and distribute the resultant spoils among clansmen. The use of these two terms also highlights the patriarchal nature of early Vedic culture as males are marked at birth with this androcentric martial role, while also being objectified as commodities in their own right. In addition, fathers, lords, and sacrificial patrons should possess and control males, whether young or old, and, through ritual performances, these patriarchal figures affirm their status, virility, and command of sons and able-bodied men.Less

Brother Killers: Guerrillas and Union Troops

Michael Fellman

in Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War

This chapter talks about guerrilla self-conceptions, Union troops' conceptions of self and others, the blurring of combatants, blood sport, and blood revenge. The implicit meanings of the war did not ... More

This chapter talks about guerrilla self-conceptions, Union troops' conceptions of self and others, the blurring of combatants, blood sport, and blood revenge. The implicit meanings of the war did not come from above but instead from the guerillas and the counterguerrillas, involved in combat. These people played out the internalized values of prewar culture. The first part of this chapter gives an analysis of the values and ideologies of the guerrillas, which includes their assertiveness of manliness and honor, as well as the desire to assume legality in their claims to social leadership. In guerrilla war tactics, the nature of the combatants became vague as they reorganized their values and behavior into something inclined to the guerrilla culture.Less

Clemens, Manhood, the Rogers Friendship, and “Which Was the Dream?”

Peter Messent

in Mark Twain and Male Friendship: The Twichell, Howells, and Rogers Friendships

An account is given here of Clemens's financial problems in the 1890s, Rogers's intervention and involvement in his business affairs, and the nature of the friendship that developed. A further ... More

An account is given here of Clemens's financial problems in the 1890s, Rogers's intervention and involvement in his business affairs, and the nature of the friendship that developed. A further account, too, is given of changing gender roles at the time, of home‐work relationships, and of the representation of manhood and manliness and the shifts that occurred here too (and especially within a business arena), and as seen within the context of the supposed “crisis of masculinity” in the period. This discussion takes place in the light of Clemens and Rogers's correspondence and the friendship it reflects, but also of the supposed gap between business and culture associated with the late‐nineteenth‐century American world—and illustrates how eventually the two men's roles were reversed as Clemens gained strength while Rogers suffered physical decline and business difficulties. The chapter ends with an analysis of “Which was the Dream?” read in the terms of the previous discussions.Less

Introduction: ‘Mens sana in corpore sano’: the fragile bodies of men

Joan Tumblety

in Remaking the Male Body: Masculinity and the uses of Physical Culture in Interwar and Vichy France

The introduction explains the rationale and structure of the book. It introduces some of the key physical culturists of the era, stressing the number of them who were physicians whose work served to ... More

The introduction explains the rationale and structure of the book. It introduces some of the key physical culturists of the era, stressing the number of them who were physicians whose work served to popularize eugenicist approaches to physical exercise as well as to reinforce the importance of muscle to manliness. It also unpacks what it was that physical culturists meant when they spoke of the importance of ‘rational’ exercise. It offers some suggestions as to why a crisis in virility was so widely heralded in these years, and carves out the main case of the book — that the interwar period was marked by widespread fears of national decline seen through the medicalized frame of the degeneration of the ‘race’, all mediated through the imagined failure of French manhood. The chapter also stresses the transnational nature of this set of interlocking hygienist concernsLess

Conclusion

Debra A. Shattuck

in Bloomer Girls: Women Baseball Pioneers

Baseball did not become gendered as a man’s sport overnight nor did any single group dominate the cultural metanarrative of baseball as it matured from infancy to adolescence during the nineteenth ... More

Baseball did not become gendered as a man’s sport overnight nor did any single group dominate the cultural metanarrative of baseball as it matured from infancy to adolescence during the nineteenth century. Baseball has been used to symbolize “Americanism,” middle-class, Judeo-Christian values, and “manliness.” Though many vied to control the narrative of America’s national pastime, not every group had equal influence on the ultimate character and culture of baseball. By the end of the nineteenth century, men held almost exclusive control of the narrative of “official” baseball, while women controlled a parallel narrative for the baseball-surrogate called “women’s baseball.” This game became the precursor of softball which emerged in its official form during the 1930s.Less

‘Nursed in Blood’: Masculinity and Grief in Marston’s Antonio’s Revenge

Rebecca Yearling

in Revenge and Gender in Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Literature

This chapter examines the relationship between grief, revenge and masculinity in John Marston’s Antonio’s Revenge. Unlike other contemporary revenge dramas, the play ends with Antonio alive and ... More

This chapter examines the relationship between grief, revenge and masculinity in John Marston’s Antonio’s Revenge. Unlike other contemporary revenge dramas, the play ends with Antonio alive and unpunished, which critics have tended to interpret either as evidence of Marston’s lack of artistic skill or as a uniquely positive depiction of revenge as necessary and just. This chapter rejects both interpretations, arguing instead that the jarring ending is characteristic of Marston, who frequently pitches genre conventions against perplexing ethical questions in order to unsettle the spectator’s aesthetic expectations and moral judgements. The play also questions the characters’ fantasy of extreme manliness, and its equation of masculinity with violence and death. Although Antonio moves from ‘tears to blood’, coming to embody a vengeful hyper-masculinity, Antonio’s new version of manliness is monstrous and not far from psychosis.Less

Failed Manhood on the Streets of Urban Japan: The Meanings of Self-Reliance for Homeless Men

Tom Gill

in Recreating Japanese Men

This chapter focuses on the homeless men of Japan. In particular, it seeks to answer the questions: Why are there any homeless people here in Japan? Why are they nearly all men? In Japan, the ... More

This chapter focuses on the homeless men of Japan. In particular, it seeks to answer the questions: Why are there any homeless people here in Japan? Why are they nearly all men? In Japan, the imbalance between the number of homeless men and homeless women is quite striking. This phenomenon of homeless men in Japan resulted from a gendered conception of personal autonomy that found expression in two ways: first, in a deeply sexist welfare ideology that penalizes men for failing to maintain economic self-reliance, while at the same time keeping women and children off the streets because they are not expected to be self-reliant in the first place; and second, in a concern with self-reliance on the part of homeless men grounded in conceptions of manliness (otokorashisa). In this chapter, five homeless men are studied. Each of them were dealing with the challenge of conceptualizing self-reliance while living on the margins of Japanese society.Less

But There's Your Mother and Your Work: The Family and the Nation in Hototogisu

in An Age of Melodrama: Family, Gender, and Social Hierarchy in the Turn-of-the-Century Japanese Novel

This chapter examines the models of family and their relationship to the nation in the Japanese melodrama Hototogisu by Tokutomi Roka. It examines how this novel negotiates extra-literary discourses ... More

This chapter examines the models of family and their relationship to the nation in the Japanese melodrama Hototogisu by Tokutomi Roka. It examines how this novel negotiates extra-literary discourses involving representations of family, gender and status and analyzes it representation of temporality. This chapter also argues that the ideological contradiction of this melodrama traces a trajectory toward an exclusively male fictive family serving the interconnected needs of manliness and nationalism.Less

Mothering the world: the making of a gendered internationalism

Helen McCarthy

in The British People and the League of Nations: Democracy, Citizenship and Internationalism, c. 1918–45

This chapter investigates the extent and nature of women's League-related activism in interwar Britain. The League of Nations Union (LNU)'s recruiting efforts were profoundly gendered. Its propaganda ... More

This chapter investigates the extent and nature of women's League-related activism in interwar Britain. The League of Nations Union (LNU)'s recruiting efforts were profoundly gendered. Its propaganda reinforced the broader trend away from the ideals of ‘manliness’ prevalent before 1914. It also followed the example of the political parties by tending to conceptualise women in homogenising terms. Gender relations preserved tokenism and male power whilst simultaneously offering opportunities for female leadership and self-assertion. The chapter then turns to the major event of the movement's history—the Peace Ballot—treating it as a case study in which the operation of gender can be viewed in particularly sharp relief. Gender relations within the LNU exhibited strong continuities with those prevalent in the mixed political movements of the pre-Suffrage era. Sexual difference was so commonplace a feature of public life that the contradictions made little dent in the League's appeal.Less

Conclusion: The War for Manhood

Lorien Foote

in The Gentlemen and the Roughs: Violence, Honor, and Manhood in the Union Army

This chapter argues that the end of the Civil War did not signal end the North's war for manhood. Different ideals of manhood were still in contention. The war energized honor, boisterous manhood, ... More

This chapter argues that the end of the Civil War did not signal end the North's war for manhood. Different ideals of manhood were still in contention. The war energized honor, boisterous manhood, and physical prowess while simultaneously reinforcing the importance of domestic morality and gentility for those who embraced those attributes. The clear loser in the battle were the undesirable roughs, the men of the North's underclass who had seemed to pose a danger to the army and to the home front through their wild fights and uncontrolled behavior. Many of them were conscripts, and although the army's coercive mechanisms ensured that at least some of them fought in battle, other men rarely acknowledged them as comrades. The remainder of the chapter deals with the how the historical memory of the Civil War has evolved in the decades after the conflict.Less

Introduction: Understanding Priestly Masculinity

Michelle Armstrong-Partida

in Defiant Priests

This introductory chapter provides an overview of clerical masculinity and priestly identity. Throughout the medieval period, secular and regular clergy struggled with, contested, and negotiated ... More

This introductory chapter provides an overview of clerical masculinity and priestly identity. Throughout the medieval period, secular and regular clergy struggled with, contested, and negotiated their own ideas of manliness and the demands of the Church. In medieval society, social and cultural trends that focused on marriage, fatherhood, and displays of patriarchal authority shaped how many men understood and reacted to gendered ideals that ultimately affected how they formed their own masculine identity. Clergy received the gendered messages of their environment, and some conformed, modified, or challenged gendered prescriptions in creating their masculinity. Depending on their social status, education, and clerical rank, clergymen expressed their masculine identity in a variety of ways that included—but were not limited to—celibacy, active sexuality, models of spirituality, pious devotion, intellectual prowess, abstinence from manual labor, military skill, and violence.Less

Marriage Defines the Parish Priest

Michelle Armstrong-Partida

in Defiant Priests

This chapter demonstrates the pervasiveness of clerical unions and the proclivity of parish priests to form de facto marriages with women. These were enduring unions in which clerics were fully ... More

This chapter demonstrates the pervasiveness of clerical unions and the proclivity of parish priests to form de facto marriages with women. These were enduring unions in which clerics were fully committed to their women and children. Moreover, maintaining a family did not hinder the careers of priests since many clerics were promoted from the minor to major orders, and even to the position of rector, in spite of their unions and households of children. The omnipresence of long-term unions and sexual affairs among the clergy illustrates that forming a sexual relationship with a woman became an element of clerical manliness in medieval Catalunya. Meanwhile, visitation records show that episcopal officials worked not to eradicate clerical unions among the clergy but to prevent the clergy from flagrantly displaying their families in public.Less

The Roman Hannibal Defined

Claire Stocks

in The Roman Hannibal: Remembering the Enemy in Silius Italicus' Punica

This chapter explores three central concepts. Firstly, the power of the name (nomen)in antiquity with consideration of how potent names such as ‘Hannibal’, ‘Caesar’, and ‘Medea’ stood as symbols for ... More

This chapter explores three central concepts. Firstly, the power of the name (nomen)in antiquity with consideration of how potent names such as ‘Hannibal’, ‘Caesar’, and ‘Medea’ stood as symbols for an individual's identity. In particular the name ‘Hannibal’ became associated with cruelty, treachery, and fear. Secondly, this chapter deals with the issue of what is meant by the phrase ‘The Roman Hannibal’, arguing that the Hannibal we know is predominantly the product of Rome's literature and was used by Rome as a means of exploring and interpreting its past. Finally this chapter discusses the positive connotations attached to the Latin word uir (man) and the ideal of Roman manliness as presented in ancient texts, including the Punica.Less