Works Cited
Black, Joseph. The Victorian Era. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Ontario:
Broadview Press, 2012.
Brone, Emily. Wuthering Heights. London: Penguin Books, 1995. Ebrary. Web. 13 Oct. 2012.
Carlyle, Thomas. Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History.
London: The Temple Press Letchworth, 1908. Ebrary. Web. 13 Oct. 2012.
Cobb, Francis. Criminals, Idiots, Women and Minors. The Broadview Anthology of British
Literature. Ontario: Broadview Press, 2012.
Garton, Stephen. Love, Death and Victorian Masculinity. Social Journal 27.1 (2002): 40-58.
Jstor. Web. 13 Oct. 2012.
Kestner, Joseph A. Masculinites in Victorian Painting. Aldershot, England: Scholar Press 1995.
Kutcha, David. The Three-Piece Suit and Modern Masculinity. California: California Press,
2002. Print
Nelson, Claudia. Sex and the Single Boy: Ideals of Manliness and Sexuality in Victorian
Literature for Boys. Victorian Journal 32.4 (1989): 525-550. Jstor. Web. 13 Oct. 2012.
Spencer, Dane Aaron. St. George and Conceptualizations of Masculinity in the Victorian Era.
The University of Tulsa, 2010. United States -- Oklahoma: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT). Web. 13 Oct. 2012.
Tosh, Josh. Gentlemanly Politeness and Manly Simplicity in Victorian England. Royal Historical
Society 12 (2002): 455-472. Jstor. Web. 13 Oct. 2012.
Annotated Bibliography
Adams, James. Dandies and Desert Saints: Styles of Victorian Manhood. United States: Cornell
University, 1995. Print.
This book, though I didn’t read it in its entirety, explores masculinity via poets and social class writers of the day. He specifically studies the works of Tennyson, Dickens, Arnold, and Wild (to name a few). He shows that through their writings and through intellectual discourse they affirm masculinity in various ways.
Black, Joseph. The Victorian Era. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Ontario:
Broadview Press, 2012.
This article was particularly useful because it gives a very fair and balanced account and overview of gender rules and ideas of femininity and masculinity in the Victorian period. Not only that, but it goes into ideas of class, religion, politics, culture etc. This is useful because all the historical events of the time period help form what we consider Victorian masculinity today.
Dellamora, Richard. Masculine Desire: The Sexual Politics of Victorian Aestheticism. United
States: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990. Print.
This book is similar to the book by Christopher Lane which delves more into the sexuality of masculinity. He looks at texts with questionable content and analyzes different literature and art through that lens. He talks about male-male relationships and defines masculinity in an uncommon way.
Danahay, Martin. Gender at Work in Victorian Culture: Literature, Art and Masculinity.
Aldershot, Englad: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2005. Print.
The title is kind of a play on words. Danahay explicates ideas of men at work in relation to how the idea of masculinity and femininity was defined by work. He also describes the separate spheres and discusses how masculinity in the Victorian period is difficult to explain, but through examining work one can get a better idea of labor division and all its intricacies.
Easley, Alexia. Ebenezer Elliott and the Reconstruction of Working-Class Masculinity. Victorian
Poetry 39.2 (2001): 302-318. Jstor. Web. 13 Oct. 2012.
In this short essay, Easley goes about explaining the ideas of masculinity in the working class. She does this by delving into the life and poetry of Ebenezer Elliot. She explains how his public image was construed by critics to cause social reform.
Garton, Stephen. Love, Death and Victorian Masculinity. Social Journal 27.1 (2002): 40-58.
Jstor. Web. 13 Oct. 2012.
This article, though I only used a small part of it was interesting and helpful. Garton uses the journal of a John William Springthorpe, a man from the Victorian period, to show how often in Victorian society there is an outward “stiff upper lip” attitude, but in the inside there can be turmoil. He basically shows the distinction between private and public lives of men in the nineteenth-century, and how this journal shows the contradictions that occur in the way that Victorian men are commonly thought of.
Joshi, Priti. Edwin Chadwick's Self-Fashioning: Professionalism, Masculinity, and the
Victorian Poor. Victorian Literature and Culture 32.2 (2004): 353-370. Jstor.
Web.13 Oct. 2012.
This was a unique article in that it was both an overview of masculinity as well as a personal critique of Edwin Chadwick. He talks about how Chadwick (a popular commissioner who became well known for his accounts of the Victorian poor) in his presentation of the lower class, worked himself into his writings. Joshi then goes on to show what this reflects about masculinity in the middle class.
Kestner, Joseph A. Masculinites in Victorian Painting. Aldershot, England: Scholar Press 1995.
I didn’t focus on the actual meat of this book, but rather on the introduction. Kestner does a really good job of summarizing the idea of masculinity in the Victorian period. He discusses how it’s something that is forever changing and being morphed by historical events. In the rest of the book it seems that he analyzes different works of art from the time period that shed light on what Victorian masculinity really was.
Kutcha, David. The Three-Piece Suit and Modern Masculinity. California: California Press,
2002. Print
This book was extremely helpful. I read the chapter on Masculinity in the “Age of Chivalry” and it discusses how a great change took place with regards to masculinity after the Glorious Revolution. He describes how men went from valuing aristocratic ideals to valuing the humble and modest man. Kutcha uses men’s fashion as a way of explaining the changing masculinity ideologies.
Lane, Christopher. The Burdens of Intimacy: Psychoanalysis and Victorian Masculinity. London:
The University of Chicago Press, 1999. Print.
This book is different from the other articles and books I read because it focuses more on the sexual aspects of masculinity. Lane explores and rethinks the common ideas of gender and sexuality and focuses on desire and more dramatic themes.
Nelson, Claudia. Sex and the Single Boy: Ideals of Manliness and Sexuality in Victorian
Literature for Boys. Victorian Journal 32.4 (1989): 525-550. Jstor. Web. 13 Oct. 2012.
In this article Nelson gives an over view of the way the idea of sexuality (and to some extent masculinity) evolved over time. To prove her point she uses children’s literature for boys to show what was emphasized by society as being important. She also goes into Darwanism and explains how that functioned in defining sexuality.
Spencer, Dane Aaron. St. George and Conceptualizations of Masculinity in the Victorian Era.
The University of Tulsa, 2010. United States -- Oklahoma: ProQuest Dissertations &
Theses (PQDT). Web. 13 Oct. 2012.
Though I mostly focused on the overview of masculinity at the beginning of the dissertation, I found the ideas on the medieval revival interesting. Spencer goes through a number of pieces of art and literature and shows how the idea of masculinity fluctuates with time and is a changing entity. He uses St. George as a means of explicating these ideas.
Tosh, John. A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England. New
Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1999. Print.
I thought this book was extremely interesting. It delves deeper into gender roles as they stood in the Victorian house hold. He discusses the idea of “separate spheres” and describes how men are required to work and be industrious and women are required to stay at home. He explores the bi-products of having strictly defined separate spheres.
Tosh, John. Gentlemanly Politeness and Manly Simplicity in Victorian England. Royal Historical
Society 12 (2002): 455-472. Jstor. Web. 13 Oct. 2012.
Tosh, an expert in Victorian masculinity, describes how the idea of politeness changed between the late eighteenth and nineteenth century. He describes how at the beginning of the century a polite and well-mannered man was considered a gentlemen and “manly,” but how those ideas shifted as different ideas and ideologies became more prevalent.
Tosh, John. What Should Historians Do with Masculinity? Reflections on Nineteenth-Century
Britain. Oxford University Press, 38 (1994): 179-202. Jstor. Web. 13 Oct. 2012.
Though the title of this piece is very long, the essay itself is rather short. It discusses different approaches that historians have taken in studying Victorian Masculinity. He describes how it has grown in popularity since it has been thought to influence feminine studies. He also delves into how the idea of sexuality during that time period has been distorted.