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Fowler, Rebekah Mary. "Mourning, Melancholia, and Masculinity in Medieval Literature." OpenSIUC, 2011. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/dissertations/336.
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This dissertation examines male bereavement in medieval literature, expanding the current understanding of masculinity in the Middle Ages by investigating both the authenticity and affective nature of grief among aristocratic males. My focus is on the pattern of bereavement that surfaces across genres and that has most often been absorbed into studies of lovesickness, madness, the wilderness, or more formalist concerns with genre, form, and literary convention, but has seldom been discussed in its own right. This pattern consists of love, loss, grief madness and/or melancholy, wilderness lament/consolation, and synthesis and application of information gleaned from the grieving process, which is found is diverse texts from the twelfth century romance of Chrétien de Troyes' Yvain to the fifteenth century dream vision/consolatio Pearl. A focused study of how bereavement is represented through this pattern gains us a deeper understanding of medieval conceptions of emotional expression and their connections to gender and status. In other words, this project shows how the period imagines gender and status not just as something one recognizes, but also something one feels. The judgments and representations of bereavement in these texts can be explained by closely examining the writings of such religious thinkers as Augustine and Aquinas, who borrow from the neo-Platonic and Aristotelian schools of thought, respectively, and both of whom address the potential sinfulness and vanity of excessive grief and the dangers for this excess to result in sinful behavior. This latter point is also picked up in medical treatises and encyclopedic works of the Middle Ages, such as those of Avicenna and Isidore of Seville, which are also consulted in this project. The medieval philosophical and medical traditions are blended with contemporary theories of gender, authenticity, and understanding, as well as an acknowledgement of the psychoanalytic contributions of Freud and Lacan. Through these theories, I explore the capacity for the men in these texts to move beyond the social strictures of masculinity in order to more authentically grieve over the loss of their loved ones, which often constitutes a type of lack. However, my purpose is not to view losses as lack, but rather, to see them as a positive impetus to push beyond the limits of social behavior in order to realize textually various outcomes and to suggest the limitations of such socially sanctioned conventions as literary forms, language, rituals, understanding, and consolation to govern the enactment of grief.
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Fox, Emma. "Conrad and masculinity." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 1995. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/4072/.
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The thesis seeks to demonstrate that Conrad does not fit at all into the manly-heroic tradition which his work is often approached as belonging to. By tracing the entwining of masculine and homoerotic imagery in his major and minor works, as well as in the often neglected late novels, it is possible to discover ample evidence to suggest that he would be more accurately- if somewhat shockingly for critical tradition placed in the tradition of homosexual literature. Appended to the main body of the thesis is a glossary of homosexual codewords- words that were widely understood to refer to what was then the otherwise unmentionable crime of homosexuality from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This glossary is drawn both from the homosexual prose and poetry of the era, as well as from what evidence we have of wider public usages in contemporary newspapers, court-reports, diaries, letters, etc. At present, there is no recognition of, or collation of, the vast majority of these words in any dictionary of historical or sexual slang.
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Aronovitz, Michael. "Hemingway and masculinity." Click here for download, 2006. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/villanova/fullcit?p1432830.
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Nyborg, Erin. "The Brontës and masculinity." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:3d1d0ee1-f3f8-43cd-9fdd-5d44cfae2a83.
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This is the first comprehensive study of the Brontës' representations of masculinity. In it, I analyse the ways this family of writers depicted forms of masculinity as they developed from late-Romantic child writers to mature novelists and poets of the Victorian period. My chief concern is to situate the Brontës within the historical period of 1829-1855, from Charlotte's first Glass Town stories to the time of her death. This thesis examines the Brontë siblings' complete body of work, including Branwell's contributions to the Angrian saga, Emily's and Anne's Gondal poetry, and Charlotte's and Emily's Belgian devoirs. In undertaking this work, I model my approach on Heather Glen's precise, historical readings in Charlotte Brontë: The Imagination in History (2002), as well as John Tosh's social historical examination of Victorian masculinity, particularly in A Man's Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home (1999). This study examines representations of masculinity in the modes of cultural production the Brontës were exposed to: contemporary periodicals, poetry, fiction, domestic handbooks, gift books, educational texts, clerical and medical handbooks, and labour management treatises. I track the Brontës' various engagements with and revisions of Byronic and Carlylean forms of masculinity, as well as the rise and fall of the silver fork dandy and the emergence of both the Victorian self-made man and the new professional. This study considers how the Brontës' representations of gender formation were affected by different modes of familial literary production and collaboration. Though the Brontës shared their creative works from a young age and grew up within the same domestic literary culture, the siblings' depictions of masculinity diverge, and each sister situates herself within various cultural contexts relating, for example, to child-rearing, romance, and professional conduct. My thesis is organised thematically, with chapters examining heroic, domestic, and professional representations of masculinity in the Brontës' works.
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Claydon, E. Anna. "Masculinity and the sixties British film." Thesis, University of Kent, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.274320.
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King, Charla. "Middle Men: Establishing Non-Anglo Masculinity in Southwestern Literature." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2003. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc4259/.
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By examining southwestern masculinity from three separate lenses of cultural experience, Mexican American, Native American and female, this thesis aims to acknowledge the blending of masculinities that is taking place in both the fictitious and factual southwest. Long gone are the days when the cowboys chased down the savage Indians or the Mexican bandits. Southwestern literature now focuses on how these different cultures and traditions can re-construct their masculinities in a way that will be beneficial to all. The southwest is a land of borders and liminal spaces between the United States and Mexico, between brown and white, legal and illegal. All of these borders converge here to create the last American frontier. These converging borders also encompass converging traditions, cultures, and genders. By blending the cowboy, the macho, and the warrior, perhaps these Southwestern writers can construct a liminal masculinity more representative of the southwest itself.
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Fore, Dana Yuen. "Masculinity, disability, and the literature of bodies on display /." For electronic version search Digital dissertations database. Restricted to UC campuses. Access is free to UC campus dissertations, 2005. http://uclibs.org/PID/11984.
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Rees, Jennifer. "Masculinity and sexuality in South African border war literature." Thesis, Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/5451.
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Thesis (MA (English))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis explores masculinity and sexuality, hegemonic and “deviant” in the nation state of the old apartheid South Africa, by addressing aspects of fatherhood, boyhood and motherhood in white, predominantly Afrikaans family narratives. In doing this, I explore the ways in which the young boys in texts such as The Smell of Apples (1995), by Mark Behr, and moffie (2006), by André Carl van der Merwe, are systematically groomed to become the ideal stereotype of masculinity at the time: rugged, intelligent, successful and heterosexual. The main focus of this thesis is to explore the ideologies inherent in constructing the white, Afrikaner man, his woman and their family. This will be done with specific reference to the time frame between the early 1970s to the fall of the apartheid regime in the early 1990s, focussing on the young white boys who are sent to do military training and oftentimes, a stint on the border between Angola and the then South-West Africa, in order to keep the so-called threat of communism at bay. I explore what happens when this white-centred patriarchal hegemony is broken down, threatened or resisted when “deviance” in the form of homosexuality occurs. A second focus of this thesis is that of “deviance” in the army. I analyse “deviance” in three novels, moffie (2006) by André Carl van der Merwe, The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs (1991) by Damon Galgut and Kings of the Water (2009) by Mark Behr. These novels foreground “deviance” and I make use of them in exploring the punishment, or “consequences” of being homosexual or “deviant” in the highly masculine environs of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) army. I also examine the muted yet, I argue, resistant voices of female characters in these novels. This thesis concludes by briefly noting the aftermath of this war, the after-effects of a white, hegemonic, conservative ruling party at the helm of a divided, war-faring country on its soldiers, who are now middle-aged men.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis ondersoek manlikheid en seksualiteit, hegemonie en “afwykings” in die staat van ou apartheid Suid-Afrika deur te verwys na aspekte van vaderskap, seunwees en moederskap in blanke, oorwegend Afrikaanse gesinsvertellings. Eerstens sal daar ondersoek ingestel word na die wyses waarop jong seuns in tekste soos The Smell of Apples (1995) deur Mark Behr en moffie (2006) deur André Carl van der Merwe stelselmatig gekweek word tot die ideale stereotipe van manlikheid in die era: ongetem, intelligent, suksesvol en heteroseksueel. Die hoofklem van hierdie tesis is om die denkwyses onderliggend aan die konstruksie van die blanke Afrikaner man, sy vrou en hulle gesin, te verken. Dit sal bewerkstellig word deur na die tydperk vanaf die vroeë 1970s tot en met die ondergang van die apartheidsbewind in die vroeë 1990s te verwys, met spesifieke klem op jeugdige blanke seuns wat gestuur is vir militêre opleiding en dikwels ook diensplig aan die grens tussen Angola en destydse Suid-Wes Afrika om die oënskynlike kommunistiese aanslag af te weer. Daar word verken wat plaasvind wanneer hierdie blank-gesentreerde, patriargale oorwig afgebreek, bedreig of teengestaan word deur “afwykings” soos die voorkoms van homoseksualiteit. ‘n Tweede fokuspunt van hierdie tesis is die “afwykings” in die weermag. Die volgende drie “afwykingsromans” word ontleed: moffie (2006), The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs (1991) deur Damon Galgut en Kings of the Water (2009) deur Mark Behr. Hierdie romans ondervang die idee van “afwykings” en word gebruik in die ondersoek na die straf of gevolge van homoseksueel of “afwykend” wees in die uitsluitlik manlike omgewing geskep deur die SANW-opleiding. Daar word ook ondersoek ingestel na die stilgemaakte; dog, soos aangetoon word, versettende stemme van vroulike karakters in die romans. Hierdie tesis sluit af deur vlugtig te verwys na die nasleep van die oorlog en die gevolge van ’n blanke, heersende, konserwatiewe party aan die stuur van ’n verdeelde, oorlogvoerende land op sy soldate wat tans middeljarige mans is.
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Harewood, Gia Lyn. "Constructions of violent Jamaican masculinity in film and literature." College Park, Md.: University of Maryland, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1903/8541.
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Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2008.Thesis research directed by: Dept. of English. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.
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Brantz, Colter A. "Location and loss masculinity in James Baldwin /." Laramie, Wyo. : University of Wyoming, 2007. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1317344031&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=18949&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Norton, Daxton L. "The performative/theatrical divide : staging aberrant masculinities in film, literature, and performance art /." view abstract or download file of text, 2005. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/uoregon/fullcit?p3190535.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2005.Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 221-233). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.
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Thyssen, Candy Lynn. "The representation of Black masculinity in post-apartheid children's literature." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/10648.
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Includes bibliographical references.The significant changes to the political landscape of South Africa since the abolition of apartheid and the implementation of democracy have had far-reaching effects in social order and gender relations. With the new dispensation has come the promise of new opportunities for men and women of all races to participate fully in the creation of a multicultural society, making the issue of transformation an important agenda. As a social artifact, children's literature has also been influenced by these changes, and the didactic function of this medium make it an interesting site to explore the ways in which historical stereotypes are both perpetuated and challenged. This study focused on the representation of black masculinity in a sample of South African children's literature published after apartheid. The aim was to investigate how race, gender, and class intersect in the representation of black masculinity.
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Guarino, Samantha. "Mirroring masculinity violence in the Victorian double /." Click here for download, 2009. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1818251481&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=3260&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Masland, James Gillinder. "Narratives of romantic masculinity within the long eighteenth century." Diss., Restricted to subscribing institutions, 2008. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1679298161&sid=7&Fmt=2&clientId=1564&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Ye, Qing. "Masculinity in Yu Hua's fiction from modernism to postmodernism." Thesis, McGill University, 2009. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=66852.
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The Tiananmen Incident in 1989 triggered the process during which Chinese society evolved from so-called "high modernism" to vague "postmodernism". The purpose of this thesis is to examine and evaluate the gender representation in Chinese male intellectuals' writing when they face the aforementioned social evolution. The exemplary writer from the band of Chinese male intellectuals I have chosen is Yu Hua, one of the most important and successful novelists in China today. Coincidently, his writing career, spanning from the mid-1980s until present, parallels the Chinese intellectuals' pursuit of modernism and their acceptance of postmodernism. In my thesis, I re-visit four of his works in different eras, including One Kind of Reality (1988), Classical Love (1988), To Live (1992), and Brothers (2005), to explore the social, psychological, and aesthetical elements that formulate/reformulate male identity, male power and male/female relation in his fictional world. Inspired by those fictional male characters who are violent, anxious or even effeminized in his novels, one can perceive male intellectuals' complex feelings towards current Chinese society and culture. It is believed that this study will contribute to the literary and cultural investigation of the third-world intellectuals.Les événements de la Place Tiananmen en 1989 a déclenché le processus durant lequel la société chinoise a évolué d'un soi-disant "haut modernisme" vers un vague "post-modernisme". Le but de cette thèse est d'examiner et d'évaluer la représentation des sexes dans l'écriture des intellectuels chinois mâles quand ils font face à l'évolution sociale mentionnée ci-dessus. L'auteur qui exemplifie bien le groupe d'intellectuels masculins chinois que j'ai choisi est Yu Hua, un des romanciers les plus importants et prolifiques de la Chine d'aujourd'hui. Bonne coïncidence, sa carrière d'écrivain qui couvre la période commençant au milieu des années 1980 jusqu'à maintenant, trace des parallèles entre la poursuite du modernisme des intellectuels chinois et leur acceptation de post-modernisme. Dans ma thèse, je revisite quatre de ses travaux dans des périodes différentes, y compris One Kind of Reality (1988), Classical Love (1988), To Live (1992) et Brothers (2005). Le but est d'explorer l'aspect social, les éléments psychologiques et esthétiques qui formulent/reformulent l'identité masculine, le pouvoir masculin et la relation homme/femme dans son monde fictif. Inspiré par ces personnages masculins fictifs qui sont violents, anxieux ou même effeminés dans ses romans, on peut percevoir les sentiments complexes des intellectuels masculins envers la société et la culture chinoise actuelle. Je crois que cette étude contribuera à l'enquête sur la littérature et la culture des intellectuels des pays du Tiers-Monde.
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Markwick, Margaret. "Construction of masculinity in the novels of Anthony Trollope." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.273007.
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Mitchell, Taylor Joy. "Cold War Playboys: Models of Masculinity in the Literature of Playboy." Scholar Commons, 2011. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/3249.
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"Cold War Playboys: Models of Masculinity in the Literature of Playboy" emphasizes the literary voices that emerged in response to the Cold War's redefinitions of space and sexuality and, thus, adds to the growing national discourse of Cold War literary and masculinity studies. I argue that the literature Playboy includes has always been a necessary feature to creating its masculinity model; however, that very literature often destabilizes the magazine's grand narrative because it presents readers with alternative models of masculinity. To make that argument, I presume five things: 1) masculinity, like femininity, is a construct; 2) the mid-century masculinity crisis should be attributed to redefinitions of space and sexuality; 3) the crisis generated a variety of masculinity models; 4) Playboy presents its own, unified model of masculinity through its editorial features; and 5) finally, that Playboy should be considered an early Cold War artifact because the space Playboy magazine represents, dually domestic and privatized, is hardly trivial--decade after decade, it has absorbed society's shifts and reflected them back to readers.
Citing biographical, historical, critical, and textual evidence, I consider how the literature of Playboy magazine responds to the construction of Cold War discourses regarding sexuality and space. In particular, I examine how Playboy contributions from Jack Kerouac, Vladimir Nabokov, and James Baldwin detail models of masculinity informed by Cold War culture. Playboy's emphasis was obviously Playmates, but fiction always appeared in its pages. As its largest component, fiction became the backbone of Playboy. Therefore, Hefner's educated, sexual male identity included, and still includes, reading a wide array of literature--from Ian Fleming to Ursula le Guin. "Cold War Playboys" asks: How did literature gain primacy in Hefner's ideal male identity? What purposes does reading this literature serve when appealing to a particular masculinity? Answering these questions allows me to explore how one mass-produced magazine and specific literary figures participated in and resisted the construction of Cold War discourses regarding space and sexuality.
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Sinha, Madhudaya. "Masculinity Under Siege: Gender, Empire, and Knowledge in Late Victorian Literature." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1259076061.
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Wardell, Rebecca. "Men, mentors, and masculinity in three of George Eliot's novels /." free to MU campus, to others for purchase, 2002. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/mo/fullcit?p3074450.
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Alexander, Martin John. "Foreshadowing the postcolonial : representations of masculinity in the works of Joseph Conrad /." Thesis, Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1997. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B18685407.
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Beden, Nadja. "Femininity and Masculinity in Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding." Thesis, Mittuniversitetet, Institutionen för humaniora, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:miun:diva-13976.
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Mraz, David Michael. "Reading masculinity in Virginia Woolf''s The waves." Cleveland, Ohio : Cleveland State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1260994491.
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Thesis (M.A.)--Cleveland State University, 2009.Abstract. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Dec. 18, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-54). Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center and also available in print.
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Weiss, Katherine. "Exploding Bombs: Masculinity and War Trauma in Sam Shepard’s Drama." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2007. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/2298.
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This paper examines violence and masculinity in Sam Shepard's work as a symptom of war trauma, apparent in his characterization of several of his male characters as war veterans and the violent language accompanying his other characters. War becomes a cultural disease infesting and destroying the family on Shepard's stage.
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Eastlake, Laura Joanne. "Engendering antiquity : masculinity and ancient Rome in the Victorian cultural imagination." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2014. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/6087/.
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This thesis examines nineteenth-century receptions of ancient Rome, with a specific focus on how those receptions were deployed to create useable models of masculinity. I suggest that Rome represents a contested space in the Victorian cultural imagination, with an array of possible scripts and narratives that could be harnessed to articulate masculine ideals, or to vilify perceived deviance from those ideals. Thus, this thesis presents a model of nineteenth-century manliness wherein masculine dominance is derived from the perceived authority to assign meaning to Rome as an image, and to determine its usage either as a badge of merit or a condemnation of certain gendered traits. After establishing in the opening chapter the centrality of Latin and a classical education to elite male identities at both individual and collective levels, the remainder of this thesis charts the place and function of the Roman parallel in the construction of several key ‘styles’ of nineteenth-century masculinity, from the man of letters and the industrialist, to the New Imperialist and the dandy. In this way I account for the multifarious and often contradictory treatments of the Roman example in Victorian literature where, for instance, the same Roman parallel was used to capture the martial virtue of Wellington as was used to condemn the deviance and degeneracy of Oscar Wilde. Understood through the lens of masculine identity, Victorian receptions of Rome become more comprehensible: Rome is contested because masculinity is contested; there are many competing visions of Rome because there are many competing styles of masculinity. Far from attempting to artificially homogenize or to impose a singular narrative of Victorian reception, the aim of this thesis is to explore its complexity and to explain its central conflict as a struggle over the codification of manliness whereby the cultural authority to assign meaning to the Roman age is equivalent to and indicative of the power to speak authoritatively about masculinity in the present.
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Keith, Ravon D. "Constructing the Concept of Masculinity in black American men." DigitalCommons@Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center, 2011. http://digitalcommons.auctr.edu/dissertations/234.
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Historically, and in literature, the concept of black masculinity is often viewed from a Euro-American perspective. This perspective makes the stages of progression to manhood problematic for black males. Since slavery, African American men have been hampered in their progress toward manhood based on the oppressors’ expedient notion that black males are incapable of self-actualization, a concept that was utilized to ensure that black males were always “boys” and, thus, more manageable. Recently, revisionist history, along with black authored literature, has resulted in a different perspective of black masculinity and black manhood. This thesis illustrates that Earnest Gaines’s A Gathering ofOld Men and Daniel Black’s They Tell Me ofA Home offer a new paradigm for black masculinity and manhood through the perspective of their black male characters. In Gaines and Black’s novels, black males redefine their own concepts of manhood by engaging in self-innovation through spirituality and by resisting racial oppression.
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Mraz, David Michael. "READING MASCULINITY IN VIRGINIA WOOLF’S THE WAVES." Cleveland State University / OhioLINK, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1260994491.
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Perreira, Jessica M. "Masculinity on Women in Japan: Gender Fluidity Explored Through Literature and Performance." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2017. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1038.
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The first half of my thesis are my translations from Yumi Hirosawa’s Onna O Aisuru Onnatachi. The first translation is excerpts from a high school girls journal documenting her realization and acceptance of being lesbian, and her time with her first girlfriend. The second translation is a report by a freelance writer on three different lesbian bars in Shinjuku Ni-Chome. The most notable bar is an onabe bar called Little Prince. Onabe in the simplest terms are women who dress and act like men. Onabe are important to the research portion of my thesis because they allowed me to research how masculine identities among Japanese women are formed. The documentary Shinjuku Boys interviews three onabe. From them it is made clear that being an onabe is not as simple as presenting as a man but is a complex relationship with one’s body, societal norms and parental pressures. We learn that onabe is different than being trans - which some would say is Onabe’s Western equivalent - yet various part of those identities can line up. Secondly the cultural phenomena Takarazuka and the women that play the otoko-yaku, or men's roles, makes clear the idea of what masculinity is and how women should wear it on their bodies. Even though the otoko-yaku and musume-yaku hyper-perform gender their exaggeration helps clarify how the women from Queer Japan: Personal Stories of Japanese Lesbians, Gay, Transsexuals, and Bisexuals grappled with their sexuality and gender. Lastly, the fictional stories from Sparkling Rain: And Other Fiction from Japan of Women Who Love Women coupled with the firsthand accounts from Queer Japan further develops the idea and struggles of masculine women’s bodies. In my thesis I aim to look at how masculinity is written onto Japanese woman's bodies both by themselves and others, and the struggles that they encounter because of their deviant sexual and gender identities. In my thesis these are the research questions I aim to answer: What are the modes in which queer women push away masculinity? Yet how do they perform and enforce it? How do these women view or interpret other women who are more masculine? How does having a masculine identity affect one’s perception of themselves? How do these women cope with being both lesbian and masculine of center? Why are the otoko-yaku women of Takarazuka praised for their daily performance of masculinity while onabe are scrutinized for it? And if both are forms of entertainment, mainly for other women, why is one more acceptable than another?
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Parille, Kenneth Miller. "Managing boys forming masculinity in nineteenth-century United States literature and culture /." Full text, Acrobat Reader required, 2002. http://viva.lib.virginia.edu/etd/diss/ArtsSci/English/2002/Parille/parille.pdf.
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Johnson, Travis William. "Affective communities: masculinity and the discourse of emotion in Middle English literature." Diss., University of Iowa, 2011. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/4860.
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Scholars have recently begun to reconsider the importance of emotions, suggesting that they are cultural constructions integral to human identity and social life. Most of these studies, however, have ignored the medieval period, focusing instead on the "civilizing process"--that is, the supposed development of social etiquette and self-restraint--that is assumed to have begun in the early modern period. This dissertation demonstrates that emotion was in fact a complex identity discourse well before the Renaissance and was fundamental to the construction of pre-modern social categories like gender. Exploring four masculine communities--clergymen, knights, university students, and merchants--I show that each community was shaped and constrained by a particular emotional ethos. Middle English poets were keenly aware of these constraints and their work often challenged the culture's emotional regimes.
I focus on literary texts from the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries because they were created during a time of heightened emphasis on the role of the emotions in shaping selves and communities. In the years after the Black Death, England witnessed significant demographic shifts and economic volatility that resulted in dramatic transformations in the nation's social landscape. Peasant rebellion, labor shortages, migrant clergy, and an influx of foreign merchants radically altered the structure of English society during these years. As a result, the institutions and ideologies that defined English masculine identity began changing in ways not seen before. Poets not surprisingly turned to the lexicon of emotion to negotiate these disruptions; in so doing, they offered English men new ways of understanding themselves in the face of rapid cultural change. The chapters examine a range of Middle English poems--the Alliterative Morte Arthure, St. Erkenwald, Chaucer's Reeve's Tale, and Lydgate's Bycorne and Chychevache--that illuminate particular emotions (anger, compassion, grief, and sorrow) and their significance to codes of masculinity. I argue that these four texts radically revised the forms and meanings of masculine emotional identity and community.
This dissertation demonstrates that Middle English poets recognized the transformative potential inherent in the lexicon of emotion and used it to reshape their audiences' understanding of critical cultural problems. The years from the 1350s to the 1450s were important not only in the emerging tradition of poetry in English, but also for the development of the language and psychology of emotion. As poets tried to come to terms with great social changes, they molded and manipulated the discourse of emotion to interrogate what it meant to be a man in late medieval England. Affective Communities reveals the importance of emotions as markers of gender and community and shows literature's role in responding to and imagining social change.
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Healy, Meghan. "Masculinity and manliness in the work of Elizabeth Gaskell." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/12268.
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Mid-nineteenth-century England saw great social transformation in the face of industrialisation, changing working and living conditions, and voting reforms, and with these changes came new conceptions of masculinity and what it meant to be a man and a gentleman. Though much critical attention has been given to Elizabeth Gaskell's representation of women—not surprisingly, given titles such as Wives and Daughters, Mary Barton, Cousin Phillis, and Ruth—her works span class, region, time, and genre to grapple with ideas of masculinity. This thesis aims to explore her understanding of masculine identity as a social construct, to examine the representation of manliness in her novels, and to consider how her writing engages with Victorian ideologies of masculinity. The introduction provides context on Gaskell's background and Unitarian faith, discourses of sympathy, Victorian manliness, and masculinity studies. The thesis is presented in three sections, each comprising two chapters. The first examines working-class masculinity and the gentleman in her industrial fiction; the second explores intertextuality, examining the ways in which she borrows and transforms notions of masculinity from contemporaries' works; and the third examines her representation of previous models of manhood in her historical fiction. Together, these sections reveal that Gaskell views masculinity not as monolithic but rather as relational and shaped by many contexts, from regional identity and historic change to intertextuality and sympathy, which echo throughout her entire oeuvre; in examining her longer fiction in juxtaposition, this thesis makes it clear that just as Gaskell views masculinity as a category that cannot be neatly contained, she systematically excludes male characters from her resolutions, struggling to contain her models of masculinity within the form of the novel. The appendix, based on archival research, presents a list of the books that Elizabeth and/or William Gaskell borrowed between 1850 and 1865 from Manchester's Portico Library.
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White, So-fong Patricia, and 蔡素芳. "The unmaking of heroes: a study of masculinity in contemporary fiction." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2007. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B38999225.
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Zink, Sharon Louisa. "Translating men : humanism and masculinity in Renaissance renditions of patristic texts." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 2001. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/1645.
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This doctoral thesis focusses upon the translation of patristic works into English in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Considering the pragmatic usage of texts in humanist culture, this research project explores the mobilisation of vernacular versions of the Church Fathers in response to historical crises. Regarding Renaissance humanism as a gendered intellectual methodology,I have investigated the way in which these texts particularly aim to address the needs of men, offering them exemplars to 'cope' with their social circumstances. The first chapter involves the analysis of Thomas Drant's rendition of Gregory of Nazianzus' Epigrams (1568) as part of the struggles of the early Elizabethan era. I suggest that this verse translation may possibly have played a supportive role for Protestant clerics facing a loss of humanist confidence due to educational deficiencies and the conflict of learning with the Catholic Louvainist scholars. The second chapter examines John Healey's version of Augustine's City of God (1610) in the context of the colonisation of Virginia. I propose that the Augustinian text - and the included commentary by Vives - may have represented a 'handbook' for the predominantly male community of planters confronted by (among other problems) the severe difficulty of establishing a household and fathering the next generation. The third chapter looks at Tobie Matthew's translation of Augustine's Confessions (1620) as an aid for Catholic Englishmen in an age of religious persecution. I contend that this text advertises and advances a passive / feminine form of manhood - which had been initially propagated by late sixteenth-century recusant ideology - in order to offer succour to its socially debilitated male readers. By undertaking an examination of these previously neglected texts, this thesis has attempted to expand the understanding of Renaissance humanist translation, as well as to offer a unique insight into the history of gender.
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Chaplin, Elayne B. Graham. "Monstrous masculinity? Boys, men and monsters in the films of Larry Cohen." Thesis, University of Sunderland, 1992. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.315311.
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Chan, Tsz-fai Frank, and 陳子輝. "Questions of masculinity In querelle of brest by Jean Genet and A single man by Christopher Isherwood." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2005. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31571116.
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Griffin, Jared Andrew. "American apocalypse race and revelation in American literature, 1919-1939 /." [Fort Worth, Tex.] : Texas Christian University, 2009. http://etd.tcu.edu/etdfiles/available/etd-03162010-093322/unrestricted/Griffin.pdf.
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Johnson, Larry D. Jr. "Dismantling and (Re) constructing notions of masculinity and femininity in African women literature." DigitalCommons@Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center, 2011. http://digitalcommons.auctr.edu/dissertations/240.
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This study examines gender (re)presentation in three carefully selected works: Brown
Girl, Brownstones; The Color Purple; and When Rocks Dance. Employing the
scholarship of women writers of the Diaspora, I contend that the works dismantle and
(re)construct gender identities. Where traditional notions of sexuality depict men as
masculine and women as feminine, this analysis interrogates and subverts the traditional
paradigm. Methodologically, the dissertation combines literary analysis, post-colonial
studies, and gender schema theory into an interdisciplinary approach. I begin by
exploring gender construction to establish a theoretical perspective for characters who
reject traditional heteronormative paradigms. I then extend recent critical discussions on
gender and post-colonialism by examining the relationships between the men and women
in each literary text. I contend that traditional notion of characters as homosexual or
lesbian is dismantled and (re)constructed, thereby resulting in characters who embrace
their femininity or masculinity in a more balanced construction of personality, which is
the key to their self-actualization.
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Davis, Isabel Melanie. "Work, sexuality and urban domestic living : masculinity and literature, c.1360-c.1420." Thesis, University of York, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.270060.
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Clemens, Lisbeth. "Images of masculinity : ideology and narrative structure in realistic novels for young adults." Thesis, McGill University, 2005. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=85898.
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The development of media and academic debate on "the crisis in masculinity" has led to a growing focus on the lives of teenage boys. Studies done on teenage girls have revealed the physical, emotional, and educational costs of cultural expectations. It is important that similar studies be done to examine the cultural forces which influence the development of a teenage boy's sense of self. This thesis looks at one of these cultural influences---the books boys read.Using Robert Connell's theoretical approach of hegemonic masculinity and sociologist Blye Frank's work with a group of teenage boys, criteria have been developed for collecting and categorizing images of masculinity in 103 realistic novels for young adults. These images are organized under body image, sport, other recreational proving grounds, relationships with men and women, school, and work; these are cross referenced by four areas of analysis: being male, competition, violence, and sexuality.
The second part of this thesis is concerned with using the theory of narrative discourse analysis, informed by the work of John Stephens, to examine the way in which the ideology of masculinity is mediated by narrative structure. The cultural expectations of the male characters in the novels are compared with experiences of real boys. Race, class, and cultural heritage are all discussed as emerging issues within the study.
The thesis addresses the following questions: Do books written for young adults mirror the subtlety and complexity of boys' choices? Is the ideology present in the books concentrated on reinforcing the hegemonic image? Does this literature provide a "space" for both the readers and the characters to develop their own highly relational form of masculinity?
The thesis concludes that while the images of hegemonic masculinity remain powerful, the majority of novels studied mirror the everyday struggle of real boys, and that generally, ideological statements in the selected novels move beyond reinforcing specific hegemonic images to supporting more general humanistic concerns.
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NeCastro, Anthony NeCastro. "Towards a Synthesis: Tracing the Evolution of Masculinity in the Eighteenth-Century Novel." Cleveland State University / OhioLINK, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1512561004644769.
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Danker, Adrian Augustus. "Turn of the gaze : toward a (re)vision of reading masculinity /." Title page, contents and abstract only, 1994. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09phd187.pdf.
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Barnard, Timothy L. "Putting Masculinity into Words: Hemingway's Critique and Manipulation of American Manhood." W&M ScholarWorks, 1994. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539625857.
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Tyrrell, Belinda. "Displays of masculinity : James Ellroy and the violent drama of male subjectivity." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 1998. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27559.
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My thesis examines the work of contemporary crime fiction author James Ellroy, focusing on his
representation of the constitution of masculine subjectivity through the ritualised repetition of violence.
Locating his texts in postwar America, Ellroy reconstructs this as an era saturated with violence, whose
ideological fabric is woven from the intersecting strands of misogyny, racism and homophobia.
Elucidating these inequitable power relations, I adapt Kristeva’s theory of abjection to suggest that Ellroy
divides his textual universe into the mutually exclusive realms of a domain of “viable” subjects and a
sphere of abjected individuals (women, homosexual men, and men from diverse ethnic backgrounds) on
whose rigorously enforced exclusion the former domain’s privilege is predicated. Filtered through the
perspectives of men striving for “viable” subjectivity, Ellroy’s novels are concerned with crises of gender
and sexual identity and the attainment of “manhood” against the background of a normative ideal of
masculine behaviour. Mapping the means by which Ellroy’s protagonists obtain “manhood” and
“viability,” I argue that this is accomplished through their participation in the violation of abjected
individuals and their capacity to adopt a particular behavioural paradigm which foregrounds the capacity to
disseminate and endure violence as the primary constitutive element of masculine subjectivity. Examining
the implications of Ellroy’s representations of masculinity and violence, I contend that his claims to merely
“reflect” the “real” violence and bigotry of the postwar era mystify his naturalisation of the power
imbalances undergirding this society. Rather than critiquing the logic of abjection in which his narrative
universe is grounded, his fiction restates it by effacing the subjectivity of devalued individuals, reiterating
the processes of objectification, specularisation and violation which enable their oppression, and valorising
the violent mode of masculinity responsible for subjugating these groups. In doing so Ellroy’s texts
themselves constitute acts of violence against both these subordinated groups and against his readers.
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Bosch, Marta (Bosch Vilarrubias). "Post-9/11 Representations of Arab Men by Arab American Women Writers: Affirmation and Resistance." Doctoral thesis, Universitat de Barcelona, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/392705.
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This dissertation provides an analysis of the representation of Arab American men in post-9/11 writings by Arab American women. This thesis contributes a new inquiry regarding Arab American literature in joining the subject of literature written by women and the study of Arab American masculinities. It delves into the construction (from both outsider and insider perspectives) of Arab American masculinities, at the same time as it expounds on the history of Arab (American) feminisms, placing Arab American women writers in a privileged space of contestation and critique in their fight against both sexism and racism. This dissertation wants to visibilize the nuanced depiction of Arab and Arab American men provided by Arab American women writers after 9/11, who have been informed by feminism since the 1990s. In their attempt to fight both sexism and racism, Arab American women provide ambivalent representations of Arab men that counter stereotypical discourses historically entrenched in the American psyche and also recurrent after 9/11. Furthermore, this thesis also intends to provide an analysis of fiction as a representation of reality, while also understanding literature as a potential conductor of change in cultural discourses. To do so, the dissertation is structured in four main parts which examine the context, reasons, and potential consequences of the specific portrayals of Arab American masculinities published by Arab American women after 9/11. The first chapter covers the historical vilification and racialization of Arab men in the United States, by taking on theories on biopolitics (Foucault), necropolitics (Mbembe, Puar), and monster-terrorist (Puar and Rai) in relation to the traumatic experience of September 11. The second deals with the discourses that aid in the social construction of Arab American identities and masculinities, with a special emphasis given to the theories of neopatriarchy (Sharabi), heterotopia (Foucault) and thirdspace (Soja, Bhaba). The construction of Arab American identities is also analyzed (David), as well as Arab American masculinities (Harpel). The third chapter examines the development and characteristics of Arab American feminisms (Hatem), as well as their influence to Arab American women writers. Finally, the fourth part takes on the theories from previous chapters and provides a literary analysis of the male characters in a group of selected novels published after 9/11. Those are: Diana Abu-Jaber's Crescent (2003), Laila Halaby's West of the Jordan (2003), Alicia Erian's Towelhead (2005), Laila Halaby's Once in A Promised Land (2007), Frances Kirallah Noble's The New Belly Dancer of the Galaxy (2007), Susan Muaddi Darraj's The Inheritance of Exile: Stories from South Philly (2007), Randa Jarrar's A Map of Home (2008), and Alia Yunis's The Night Counter (2009).Esta tesis proporciona un análisis de la representación de los hombres árabo-americanos en novelas escritas por mujeres después del 11 de septiembre. Este estudio contribuye una novedosa investigación en relación a la literatura árabo-americana al juntar el estudio de la literatura escrita por mujeres y el análisis de las masculinidades árabo-americanas. La tesis explora la construcción de las masculinidades árabo-americanas, al mismo tiempo que explica la historia de los feminismos árabo-americanos, situando a las mujeres árabo-americanas en un espacio privilegiado de contestación y crítica en su lucha contra el sexismo y contra el racismo. Esta tesis quiere visibilizar la compleja representación de los hombres árabes y árabo-americanos ofrecida por mujeres árabo-americanas después del 11 de septiembre, mujeres influenciadas por el feminismo desde los años noventa. En su lucha contra el sexismo y el racismo, estas mujeres proporcionan representaciones ambivalentes de hombres árabes que contrarrestan los discursos estereotípicos recurrentes después del 11 de septiembre y arraigados en la psique norteamericana. Además, proporciona un análisis de la ficción como representación de la realidad, entendiendo la literatura como conductor potencial de cambio en los discursos culturales. Para ello, el estudio se estructura en cuatro partes que examinan los contextos, razones y potenciales consecuencias de las representaciones específicas de las masculinidades árabo-americanas publicadas por mujeres después del 11 de septiembre. El primer capítulo cubre la vilificación y racialización históricas del hombre árabe en los Estados Unidos, tomando las teorías de “biopolitics” (Foucault), “necropolitics” (Mbembe, Puar), y “monster-terrorist” (Puar y Rai) para entender la experiencia traumática del 11 de septiembre. El segundo trata sobre los discursos que ayudan a la construcción social de las identidades y masculinidades árabo-americanas, dando especial énfasis a las teorías de “neopatriarchy” (Sharabi), “heterotopia” (Foucault) y “thirdspace” (Soja, Bhaba). La construcción de identidades árabo-americanas también es analizada, así como las masculinidades árabo-americanas. El tercer capítulo examina el desarrollo y características de los feminismos árabo-americanos, así como su influencia para las escritoras árabo-americanas. Finalmente, el cuarto capítulo recoge las teorías expuestas en los capítulos previos y proporciona un análisis literario de los personajes masculinos en un grupo de novelas publicadas después del 11 de septiembre: Crescent (2003) de Diana Abu-Jaber, West of the Jordan (2003) de Laila Halaby, Towelhead (2005) de Alicia Erian, Once in A Promised Land (2007) de Laila Halaby, The New Belly Dancer of the Galaxy (2007) de Frances Kirallah Noble, The Inheritance of Exile: Stories from South Philly (2007) de Susan Muaddi Darraj, A Map of Home (2008) de Randa Jarrar, y The Night Counter (2009) de Alia Yunis.
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Sweet, Matthew. "Psychosis and the sensation hero : masculinity, medicine and madness in Victorian sensation fiction." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.367356.
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Dunlop, Fiona S. "The late medieval interlude the drama of youth and aristocratic masculinity /." Woodbridge : York Medieval, 2007. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10354595.
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Based on the author's Ph. D thesis.Published by York Medieval Press in association with Boydell & Brewer and the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York. Includes bibliographical references and index.
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Borhan, Burcu. "Gendered narratives in Victorian literature identity formation in empire-focused children's literature /." Fairfax, VA : George Mason University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1920/3246.
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Thesis (M.A,)--George Mason University, 2008.Vita: p. 101. Thesis director: Amelia Rutledge. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Aug. 27, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-100). Also issued in print.
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McFaden, Gwen M. "Fending off feminization : erecting gender/ed boundaries and preserving masculinity in 1930s British fiction." Virtual Press, 2002. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1247890.
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Adverse economic and social conditions during the 1930s prompted fears that Britain and its populace were becoming feminized. Mass unemployment, the collapse of the older forms of masculinist industry, and the sudden expansion of London's consumer culture were three major events that contributed to perceptions of declining masculinity and rampant feminization. Unemployment, it was feared, transformed muscular, self-reliant laborers into emasculate, dependent idlers. The demise of industry (coal mining, ship building, and iron/steel working) turned symbolic garrisons of imperial strength and power into derelict wastelands. London's consumerism in the form of cheap goods and escapist entertainment was thought to pacify and enfeeble the (male) inhabitants. These three pivotal events fueled apprehensions about the breakdown in traditional, patriarchal structures and heightened sensitivities to and furthered the use of masculine/feminine dichotomies within public discourse.The aim of my dissertation is to explore the ways in which complex networks of gender anxieties resonate in 1930s British fiction through the establishment and erosion of rhetorical gender/ed boundaries. Although fears regarding the political landscape, social unrest, and war were instrumental in shaping the literary responses of the decade, those fears were also informed by and articulated through a gender-conscious rhetoric. Emasculation imagery worked in concert with the complementary feminization imagery to capture the popular imagination. Apprehensions about women's potential to disrupt traditional boundaries (sexualized women, i.e. women taking men's jobs) merged with generalized fears of the feminine (constructed Woman, i.e. an undefined fear femaleness), and both were inscribed with the power to disrupt, threaten, and subsume. These "discourses of gender and gendered discourses," to adopt Lyn Pykett's phrase, played an integral part in shaping how the 1930s populace interpreted their rapidly changing world. By promoting gender to the center of my interpretive paradigm, I aim to identify how representations of the private realm interact with and contribute to the public/political narrative thrusts.Department of English
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Butler, Krissie. "Deconstructing an Icon: Fidel Castro and Revolutionary Masculinity." UKnowledge, 2012. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/hisp_etds/10.
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The goal of this project is to investigate the way in which various representations of Fidel Castro, between the years 1957-1965, have left an indelible mark on Cuba, transforming its landscape, I argue, through gendered means and conscious strategies. Thus it is less concerned with Fidel as an historical person than with examining with a gendered lens the ways in which he has been represented in foundational photographs, interviews, songs, and texts (both narrative and poetry as well as blogs). Drawing from theories of masculinity, which conceive masculinity as both a social construction and material body, my dissertation explores the ways in which these representations make visible a gendered body, mapping definitions of masculinity on Fidel, which are intimately linked to power. These constructions of Fidel’s masculinity, which are portrayed as hegemonic and a legitimating feature of patriarchal control, are a central feature of Fidel’s political authority and the Revolution’s hegemonizing project to shape Revolutionary men and women. I argue that representations of Fidel frequently invite a gendered encounter between the Comandante and his followers, resulting in the production of gendered Revolutionary subjects. The present study adds to current scholarship by shedding light on the ways in which gender foregrounds politics by problematizing the ways in which men are often at the center of political discourse. By decoding the foundations of Fidel’s “gendered” power, we find it to be a construction whose maintenance depends on the body’s ability to conform to hegemonic definitions of masculinity, thus reinforcing rather than Revolutionizing masculine paradigms of authority.
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Casey, Jamin Allen. "Beyond consummate masculinity implications of differing masculinities in Patrick O'Brian's novels /." Thesis, Montana State University, 2007. http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/2007/casey/CaseyJ0507.pdf.
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Bieber, David C. (David Charles) Carleton University Dissertation English. "The Machinery of patriarchy: Masculinity in the fiction of Margaret Atwood." Ottawa, 1992.
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