Book Cover
E-book
Author Eastlake, Laura, author.

Title Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinity / Laura Eastlake
Edition First edition
Published Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2019

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Description 1 online resource (247 pages) : illustrations
Series Classical presences
Classical presences.
Contents Part I. Classical education and manliness in the nineteenth century. Reading, reception, and elite education --Imperial boys and mens of letters -- Part II. Political masculinity in the age of reform. Napoleonic legacies and the Reform Act of 1832 --Caesar, Cicero, and Anthony Trollope's public men -- Part III. Imperial manliness. Liberal imperialism and Wilkie Collins's Antonina -- New Imperialism and the problem of Cleopatra -- Part IV. Decadent Rome and late Victorian masculinity. Rome, London, and condemning the Metropolitan male --The decadent imagination: Nero, Pater, and Wilde -- Conclusion: 'Be prepared' - Ancient Rome and the modern man, 1900-18
Summary "Masculinity and Ancient Rome in the Victorian Cultural Imagination examines Victorian receptions of ancient Rome, with a specific focus on how those receptions were deployed to create useable models of masculinity. Romans in Victorian literature are at once pagan persecutors, pious statesmen, pleasure-seeking decadents, and heroes of empire, and these manifold and often contradictory representations are used as vehicles equally to capture the martial virtue of Wellington and to condemn the deviance and degeneracy of Oscar Wilde. In the works of Thomas Macaulay, Wilkie Collins, Anthony Trollope, H. Rider Haggard, and Rudyard Kipling, among others, Rome emerges as a contested space with an array of possible scripts and signifiers which can be used to frame masculine ideals, or to vilify perceived deviance from those ideals, though with a value and significance often very different to ancient Greek models. Sitting at the intersection of reception studies, gender studies, and interdisciplinary literary and cultural studies across discourses ranging from education and politics, this volume offers the first comprehensive examination of the importance of ancient Rome as a cultural touchstone for nineteenth-century manliness and Victorian codifications of masculinity."-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed November 28, 2018)
Subject English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism
Masculinity in literature.
Masculinity in art.
Masculinity -- Rome
LITERARY CRITICISM -- European -- English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh.
English literature
Masculinity
Masculinity in art
Masculinity in literature
Rome (Empire)
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780191871351
0191871354
9780192569387
0192569384