Synopses & Reviews
Explores the importance of heterosexual masculine identity in Renaissance literature and culture.
Synopsis
To recent studies of Renaissance subjectivity, Anxious Masculinity in Early Modern England contributes the argument that masculinity is unavoidably anxious and volatile in cultures that distribute power and authority according to patriarchal prerogatives. Drawing from current arguments in feminism, cultural studies, historicism, psychoanalysis and gay studies, Mark Breitenberg explores the dialectic of desire and anxiety in masculine subjectivity in the work of a wide range of writers, including Shakespeare, Bacon, Burton, and the women writers of the querelles des femmes debate, especially Jane Anger. Breitenberg discusses jealousy and cuckoldry anxiety, hetero and homoerotic desire, humoural psychology, anatomical difference, cross-dressing and the idea of honor and reputation. He traces masculine anxiety both as a sign of ideological contradiction and, paradoxically, as a productive force in the perpetuation of Western patriarchal systems.
Synopsis
The importance of heterosexual masculine identity in Renaissance culture is explored through the work of a wide range of writers, including Shakespeare, Montaigne, Bacon, Burton, and Jane Anger. Mark Breitenberg traces masculine anxiety as both a problem and a productive force in the perpetuation of patriarchal ideologies.
Synopsis
The widespread preoccupation with cuckoldry in Renaissance drama demonstrates the importance of heterosexual masculine identity in Renaissance culture. Mark Breitenberg draws on the work of a wide range of writers, including Shakespeare, Montaigne, Bacon, Burton and Jane Anger, to discuss such issues as jealousy and cuckoldry, heterosexual desire, and the âquerelles des femmesâdebate. He traces masculine anxiety both as a sign of ideological contradictions and as a productive force in the perpetuation of patriarchal ideologies in a gendered economy.
Table of Contents
Introduction; 1. Fearful fluidity: Burtonâs Anatomy of Melancholy; 2. Purity and the dissemination of knowledge in Baconâs new science; 3. Publishing chastity: Shakespeareâs âThe Rape of Lucreceâ; 4. The anatomy of masculine desire in Loveâs Labourâs Lost; 5. Inscriptions of difference: cross-dressing, androgyny and the anatomical imperative; 6. Ocular proof: sexual jealousy and the anxiety of interpretation.