Pre-Raphaelite Masculinities: Constructions of Masculinity in Art and Literature(The Nineteenth Century Series)

Drawing on recent theoretical developments in gender and men’s studies, Pre-Raphaelite Masculinities shows how the ideas and models of masculinity were constructed in the work of artists and writers associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Paying particular attention to the representation of non-normative or alternative masculinities, the contributors take up the multiple versions of masculinity in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s paintings and poetry, masculine violence in William Morris’s late romances, nineteenth-century masculinity and the medical narrative in Ford Madox Brown’s Cromwell on His Farm, accusations of ’perversion’ directed at Edward Burne-Jones’s work, performative masculinity and William Bell Scott’s frescoes, the representations of masculinity in Pre-Raphaelite illustration, aspects of male chastity in poetry and art, Tannhäuser as a model for Victorian manhood, and masculinity and British imperialism in Holman Hunt’s The Light of the World. Taken together, these essays demonstrate the far-reaching effects of the plurality of masculinities that pervade the art and literature of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Introduction: Pre-Raphaelite masculinities in context, Amelia Yeates and Serena Trowbridge; ’How grew such presence from man’s shameful swarm’: Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Victorian masculinity, Jay D. Sloan; William Morris’s Sigurd the Volsung and the parameters of manliness, Ingrid Hanson; The hallucination of the real: Pre-Raphaelite vision as a crisis of Romantic masculinity, Gavin Budge; Health and manliness in the reception of Edward Burne-Jones’s work, Amelia Yeates; Marginal masculinities? Regional and gender borders in William Bell Scott’s Wallington scheme, Rosemary Mitchell; Interpreting masculinity: Pre-Raphaelite illustration and the Works of Tennyson, Christina Rossetti and Trollope, Simon Cooke; ’Me, who ride alone’: male chastity in Pre-Raphaelite poetry and art, Dinah Roe; In praise of Venus: Victorian masculinity and Tannhäuser as aesthetic hero, Sally-Anne Huxtable; Christianity, masculinity, imperialism: The Light of the World and colonial contexts of display, Eleanor Fraser Stansbie; Afterword, Colin Cruise; Bibliography; Index.

About the Author :
Amelia Yeates is Senior Lecturer in Art History in the Department of Fine and Applied Arts at Liverpool Hope University, UK. Serena Trowbridge is Lecturer in the School of English at Birmingham City University, UK.

Review :
'... a distinguished and serious contribution to nineteenth-century studies. It offers new views of Pre-Raphaelitism in general and fresh ways of reading both masculinity and femininity in Pre-Raphaelite work. All the contributions have something interesting to say... they open the way for further exploration of a rich and rewarding path.' Review of the Pre-Raphaelite Society 'This is a challenging and intriguing volume, which poses fresh questions, opens up new paths and adds an important strand to the analysis of Victorian masculinity as a whole.' Burlington Magazine