Books by "Michael Patrick Gillespie"
5 books found
The Byronic Hero and the Rhetoric of Masculinity in the 19th Century British Novel
by D. Michael Jones
2017 · McFarland
From action movies to video games to sports culture, modern masculinity is intrinsically associated with violent competition. This legacy has its roots in the 19th-century Romantic figure of the Byronic hero--the ideal Victorian male: devoted husband, sexual revolutionary and weaponized servant of the state. His silhouette can be traced through the works of authors like Lord Byron, Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling and Oscar Wilde. More than a literary genealogy, this history of the Byronic hero and his heirs follows the changes that masculinity has undergone in response to industrial upheaval, the rise of the middle class and the demands of global competition, from the Victorian period through the early 20th century.
An examination of some of the canonical works of modern literature in English and German with regard to masculinity, relations between men, national identity and patriarchy. These were major preoccupations of male writers as they came to terms with or reacted against the decline of patriarchal authority. The book identifies five leitmotifs which serve to characterize the period between 1880 and 1930: the "double", the "other" (narcissus and Salome), the nationalization of Narcissus, Kampf or male bondage, and after patriarchy. Again and again one sees how men attempted to define themselves against what they imagined as "femininity", not merely outside but also within their selves, and further how men sought to overcome or find a socially acceptable expression for their narcissistic, homosexual and even sadomasochist libido.
Revolutionary bodies provides a detailed study of the erotics and politics of the male body in Irish fiction. Some of the authors discussed in the book include: Oscar Wilde, Brendan Behan, John Broderick, Colm Tóibín, Keith Ridgway, Jamie O’Neill, Micheál Ó Conghaile and Barry McCrea. The book critically analyses the emergence of contemporary Irish gay fiction since 1993, especially its most notable genres: the coming out romance and the historical romance. It assesses the role of the novel in the evolution of Irish LGBT politics, mapping a literary and cultural space where the utopian aspirations of sexual liberation have clashed with the reformism and neo-liberal political rationality of identity politics. Revolutionary bodies offers a unique critical intervention into our understanding of queer Irish cultures in the wake of the 2015 referendum and the Varadkar election.