The Victorian Male Body Edited by Joanne Ella Parsons and
Ruth Heholt
Forget the delicacy and ambiguity of a character and a body like the one of Oscar Wilde. In this book, we will discover much more.
First of all homosexuality, as said before, was not recognized and banned with prison (see again at the voice Oscar Wilde) but surely male body was constantly judged and categorized.
It was important to wear appropriate clothes, keeping away all possible extravaganzas.
The male body is seen in this study as the white male body; a body who, thanks to the industrialization was more fat than not in the past and in large scale. In 1865 The Handbook of Manly Exercises, Comprising Boxing, Walking, Running, Leaping, Vaulting, Etc. was published by George Routledge and Sons for helping all that Victorian men won by sedentariety.
The book is divided in three parts, Constructed Bodies, Fractured and Fragmented Bodies and Unruly Bodies.
In the first part the discussion of masculinity of men pass through schoolbody but without forgetting the strong words used by Dickens, Thackery and Meredith regarding violence and abuses; it could be read as a sort of formative ritual for becoming men; then the examination of diet, alcohol and sex. Victorian age lived the male body as a symbol of english purity.
The second part is maybe the most interesting one because takes in consideration all that people who, for a reason or another became imperfect during the existence. Let's start with piracy and pirates. Most of them, in particular in the novel written during the Victorian Age are portrayed as people with some disabilities; wooden-legs, or an hook- hand in J.M-Barrie's case, see at the voice Peter Pan. Not only: in the cinema we have seen Captain Barbossa and Ragetti in the movies Pirates of the Caribbean.
Also Captain Ahab in Moby Dick by Melville and Robert Louis Stevenson adapted their characters with disabilities. Stevenson had a friend who once lost one of his legs. Why did they include disabilities so much? Reasons are many but I love to think that they thought at disabilities as a "resource" to fight where possible more than a common healthy man.
Tubercolosis and consumption were two situations pretty known during the Victorian Age, an example brought by the essayest the one of John Keats, the most iconic Victorian Poet. He died very young, he died for sonsumption and he also died for love.
George Eliot and Henry James portrayed a situation of illness in various characters and novels.
Masculinity hides horror as well, and this condition was literally met thanks to two wonderful novels: The portrait of Dorian Gray and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
In the first case there is the dissolute, absolutely depraving existence of the protagonist, Dorian; no one of the horror he constantly provoked in the society could be seen in his face, in his body; oh no, Dorian was beautiful. But, in a corner of his house he had his portrait; and this portrait, the Dorian portrayed in the painting, started to become always more orripilant and absurdly horrible exactly as all the horrible things he committed. He was his soul. His alter-ego. One of the most beautiful books existing in this world.
Apparently a gentle and kind person, in the book by Stevenson the character during the night change personality, becoming a terrible man!
Ghosts stories at the same time attracted three women. Yes; everyone wrote about ghosts stories, but there is to add that women were more incisive. They were Catherine Crowe, Rhoda Broughton and Edith Nesbit, also beloved children books author.
Who was the ghost they loved to writing of? A Ghost was the iron will of the dead man precise the author of the essay.
Ghost appears for not let forget to the existing people that he, once, was a man on this Earth.
Not only: these authors searched also for real ghosts stories; people who had met once or more than once a ghost in their existences. They believed in it and they tried all their best for transmitting their love for paranormal.
It is analyzed also the italian Male Body in the poem "Olivia" and "Garibaldi".
Mary Elizabeth Braddon was a sensation novelist and his immense popularity, she wrote in particular novels, could not be put in discussion.
Who was Garibaldi for Mary Elizabeth Braddon?
He was seen with all the possible qualities a man should have; plus his imagine was a mixture with the one of Italy. Italy, during the Victorian Age as also written in other reviews, was seen as a woman, beautiful but violated by every kind of invaders. She needed a savior, she needed someone in grade of keeping her safe, setting her free from all these stresses: this man was Garibaldi.
Italy was seen by Victorians in various ways. "To the Victorians, Italy was what the Orient is to Europeans of the twentieth century, a mixture of attraction and repulsion: attraction for the ancient civilization and for Italy’s contemporary struggle to put an end to a period of political and economic subjugation and, at the same
time, repulsion to its chaotic roads, dirty inns, stinky slums, crime and
depravation."
Italy was seen as a gentle woman: Britain as a man, strong, firm but at the same time a gentleman.
Beautiful book this one, because diversified. For everyone, very accessible and clear.
Highly recommended.
I thank Edinburgh University Press for the copy of this book.
Anna Maria Polidori
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