Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Anxious Masculinity in Early Modern England
  • Cited by 109
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
November 2009
Print publication year:
1996
Online ISBN:
9780511586231
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511586231
Subjects:
Literature, Renaissance and Early Modern Literature
Series:
Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture (10)
  • 45.99 (USD)
    Digital access for individuals
    (PDF download and/or read online)
    Add to cart
    Added to cart
    Digital access for individuals
    (PDF download and/or read online)
    View cart
  • Export citation
  • Buy a print copy
  • Recommend to librarian
Information

Book description

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 honour 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.

Reviews

"The book is deeply grounded in current approaches to gender and culture, and it contributes usefully to those discussions." B.E. Brandt, Choice

"In Anxious Masculinity Mark Breitenberg has done a superb job of elucidating and untangling numerous of the elements and contradictions of the early modern sex-gender system." Michael M. Holmes, Essays in Theatre

"In Anxious Masculinity Mark Breitenberg has done a superb job of elucidating and untangling numerous of the elements and contradictions of the early modern sex-gender system....The evr deepening comprehension of the ways in which early modern people worried about, debated, and acted upon inequality, validates Breitenberg's salutary sense of the human ability to contest norms and resist coercion." Michael M. Holmes,Essays in Theatre

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.