Defoe's writings and manliness: contrary men

Gregg, S.H (2009) Defoe's writings and manliness: contrary men. Ashgate, Farnham. ISBN 9780754656050

Abstract

Defoe's "Writings and Manliness" is a timely intervention in Defoe studies and in the study of masculinity in eighteenth-century literature more generally. Arguing that Defoe's writings insistently returned to the issues of manliness and its contrary effeminacy, this book reveals how he drew upon a complex and diverse range of discourses through which masculinity was discussed in the period. It is for this reason that this book crosses over and moves between modern paradigms for the analysis of eighteenth-century masculinity to assess Defoe's men. A combination of his clarity of vision, a spirit of contrariness and a streak of moral didacticism resulted in an idiosyncratic and restless testing of the forces surrounding his period's ideas of manliness. Defoe's men are men, but they are never unproblematically so: they display a contrariness which indicates that a failure of manliness is never very far away.

Item Type:	Book
Keywords:	Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731 — Fictional works. Masculinity in literature. English literature — 18th century — History and criticism.
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Divisions:	School of Writing, Publishing and the Humanities
Date Deposited:	08 Feb 2013 11:03
Last Modified:	15 Aug 2021 09:32
URI / Page ID:	https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/678

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