Masculinity and the New Imperialism: Rewriting Manhood in British Popular Literature, 1870–1914 (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, Series Number 91)

"At the end of the nineteenth century, the zenith of its imperial chauvinism and jingoistic fervour, Britain's empire was bolstered by a surprising new ideal of manliness, one that seemed less English than foreign, less concerned with moral development than perpetual competition, less civilized than savage. This study examines the revision of manly ideals in relation to an ideological upheaval whereby the liberal imperialism of Gladstone was eclipsed by the New Imperialism of Disraeli and his successors. Analyzing such popular genres as lost world novels, school stories, and early science fiction, it charts the decline of mid-century ideals of manly self-control and the rise of new dreams of gamesmanship and frank brutality. It reveals, moreover, the dependence of imperial masculinity on real and imagined exchanges between men of different nations and races, so that visions of hybrid masculinities and honorable rivalries energized Britain's sense of its New Imperialist destiny"-- Provided by publisher Cover 1 Half title 3 Series title 4 Title 5 Copyright 6 Contents 7 Illustrations 8 Acknowledgments 9 Introduction: better men 11 Chapter 1 Gunga Din and other better men: the burden of imperial manhood in Kipling's verse 29 Other men 33 Better men 41 The burdens of manhood 49 Chapter 2 Cultural cross-dressing and the politics of masculine performance 61 Visibility, scrutiny, and shame 67 The imperial politics of adaptability 75 Beating them at their own game 86 Chapter 3 Piracy, play, and the boys who wouldn't grow up 95 Piracy, boyhood, and empire before Stevenson 100 Treasure Island: a furlough from the moral law 103 Lord Jim: the problem of shame 111 The pirate empire 120 Chapter 4 In statu pupillari: schoolboys, savages, and colonial authority 125 Tom Brown's School Days: taming the savage boy 130 Stalky and Co.: the savage boy in harness 142 The Harrovians and other lessons in bushido 149 Chapter 5 Barbarism and the lost worlds of masculinity 157 Onward to barbarism 160 Primal men and New Imperialists 167 Anthropology and Atlantis 174 Chapter 6 Mummies, marriage, and the occupation of Egypt 181 The love story of Egyptology 185 An empire of veils 192 The horror behind the veil 202 Chapter 7 Fitter men: H. G. Wells and the impossible future of masculinity 210 Horrors of the epicene future 215 Empire, evolution, and the guiding intellect 225 The violent resurgence of manhood 234 Notes 242 Introduction: better men 242 1 Gunga Din and other better men: the burden of imperial manhood in Kipling's verse 244 2 Cultural cross-dressing and the politics of masculine performance 248 3 Piracy, play, and the boys who wouldn't grow up 251 4 In statu pupillari: schoolboys, savages, and colonial authority 253 5 Barbarism and the lost worlds of masculinity 255 6 Mummies, marriage, and the occupation of Egypt 259 7 Fitter men: H. G. Wells and the impossible future of masculinity 261 Bibliography 265 Index 280 Bradley Deane explores popular literature of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras to reveal how imperial politics reshaped ideals of manliness. Deane's analysis of texts, by writers including Kipling, Conrad and Conan Doyle, also reveals how these new ideals reinforced and propagated the politics of the New Imperialism.