Violent Masculinities : Male Aggression in Early Modern Texts and Culture

During the early modern period in England, social expectations for men came under extreme pressure; the armed knight went into decline and humanism appeared. Here, original essays analyze a wide-range of violent acts in early modern literature and culture - everything from civic violence to chivalric combat; from verbal attacks to masochistic suffering; from political assassination to personal retaliation; and from brawls to battles. In so doing, they interrogate the seemingly inevitable connection between masculinity and aggression, placing it in a specific historical context and showing how differences of status, ethnicity, and sexual identity inform masculine ideals Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction: Reclaiming Violent Masculinities....Pages 1-20 Front Matter....Pages 21-21 Militant Prologues, Memory, and Models of Masculinity in Shakespeare’s Henry V and Troilus and Cressida....Pages 23-45 Marlowe’s War Horses: Cyborgs, Soldiers, and Queer Companions....Pages 47-65 Cutting Words and Healing Wounds: Friendship and Violence in Early Modern Drama....Pages 67-81 Front Matter....Pages 83-83 Virtus, Vulnerability, and the Emblazoned Male Body in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus....Pages 85-108 Priestly Rulers, Male Subjects: Swords and Courts in Papal Rome....Pages 109-128 “Warring Spirits”: Martial Heroism and Anxious Masculinity in Milton’s Paradise Lost....Pages 129-148 Front Matter....Pages 149-149 King Lear’s Violent Grief....Pages 151-168 Wild Civility: Men at War in Royalist Elegy....Pages 169-189 Occupy Macbeth: Masculinity and Political Masochism in Macbeth....Pages 191-212 Melancholy and Spleen: Models of Masculinity in The Famous History of the Life and Death of Captain Thomas Stukeley....Pages 213-230 Afterword....Pages 231-237 Back Matter....Pages 239-273 Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Notes on Contributors -- Introduction: Reclaiming Violent Masculinities -- Part I: "Dispute It Like a Man": Militant Masculinities -- 1 Militant Prologues, Memory, and Models of Masculinity in Shakespeare's Henry V and Troilus and Cressida -- 2 Marlowe's War Horses: Cyborgs, Soldiers, and Queer Companions -- 3 Cutting Words and Healing Wounds: Friendship and Violence in Early Modern Drama -- Part II: "The Faith of Man": Religion and Masculine Aggression -- 4 Virtus, Vulnerability, and the Emblazoned Male Body in Shakespeare's Coriolanus -- 5 Priestly Rulers, Male Subjects: Swords and Courts in Papal Rome -- 6 "Warring Spirits ": Martial Heroism and Anxious Masculinity in Milton's Paradise Lost -- Part III: "Feel it as a Man": Male Violence and Suffering -- 7 King Lear's Violent Grief -- 8 Wild Civility: Men at War in Royalist Elegy -- 9 Occupy Macbeth: Masculinity and Political Masochism in Macbeth -- 10 Melancholy and Spleen: Models of Masculinity in The Famous History of the Life and Death of Captain Thomas Stukeley -- Afterword -- Bibliography -- Index