Gender at work in Victorian culture : literature, art and masculinity

Bibliographic Information

Gender at work in Victorian culture : literature, art and masculinity

Martin A. Danahay

(Nineteenth century series)

Ashgate, c2005

Available at  / 9 libraries

Search this Book/Journal

Note

Published 2016 by Routledge, series title only in the heading of series editor's preface

Includes bibliographical references (p. [163]-174) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Martin A. Danahay's lucidly argued and accessibly written volume offers a solid introduction to important issues surrounding the definition and division of labor in British society and culture. 'Work,' Danahay argues, was a term rife with ideological contradictions for Victorian males during a period when it was considered synonymous with masculinity. Male writers and artists in particular found their labors troubled by class and gender ideologies that idealized 'man's work' as sweaty, muscled labor and tended to feminize intellectual and artistic pursuits. Though many romanticized working-class labor, the fissured representation of the masculine body occasioned by the distinction between manual labor and 'brain work' made it impossible for them to overcome the Victorian class hierarchy of labor. Through cultural studies analyses of the novels of Dickens and Gissing; the nonfiction prose of Carlyle, Ruskin and Morris; the poetry of Thomas Hood; paintings by Richard Redgrave, William Bell Scott, and Ford Madox Brown; and contemporary photographs, including many from the Munby Collection, Danahay examines the ideological contradictions in Victorian representations of men at work. His book will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of English literature, history, and gender studies.

Table of Contents

  • Contents: Introduction: working definitions
  • Victorian work and industry
  • Gendering work in the 1840s
  • Dickens, work and sexuality
  • Ford Madox Brown and the division of labor
  • Perversity at work: Munby and Cullwick
  • John Ruskin, digging
  • Gissing and the demise of the man at work
  • Conclusion: new women, new technologies and new work
  • Works Cited
  • Index.

by "Nielsen BookData"

Related Books: 1-1 of 1

Details

Page Top