Porous Masculinities

: Unstable Surfaces, Fluid Identities and Early Modern Embodiment

Abstract

This thesis investigates how masculinity was imagined, articulated, and problematised as porous in early modern English cultures of performance between 1590 and 1640. I argue that early modern masculinity is characterised by its capacity to be communicable and how this porous quality exposes the spectre of immoderate, uncontrollable, and subversive forms of masculinity that haunt early modern performance. This thesis considers the ways in which early modern performance actively experimented with the attainability and stability of models of idealised manhood, demonstrating how these formulations are intrinsically fluid in nature. It brings together a range of performance types and contexts – such as court masques; university drama; progress entertainments; a military exercise; transnational performance of scripted drama; duelling, alongside commercial drama – to query the stability of an aspirational, idealised manhood. Each of the four chapters analyse models where masculinity can be gained or can falter and how this flux is rendered visible through the body. Chapter One reappraises masculine melancholy, arguing that the transmissible quality and humoral opportunity provided by the condition draws attention to fissures in early modern masculine subjectivity. Chapter Two makes a case for how channels of communication, such as gossip and rumour, cultivate masculine reputation and contest the agency underlying masculine self- determination. Chapter Three considers the notion of a touring masculinity, arguing that mobile performance engenders the interaction between metropolitan and provincial models of manhood. The final chapter interrogates the paradigm of transnational masculinity by considering how a recognisably English manhood might contrast or compete with European counterparts. By attending to these varied embodiments of masculinity, this thesis will advance our understanding of the porous nature of early modern manhood, demonstrating the stakes at play to attain, and retain, a near-mythic moderate masculine ideal to consider broader questions regarding early modern embodiment, selfhood, and gender.

Date of Award	23 Jul 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Roehampton
Sponsors	The Leverhulme Trust
Supervisor	Lisa Sainsbury (Director of Studies) & Clare McManus (Co-Supervisor)