Gothic Masculinities in the Victorian Age

Gothic Masculinities explores masculinity and the Gothic in the literature of the long nineteenth century. In recent criticism masculinity in the Gothic is most usually discussed as being fractured, unstable, and threatened. Gothic Masculinities examines this fragmentation of gendered identity, but it also considers other types of arguments and representations of men in Gothic literature. The Gothic (genre and mode) is multiple, shifting, and changing, and within this multi-faceted and inter-textual genre/mode there are significant differences in the types of masculinity depicted. This Element examines the myth and deconstruction of an idealised conception of one whole, unified, hegemonically powerful masculinity, but it also examines some of the many other identities available within the practices of masculinity. The Gothic has always allowed space for subversion and the unconventional and Gothic Masculinities explores and celebrates some unexpected representations of men and their many different and sometimes surprising forms of masculine identity.