<em>Masculinity in Four Victorian Epics: A Darwinist Reading</em>, by Clinton Machann

Abstract

Reviewed by: Masculinity in Four Victorian Epics: A Darwinist Reading by Clinton Machann Martin Danahay (bio) Masculinity in Four Victorian Epics: A Darwinist Reading, by Clinton Machann; pp. vi + 166. Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010, £55.00, $99.95. Clinton Machann’s book attempts to resuscitate and rehabilitate arguments that emerged in the 1990s when the field of masculinity studies was new and the publications of R. W. Connell and Michael Kimmel helped delineate the field. This comes across most strongly in his chapter on Aurora Leigh (1856) which focuses largely on the role of Romney Leigh. Machann argues that Romney is a “heroic figure” and “sincere in his love” for Aurora (66), and is simply acting according to his “Christian humanistic vision”—an argument that glosses over Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s subtle critique of his hegemonic use of the language of selfless devotion (70). Romney is, in Machann’s terms, just trying to be a good man. The chapter as a whole could unfortunately be used as an argument against masculinity studies because the focus on masculinity occludes troubling issues of power in gender relations. The argument in this chapter and throughout Masculinity in Four Victorian Epics seems largely untouched by critical developments over the last few decades, especially the impact of Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble (1990) and the sustained critique of normative heterosexuality by those working in queer theory, despite Machann’s nod in the introduction toward critics who see gender as socially constructed. Machann points out correctly in this introduction that the Victorian long poem has been increasingly neglected, and as a result he focuses on four of the best examples from the period: Alfred Tennyson’s Idylls of the King (1859–85), Aurora Leigh, Arthur Hugh Clough’s Amours de Voyage (1858), and Robert Browning’s The Ring and the Book (1868–69), in that order. While it’s admirable to see a book-length treatment of these poems as a remedy for their neglect, it is not clear why this genre rather than, say, four Victorian novels should be analyzed in terms of masculinity. Indeed the most successful of the chapters, on The Ring and the Book, notes its affinities with the novel and goes on to make some interesting and perceptive comments on changing attitudes toward violence against women as they inform the poem. Machann analyzes character in all senses of the word here as he does elsewhere, and his analysis works best with the complex psychological portraits in The Ring and the Book. [End Page 117] The analysis of these long poems is yoked to a defense of literary Darwinism, and again it is not entirely clear why these poems are the best subject to be studied from this perspective. As Machann says, he takes a “somewhat revisionist stance” in his approach to Victorian masculinities and goes on to argue that gender differences “ultimately derive from an interaction of innate qualities and cultural concepts” (16). This assumption seems to be what qualifies this analysis as literary Darwinist. However, the appeal to an innate human, especially male, propensity to violence flattens out the historical landscape so that Homer’s The Iliad might as well have been the topic of this book as the Victorian long poem if the aim were to examine such innate masculine traits as a tendency toward violence. The introduction of literary Darwinism into the mix, therefore, seems largely irrelevant, and a glance at the index shows that, after the discussion of the topic in the introduction, it is referred to again only twice in the rest of the book (81, 107–08). This raising, then dropping, of key theoretical points makes reading Masculinity in Four Victorian Epics a frustrating experience. While it is the work of an astute close reader of Victorian texts, it is often unclear what is at stake in the close readings. By the time one reaches the conclusion it’s not evident why the Victorian long poem was chosen as a focus for the book, why literary Darwinism would be brought to bear on it, and how it relates in its treatment of masculinity to other Victorian art forms such as the novel or...