The ‘Whole Man’: The Longing for a Masculine World in Nineteenth–Century Germany

Abstract

Through the lens of advice literature, letters and autobiographical documents, this article examines the construction of middle–class masculinity in nineteenth–century Germany. Between the end of the eighteenth century and the fin–de–siècle gender debates, masculinity was paradoxically configured. On the one hand, manhood was said to be relational, that is notions of the masculine were related to notions of the feminine. On the other hand, the concept of the ‘whole man’ encompassed aspects gendered both as female and as male, thus inviting visions of a society without women. This paradoxical construction became the site of discussions, projections and contestations: women used the figure of the whole man in order to voice their desires or criticise male claims to dominance and control, but it frequently also served as the basis for male self–descriptions. In the course of the nineteenth century, notions of integral masculinity became ever more precarious since the sociable, well–rounded, artistically inclined man propagated in the first half of the nineteenth century was increasingly superseded by the ‘soldier of work’ which gave the fin–de–siècle gender debates a particular urgency.