10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Speak..and Enlighten...Sexual AND Academic Victorian Modes.., June 29, 2002
This review is from: Masculine Desire: The Sexual Politics of Victorian Aestheticism (Paperback)
This is an incredibly insightful, well argued, and superbly
interesting study of male desire and its effects on Victorian
culture. A major part of the focus of this study concerns
the interacting awarenesses, defenses, attacks, and
deflections of male same-sex attraction AND desire,
and the various responses to those two factors
in relation to the classical Greek writings and art
as they influenced the thoughts and creativity of
Victorian male lives, especially in the academic
centers of Cambridge and Oxford Universities.
This study is very readable, even though the
first paragraph of the "Introduction" sounds too
"academic," the rest of the Introduction explains
the focus. The author of this work, Richard Dellamora,
is working with or against various ideas
expressed in the writings of Michel Foucault [History of
Sex: Vol. 1 An Introduction; Vol. _The Use of Pleasure_],
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick [_Between Men: English Literature and
Male Homosocial Desire_], Elaine Showalter [_The Female
Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980_;
_A Literature of Their Own_]and other writers on sexuality
and gender, dealing with the Victorian period.
But this is no "he says; she says..." study. It is
truly a remarkable and incredibly insightful and
interesting, well focused and clearly presented work.
It is a very important source of knowledge and study
in its own right--this author has well studied and
knows the people, their works, and the issues and
arguments involved. He clearly and inspiringly explains
the meanings of the works, their major ideas, and the
counter ideas, and where each is focused
in its arguments. But the work is not dry reading.
Dellamora deals with male desire as it is
expressed in the works of both those male writers
whose affections and interests are focused on the male
exclusively, as well as with those males who have
sought the expression of their life association and
sexuality with women,but who have nonetheless been
aware of, been participants in, and been celebrators
of profound male bonding desire,
even if not of a sexual nature. Indeed, Dellamora's
main argument is that the history of the presentation
of male desire in the 19th century English cultural
context transcends the limitation imposed by the idea
that only "homosexuals" would be aware of, feel,
or desire such male oriented caring. That idea breaks
the stereotype and opens up (liberates) the cultural
strictures and impositions that sadly still dominate
willingness to talk of male desire and sexuality in
some academic writings, especially in the United States.
Mr. Dellamora is professor of English and Cultural Studies
at Trent University in Ontario [according to the back cover].
The chapter titles help to show the range and excellent
areas of analysis by the author, who knows and uses the
writings, letters, and sources extremely well. The titles
are: Introduction-Masculine Desire and the Question of the
Subject; (1) Tennyson, the Apostles, and _In Memoriam_; (2)
"Spousal Love" in the Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins; (3)
[Walter]Pater at Oxford in 1864--Old Mortality and
"Diaphaneite"; (4) Poetic Perversities of A. C. Swinburne;
Excursus--Hopkins, Swinburne, and the Whitmanian Signifier;
(5) [Matthew]Arnold, Winckelmann, and [Walter] Pater;
(6) John Ruskin and the Character of Male Genius; (7)
Leonardo, Medusa, and the Wish to be Woman; (8) "The New
Chivalry" and Oxford Politics (the contest to elect a new
Professor of Poetry at Oxford; the influences of Walter
Pater, John Addington Symonds, and Jowett);
9)Theorizing Homophobia--Analysis of Myth in Pater;
(10) Homosexual Scandal and Compulsory Heterosexuality
in the 1890s; Afterword--The Subject of Sexual (In)difference.
The Bibliography at the back of this book is
exceptional, interesting, and informative (in terms of
future sources that one might wish to consult or
purchase for one's own use). It is filled with both
essay and book entries, but all of a highly
intellectual and culturally stimulating kind.
Dellamora presents here a thorough, well studied,
well analyzed, and totally enlightening work. It is
well worth the purchase by any reader interested in
the subjects of male desire, cultural impact, and
artistic expression.
His exceptional gift in this work is to use letters
and journals to show the range of feelings and
expressions -- the letters between Arthur Hallam
to Richard Milnes and the expressions between
Tennyson and Hallam are incredibly interesting
(as well as being something one would not be
able to easily access from other sources). The other
personages inovlved in the Apostles and
their interests and expressions and doings
provide great insight also in understanding
more fully the context of the cultural and personal
interactions that were going on at both Cambridge
and Oxford in the 1800s.
[Byron and Tennyson attended Cambridge;
Pater, Hopkins (tutored by Pater), Symonds,
Ruskin, and Wilde attended Oxford.]
Notice: Dellamora uses the words which
the writers of the works and the letters use --
both Latinate and common. The words have both
to do with bodily parts and sexual acts, so the
general reader should be aware. But none of
this is presented in a sensationalist fashion, rather
as an enlightening insight into the thoughts and ideas
that motivated, influenced, and found expression (or
repression) in the lives of the experiencers. This is
NOT a book about sex or about sex acts -- it is about
ideas and desires and their influences on personal
motivations, strivings, and artistic expressions.
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