Talk on the Wilde Side [Paperback]

Ed Cohen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 22, 1992 | ISBN-10: 0415902304 | ISBN-13: 978-0415902304

Talk on the Wilde Side explains the role the popular press plays in producing and disemminating normative concepts of masculinity. Focusing on newspaper reports of the trials of Oscar Wilde, the book demonstrates how Wilde was presented as the iconic embodiment of a new type' of sexual actor - the male homosexual. Acceptible norms of journalism, however, meant that the depiction of this new category was limited to that of the antithesis' of normal' masculinity. In order to elucidate this journalistic strategy and its continuing effects today, Ed Cohen examines the ways normative masculinity was construed as a problem for the middle class throughout the course of the nineteenth century. Taking up bourgeois discussions of manliness' as they appeared in various political, religious, medical, legal, and literary (con)texts, the book skilfully demonstrates the sexual mappings that the engendering of the proper' Englishman entailed.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Routledge (October 22, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415902304
• ISBN-13: 978-0415902304
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,705,944 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First Review?, February 5, 2001

By 

"prufrock109" (Iowa City, IA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Talk on the Wilde Side (Paperback)

I can't believe I'm writing the first review for a book that is so important to the field of sexuality and queer theory. Ed Cohen has created one of the most comprehensive discussions that focuses on the origins of sexuality in Victorian England. By focusing on the development of masculinity and manliness in Victorian England as predicated by Victorian terms, Cohen developes an acute sense of what it meant to be a "man" in England during the late 19th century. Later in the book he developes, in the Foucaultnian tradition, the response by the judicial system, the press, and society to "unmanliness". The Wilde trials become the focus for his discussion on the dissemination of discursive language from literature and the media. If there is anything to obtain from this review it is that you cannot possibly understand Victorian sexuality without purchasing this book. It is worth so much more than it costs.