The Fragility of Manhood: Hawthorne, Freud, and the Politics of Gender

ISBN-13: 9780814252888 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 320 str.

Professor David Greven (University of South Carolina USA)

Opis

Merging psychoanalytic and queer theory perspectives, The Fragility of Manhood: Hawthorne, Freud, and the Politics of Gender reframes Nathaniel Hawthornes work as a critique of the normative construction of American male identity. Revising Freudian and Lacanian literary theory and establishing the concepts of narcissism and the gaze as central, David Greven argues that Hawthorne represents normative masculinity as fundamentally dependent on the image. In ways that provocatively intersect with psychoanalytic theory, Hawthorne depicts subjectivity as identification with an illusory and deceptive image of wholeness and unity. As Hawthorne limns it, male narcissism both defines and decenters male heterosexual authority. Moreover, in Grevens view, Hawthorne critiques hegemonic manhoods recourse to domination as a symptom of the traumatic instabilities at the core of traditional models of male identity. Hawthornes representation of masculinity as psychically fragile has powerful implications for his depictions of female and queer subjectivity in works such as the tales "Rappaccinis Daughter" and "The Gentle Boy," the novel The Blithedale Romance, and Hawthornes critically neglected late, unfinished writings, such as Septimius Felton. Rereading Freud from a queer theory perspective, Greven reframes Freudian theory as a radical critique of traditional models of gender subjectivity that has fascinating overlaps with Hawthornes work. In the chapter "Visual Identity," Greven also discusses the agonistic relationship between Hawthorne and Herman Melville and the intersection of queer themes, Hellenism, and classical art in their travel writings, The Marble Faun and Billy Budd.David Greven is associate professor of English at the University of South Carolina.