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Performing horse-men: English masculinities and nonhuman animals c.1618-1830

Mattfeld, Monica (2011) Performing horse-men: English masculinities and nonhuman animals c.1618-1830. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Kent. (doi:uk.bl.ethos.594203) (KAR id:86500)

Abstract

Inter-species discourse, visuality and representations of human-animal co-embodiment were closely associated with horsemen throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and these becomings were frequently described as the ideal state of being, an essential state of being, for a solid, balanced and prosperous nation. In this thesis I explore how the presence of an animal, interactions with it and human-animal performance as a horseman, were embodied and used by men in constructing, visualizing and destabilizing, or solidifying, masculinities. Masculinities that were at once influenced by changes in normative gender codes, but which were also tied to the longer tradition of honourable and militaristic human-animal communication. I argue it was through the visible and material presence of horses that many men worked to establish themselves as elite members of a close community of fellow horsemen and of society at large.

Horses were the mediators through which men were viewed, reviewed and understood, and through which their public reputations as masculine horsemen were established. Formed off OUT core chapters, th is thesis focuses on key horsemen from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It first explores the associated political discourses and modes of centauric disp lay used by William Cavendish, the first Duke of Newcastle, in the seventeenth century, and the many practitioners (male and female) of Mr. Carter's, Philip Sidney's and Domenico Angelo's riding Academies in the early eighteenth. It also investigates the analogous but unique horsemanship and horses of Astley's Amphitheatre, and the politicized equestrian caricatures of Henry William Sunbury at the end of the century. This 'snapshot' approach allows for the inclusion of the nonhuman into the study of masculinity, and for new understandings of how men understood themselves as men; how they performed their gender, status and political beliefs; and how central horses were to the lived realities of socially elite men.

Item Type: Thesis (Doctor of Philosophy (PhD))
DOI/Identification number: uk.bl.ethos.594203
Additional information: This thesis has been digitised by EThOS, the British Library digitisation service, for purposes of preservation and dissemination. It was uploaded to KAR on 09 February 2021 in order to hold its content and record within University of Kent systems. It is available Open Access using a Creative Commons Attribution, Non-commercial, No Derivatives (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) licence so that the thesis and its author, can benefit from opportunities for increased readership and citation. This was done in line with University of Kent policies (https://www.kent.ac.uk/is/strategy/docs/Kent%20Open%20Access%20policy.pdf). If you feel that your rights are compromised by open access to this thesis, or if you would like more information about its availability, please contact us at ResearchSupport@kent.ac.uk and we will seriously consider your claim under the terms of our Take-Down Policy (https://www.kent.ac.uk/is/regulations/library/kar-take-down-policy.html).
Uncontrolled keywords: masculinity
Subjects: P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of English
SWORD Depositor: SWORD Copy
Depositing User: SWORD Copy
Date Deposited: 30 Oct 2019 13:54 UTC
Last Modified: 05 Jan 2022 15:13 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/86500 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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