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Literary Criticism Renaissance

Masculinities and Representation

The Eroticized Male in Early Modern Italy and England

edited by Konrad Eisenbichler

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Nov 2024
Category
Renaissance, Renaissance, General
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781487556990
    Publish Date
    Nov 2024
    List Price
    $100.00
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781487556976
    Publish Date
    Nov 2024
    List Price
    $100.00

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Description

In studies on premodern masculinities that have enriched scholarship in recent years, relatively little attention has been paid to the eroticizing of the male body. Masculinities and Representation seeks to fill this lacuna, illustrating how gender construction served to affirm but also diversify premodern masculinity. In so doing, this collection details how, as a social construct, masculinity was not a single concept, but a dynamic and intricate notion.

 

Focusing on the premodern period, Masculinities and Representation reveals how heteronormative masculinity was affirmed, but also how it was challenged when the male body was eroticized in art, literature, and devotion, or when “masculine” norms were transgressed by the assumption of “feminine” behaviours. Ultimately, the book demonstrates how masculinity itself could be transgressive in its focus of affection or in its inherent ambiguities.

About the author

Konrad Eisenbichler, Curator at the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies at Victoria University, has been studying Cecchi’s theatre for several years. His research has twice taken him to Italy, once in 1976 under the auspices of the Renaissance Society of America and once in 1980 on a Buchanan Scholarship from the University of Toronto. There he was able to consult manuscripts of Cecchi’s unpublished plays and search Florentine archives for biographical information into this retiring dramatist’s life. Mr. Eisenbichler’s translation, the first for any of Cecchi’s plays, is thus supported by a thorough critical apparatus, while retaining the lively and jovial style of Cecchi’s original.

Konrad Eisenbichler's profile page

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