Scarecrows of chivalry : English masculinities after empire / Praseeda Gopinath.

Introduction : English masculinities in transition -- Manly independent men : (de)constructing the English gentleman -- Out of place : Evelyn Waugh and the retreating gentleman -- An orphaned manliness : George Orwell and the Bovex man -- "One of those old-type natural fouled-up guys" : posting the gentleman in Philip Larkin's poetry -- "Moulded and shaped" : John Wain, Ian Fleming, and threshold masculinities -- Writing women, reading men : A.S. Byatt, Barbara Pym, and the post-gentlemen -- Epilogue : The postcolonial gentleman.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-260) and index.

Exploring the fate of the ideal of the English gentleman once the empire he was meant to embody declined, the author argues that the stylization of English masculinity became the central theme, focus, and conceit for many literary texts that represented the "condition of Britain" in the 1930s and the immediate postwar era. From the early writings of George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh to works by poets and novelists such as Philip Larkin, Ian Fleming, Barbara Pym, and A. S. Byatt, the author shows how Englishmen trafficking in the images of self-restraint, governance, decency, and detachment in the absence of a structuring imperial ethos became what the poet Larkin called "scarecrows of chivalry." This study of the masculine ideal under duress reveals the ways in which issues of race, class, and sexuality constructed a gendered narrative of the nation.

Print version record.

English.

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