Masculine Figures

Nicholas Wolters

Description

Based on years of archival research in Madrid and Barcelona, this interdisciplinary study offers a fresh approach to understanding how men visualized themselves and their place in a nation that struggled to modernize after nearly a century of civil war, colonial entanglement, and imperial loss. Masculine Figures is the first study to provide a comprehensive overview of competing models of masculinity in nineteenth-century Spain, and it is particularly novel in its treatment of Catalan texts and previously unstudied evidence (e.g., department store catalogs, commercial advertisements, fashion plates, and men’s tailoring journals).

Fictional masculinity performs a symbolic role in representing and negotiating the contradictions male novelists often encountered in their attempts to professionalize not only as writers, but also as businessmen, professors, lawyers, and politicians. Through specific and recurring figures like the student, the priest, the businessman, and the heir, male novelists portray and represent an increasingly middle-class world at odds with the values and virtues it inherited from an imperial Spanish past, and those it imported from more industrialized nations like England and France. The visual culture of the time and place marks the material turn in middle-class masculinity and sets the stage for discussions of race and sexuality.
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Student
Chapter 2: The Priest
Chapter 3: The Businessman
Chapter 4: The Heir
Coda
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Histoire
• Cataluña
• Victorian era
• Spain
• Catalonia
• History
• Barcelona
• Catalogne
• Madrid
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Vanderbilt University Press
• Date de parution: 25 janvier 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780826505200
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

MASCULINE
FIGURES
Fashioning Men
& the Novel in
Nineteenth-Centuryy
Spain
NICHOLAS
WOLTERSMASCULINE FIGURESMASCULINE
FIGURES
Fashioning Men and the Novel in
Nineteenth- Centur y Spain
N icholas Wolter s
VaNderbilt UNiVersity Press
Nashville, TennesseeCopyright 2022 Vanderbilt University Press
All rights reserved
First printing 2022
Library of Congress Catalog in-ing- Publication Data
Names: Wolters, Nicholas Alexander, 1986– author.
Title: Masculine figures : fashioning men and the novel in
nineteenth- century Spain / Nicholas Wolters.
Description: Nashville, Tennessee : Vanderbilt University Press, [2022] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022011170 (print) | LCCN 2022011171 (ebook) | ISBN
9780826505170 (paperback) | ISBN 9780826505187 (hardcover) | ISBN
9780826505194 (epub) | ISBN 9780826505200 (pdf )
Subjects: LCSH: Men—Spain—History—19th century. |
Masculinity—Spain—History—19th century. | Spain—Social life and
customs—19th century. | Men—Spain—Fiction.
Classification: LCC HQ1090.7.S7 W65 2022 (print) | LCC HQ1090.7.S7
(ebook) | DDC 305.310946—dc23/eng/20220406
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022011170
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022011171I dedicate this book to the memory of my brother, Jared “Jay” Wolters
(1995–2019): one of the coolest guys I have ever known.CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1
The Student 51
2
The Priest 91
3
The Businessman 131
4
The Heir 177
Coda 219
Notes 231
Bibliography 271
Index 291Acknowledgments
I owe thanks to so many folks who have supported me and this project
over the years, and I will try my best to acknowledge them all here in one
way or another.
First, my manuscript would not have become a book without the
steadfast work of Vanderbilt University Press. I owe special thanks to Zack
Gresham, Joell Smith- Borne, and Gianna Moser , as well as the Press’s
anonymous reviewers, whose feedback undoubtedly helped to improve
the manuscript.
The research undertaken to write Masculine Figures would have been
impossible without the resources available to me at Wake Forest Univ-er
sity. My yearly research trips to Madrid and Barcelona, as well as to
conferences in the US and abroad, were made possible by generous funding
from the Archie Fund for the Humanities, the Humanities Institute, the
Ofces of the Dean and Provost, and the Department of Spanish at Wake
Forest University.
In the Departments of Spanish and Italian, I am especially thankful for
the collegiality, generosity, and kindness of Jane Albrecht, Alison Atkins,
Corey Cantaluppi, Margaret Ewalt, Luis González, Anne Hardcastle, Linda
Howe, Kathy Mayers, Carmen Pérez Muñoz, Irene Picconi, Sol Miguel-
Prendes, Silvia Tiboni-Cr aft, José Luis Venegas, and John Welsh. Throug-h
out the writing process I was also constantly inspired by colleagues from
other departments at Wake Forest University. Dean Franco, Claudia
ixx MascUliNe FigUres
Kairof, Stephanie Koscak, Morna O’Neill, Jessica Richard, and Mary
Wayne- Thomas ha ve been amazing colleagues whose encouragement of
interdisciplinarity has enriched my own work and made for wonderful
conversations over the years. I also have to thank my seminar and honors
thesis students, especially Lydia Milhoun, whose astute observations about
and engagement with topics related to gender and dress provided regular
encouragement to me as I fnished writing Masculine Figures.
I owe a special debt to those who graciously volunteered their time to
read and comment on so many drafts of chapters and translations from
Spanish and Catalan to English. Laureano Bonet, Carlos Ferando Valero,
Leslie Harkema, Toni Maestre Brotons, Sarah Sierra, Jennifer Smith, and
José Luis Venegas gave careful and thoughtful feedback during critical stages
of the writing process. If a “thank you” in this category was measurable,
though, the biggest one I could ofer would undoubtedly go to Gaby Miller.
Her abilities as reader and editor are only equaled—if not exceeded—by
her compassion and generosity as a pal and a confdant. I also ofer a
heartfelt merci/gràcies to Montse Prats and Laura Masforell, who taught me to
speak, read, listen, and write in Catalan and who inspired me to continue
studying it.
Several colleagues in modern Spanish and Iberian studies (including
some already named above) also assisted with various stages of the book -
writing process and have continued to instill in me an appreciation for
and enriched understanding of Spanish cultural studies and literature.
Masculine Figures would not be what it is without their generosity and f -eed
back during (and in between!) conferences and research trips in the US
and abroad. Those scholars include Elena Cueto- Asín, Julia Chang, Stacy
Davis, Toni Dorca, Fran Fernández de Alba, Marcela Garcés, David George,
Hazel Gold, María Luisa Guardiola, Cathy Jafe, Colin McKinney, Leigh
Mercer, Gaby Miller, Sara Muñoz, Lisa Nalbone, Wadda Ríos-Font, Erika
Rodríguez, Ana Rueda, Alan Smith, Wan Sonya Tang, Erika Sutherland,
Sarah Thomas, Akiko Tsuchiya, Aurélie Vialette, and Linda Willem. Many
thanks, as well, go to Irene Gómez- Castellano and Isaac Gar cía- Guerrero,
who invited me to give book- related talks to their generous students and
colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Virginia
Military Institute, respectively.
The archival component of this project was facilitated by the - exper
tise and kindness of dozens of archivists and librarians in Madrid and B - ar
celona. Artifacts and texts that I studied with assistance provided by Elisa
Regeiro of the Arxiu Històric in Barcelona, as well as Cristina Jiménez of xi
the Museo Cerralbo and Juan Gutiérrez of the Museo del Traje in Madrid,
are this book’s warp and weft.
Though Chapter 2 of this book is the only section related in any
significant way to the work I did at the University of Virginia, I am grateful to
several mentors, peers, and friends I met there. Randolph Pope and David
Gies read early drafts of essays that would later become or inspire chapters
in this book, and they buoyed me in my professional endeavors in ways
that exceeded the duties of an adviser or reader; I can only hope to aspire
to the scholarly model they frst set for me in graduate school. I would
also like to thank Andrew Anderson, Allison Bigelow, Eli Carter, Shawn
Harris, Stephanie Knecht Gates, Cheryl Krueger, Gaby Miller, Carmen
Moreno Díaz, Elena Neacsu, Tally Sanford, Paula Sprague, Jennifer Tsien,
and Miguel Valladares for their friendship and generous support during
my time in Charlottesville. Huge thanks also go to Nora Benedict, who
constantly shared her experience and expertise on all things book rela -ted
(and who only made fun of me a little bit for my absurd orders during our
cofee dates).
I owe so much to my parents, John and Brenda, and to my younger
siblings, Kait, Jay, Rachel, and Tommy. My family and friends have sho- w
ered me with a seemingly endless supply of love and laughter over the
years, reminding me that there is much more to life than deadlines and the
ticking tenure clock. I thank my barber, Tim Parker, for making me look
cooler than I am and for his insightful comments (and for listening to me
ramble more than once about the contents of this book). I am thankful to
my closest friends in Winston- Salem, especially Andr ew Johnson; they all
celebrated, hugged, and uplifted me when I needed it the most.
An earlier version of Chapter 1 appeared as “Secondhand: The Used Cloth -
ing Trade and Narrative Ragpicking in Gald ós’s El Doctor Centeno” in Anales
Galdosianos, no. 53 (2018), 55–75; an earlier version of Chapter 2 appeared
as “‘Debajo de la sotana’: (Re)Dressing Clerical Masculinity in La Rege” nta
in Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, 53, no. 1 (2019), 329–52. Figure 0.1. Advertisement for tailor services from the last third of the nineteenth
century. The caption reads, “Latest novelties in boys’ suits in all shapes, sizes, and tastes
with an eye to elegance and economy. Special made-to-measure section for gentlemen.”
Image courtesy of the Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. INTRODUCTION
In a late- nineteenth- century adv ertising card (see fg. 0.1), a father appears
to oversee his son while a tailor or journeyman kneels to take the boy’s
measurements. Depicting one of many steps in crafting a made- to-
1e suit, the illustration’s iconography demarcates a clear hierar chy.
Whereas the father’s broad shoulders, dark suit, top hat, cane, and solid
stance bespeak his status as an afuent and gentlemanly client, the tailor’s
crouched position, worker’s cap, and tape measure signal the deferential
respect of a trustworthy craftsman. Stationed between the father - ’s walk
ing stick and the tailor’s tape, the boy submits obediently to the measure of
paternal and societal expectations. An ephemeral reminder of nineteenth-
century advertising and commerce, the all- male scene f ocuses on both
fashionable production and consumption while also illustrating a
common transaction between men who represent diferent but
complementary spectrums of the middle class. It also hints at a male homosocial rite of
passage in the shepherding of young boys to adulthood. Perhaps indirectly,
the promotional illustration refects the existence of multiple
confgurations of middle- class masculinity produced and made visible by
interactions between men in nineteenth- century Sp ain’s culture of consumption.
Like many other advertisements of its kind, the card promises “Economy,
Elegance, and Careful Tailoring” to the faithful clients of Pantaleoni
Hermanos (see fg. 0.2), values and virtues that were capitalized upon by adv - er
tisers, tailors, and department store owners alike in order to appeal to
aspi2rants to, or members of, Spain’s bourg