Reading, Writing and the “Straight White Male”: What Masculinity Studies Does to Literary Analysis
This article aims at mapping out some of the ways in which masculinity studies has recently renewed the critical approach to certain literary texts. It argues that this fairly new disciplinary field has helped to de-territorialize literary inquiry and challenges deep-rooted assumptions about reading...
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| Dans: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles, |
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| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Langue: | Anglais |
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Angles
2020
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| Accès en ligne: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:angles_1663 |
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openedition |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:angles_1663 https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.1663 urn:doi:10.4000/angles.1663 en https://journals.openedition.org/angles/1663 2020-07-16T02:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/9n0a https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Reading, Writing and the “Straight White Male”: What Masculinity Studies Does to Literary Analysis Angles Société des Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2274-2042 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles Pellerin, Pierre-Antoine récit masculinité théorie critique literary analysis homosocialité homophobie théorie queer Œdipe écriture narrative masculinity critical theory literary analysis homosociality homophobia queer theory Oedipus writing This article aims at mapping out some of the ways in which masculinity studies has recently renewed the critical approach to certain literary texts. It argues that this fairly new disciplinary field has helped to de-territorialize literary inquiry and challenges deep-rooted assumptions about reading and writing. Essentialist notions like “masculine writing,” bodily analogies between the pen and the phallus, and psychoanalytical tools such as the Oedipus myth have tended to obfuscate the multitude of masculine identities at work in literature. Combined with the textual and performative approach developed by queer theorists, the work done by historians of masculinity enables, for instance, to shed light on the pressures that burdened authorial identity in a context of homophobia like the Cold War period in the United States, to delineate the ways in which the constitutive homosociality of poetic circles in the 1950s fashioned their aesthetic norms and practices, and to deconstruct the narrative codes and the fictions of masculinity which structured certain literary genres like the crime novel and the adventure novel. Cet article se propose d’examiner la façon dont les études sur la masculinité ont récemment permis de renouveler l’approche de certains textes littéraires. Il défend l’idée que ce champ disciplinaire relativement nouveau a permis de déterritorialiser l’épistémologie littéraire et d’interroger certains présupposés qui structurent l’approche critique de l’écriture et de la lecture. Qu’il s’agisse de notions essentialistes telles que « l’écriture masculine », des analogies corporelles entre stylo et phallus ou de certains outils psychanalytiques comme le mythe d’Œdipe, l’analyse littéraire du genre est parfois restée aveugle à la multiplicité d’identités masculines à l’œuvre en littérature. Conjugué à l’approche textuelle et performative formulée par les théoriciens queer, le travail des historiens de la masculinité permet par exemple de rendre visible les pressions qui s’exercent sur l’identité auctoriale dans un contexte d’homophobie généralisée comme celui de la Guerre froide aux Etats-Unis, de comprendre comment l’homosocialité constitutive des cercles poétiques des années 1950 façonne leurs normes et leurs pratiques esthétiques et de déconstruire les codes narratifs et les fictions du masculin qui structurent certains genres littéraires comme le roman noir et le roman d’aventure. |
| collection |
OpenEdition Journal |
| language |
Anglais |
| format |
Article ou chapitre numérique |
| building |
0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/ |
| topic |
récit masculinité théorie critique literary analysis homosocialité homophobie théorie queer Œdipe écriture narrative masculinity critical theory literary analysis homosociality homophobia queer theory Oedipus writing |
| spellingShingle |
récit masculinité théorie critique literary analysis homosocialité homophobie théorie queer Œdipe écriture narrative masculinity critical theory literary analysis homosociality homophobia queer theory Oedipus writing Pellerin, Pierre-Antoine Reading, Writing and the “Straight White Male”: What Masculinity Studies Does to Literary Analysis |
| description |
This article aims at mapping out some of the ways in which masculinity studies has recently renewed the critical approach to certain literary texts. It argues that this fairly new disciplinary field has helped to de-territorialize literary inquiry and challenges deep-rooted assumptions about reading and writing. Essentialist notions like “masculine writing,” bodily analogies between the pen and the phallus, and psychoanalytical tools such as the Oedipus myth have tended to obfuscate the multitude of masculine identities at work in literature. Combined with the textual and performative approach developed by queer theorists, the work done by historians of masculinity enables, for instance, to shed light on the pressures that burdened authorial identity in a context of homophobia like the Cold War period in the United States, to delineate the ways in which the constitutive homosociality of poetic circles in the 1950s fashioned their aesthetic norms and practices, and to deconstruct the narrative codes and the fictions of masculinity which structured certain literary genres like the crime novel and the adventure novel. |
| author |
Pellerin, Pierre-Antoine |
| author_facet |
Pellerin, Pierre-Antoine |
| author_sort |
Pellerin, Pierre-Antoine |
| title |
Reading, Writing and the “Straight White Male”: What Masculinity Studies Does to Literary Analysis |
| title_short |
Reading, Writing and the “Straight White Male”: What Masculinity Studies Does to Literary Analysis |
| title_full |
Reading, Writing and the “Straight White Male”: What Masculinity Studies Does to Literary Analysis |
| title_fullStr |
Reading, Writing and the “Straight White Male”: What Masculinity Studies Does to Literary Analysis |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Reading, Writing and the “Straight White Male”: What Masculinity Studies Does to Literary Analysis |
| title_sort |
reading, writing and the “straight white male”: what masculinity studies does to literary analysis |
| publisher |
Angles |
| publishDate |
2020 |
| container_title |
URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles |
| url |
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.1663 https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/angles/1663 |
| _version_ |
1877293947086176256 |