A man's game masculinity and the anti-aesthetics of American literary naturalism - Dudley, John (University of Alabama Press, 2004)
Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Tulane University, 2001
Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-215) and index
Inside and outside the ring : the establishment of a masculinist aesthetic sensibility -- "Subtle brotherhood" in Stephen Crane's tales of adventure : alienation, anxiety, and the rites of manhood -- "Beauty unmans me" : diminished manhood and the leisure class in Norris and Wharton -- "A man only in form" : the roots of naturalism in African American literature
Demonstrates how concepts of masculinity shaped the aesthetic foundations of literary naturalism. A Man's Game explores the development of American literary naturalism as it relates to definitions of manhood in many of the movement's key texts and the aesthetic goals of writers such as Stephen Crane, Jack London, Frank Norris, Edith Wharton, Charles Chestnutt, and James Weldon Johnson. John Dudley argues that in the climate of the late 19th century, when these authors were penning their major works, literary endeavors were widely viewed as frivolous, the work of ladies for ladies, who comprise