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'Open secrets': Masculine subjectivity and other men's bodies in some late twentieth-century British poetry

Kennedy, David

Authors

David Kennedy



Abstract

Stephen Heath has asked in 'Male Feminism', 'Do I write male? What does that mean?' Contemporary British poetry likes to imagine itself as ideologically innocent, particularly in terms of male subjectivity and masculinity. Masculinity becomes, therefore, something that is hidden in plain sight. This article argues that masculinity is often discussed through the discursive production of other men's bodies and talismanic objects; and examines this in the poetry of Simon Armitage, Michael Hofmann, and Andrew Motion. A man produces the bodies of other men and of boys discursively in order to energise himself for fully active participation in the economy of recognition and judgement, production and critique, on which masculinity relies. The production of these bodies and their subsequent identification in a continuum of 'not-me's' enables a man to judge where and how to perform his own masculinity. In the work of Hofmann and Motion, masculinity is seen as difficult patrimony; while in Armitage's poetry, discursive production itself and, consequently, masculinity are placed, as it were, in inverted commas (p. 169).

Citation

Kennedy, D. (2011). 'Open secrets': Masculine subjectivity and other men's bodies in some late twentieth-century British poetry. Textual Practice, 25(1), 87-107. https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2011.537551

Journal Article Type Review
Online Publication Date Jan 17, 2011
Publication Date Feb 1, 2011
Deposit Date Nov 13, 2014
Journal Textual Practice
Print ISSN 0950-236X
Publisher Routledge
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 25
Issue 1
Pages 87-107
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2011.537551
Keywords Contemporary British poetry; Masculinity; Male Bodies; Men in literature; British Poetry Post-1945; Gender
Public URL https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/462079
Publisher URL https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0950236X.2011.537551
Contract Date Nov 13, 2014