New men in Trollope's novels - Margaret Markwick

New Men in Trollope's Novels challenges the popular construction of Victorian men as patriarchal despots and suggests that hands-on fatherhood may have been a nineteenth-century norm. Beginning with an evaluation of the evidence for cultural determinations of masculinity during Trollope's times, Markwick sets the stage with a discussion of the religious, philosophical, and educational influences that informed the evolution of Trollope's personal views of masculinity as he grew from boyhood into later manhood. - - Her treatment of his novels, drawing on a wide selection from across the oevre, shows that sensitive examination of Trollope's texts discovers him advancing a startlingly modern model of manhood under a veneer of conformity. Trollope's independent views on child-rearing, education, courtship, marriage, parenthood, and gay men are also discussed within the context of Victorian culture in this witty, original, and immensely knowledgeable study of Victorian masculinity.