Shears, JR (2023) 'Thou Breath of Autumn’s Being': Voicing Masculinity in the Poetry of Late Life. Journal of the British Academy, 11 (Supple). ISSN 2052-7217 (In Press)

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Abstract

This essay argues that lyric poetry is a form suited to contesting dominant ideas about masculinity because of its thematic and formal preoccupations with voice. It argues that voice offers a different way of viewing the social constrictions that accompany male experiences of ageing to the well-known theory of the mask of ageing. Through a study of a long history of Western lyric verse, which includes writers such as William Shakespeare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alfred Lord Tennyson, W. B. Yeats, Robert Frost and Philip Larkin, the essay explores the significance of restricted breathing in relation to dominant norms of masculine reticence and the physiological deterioration of the vocal profile in age. It then explores the possibility of counter-voicings of masculinity in poems with intergenerational themes from a group of post-war British poets.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: The final version of this article and all relevant information related to it, including copyrights, can be found on the publisher website.
Subjects: P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General)
Divisions: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Humanities
Depositing User: Symplectic
Date Deposited: 02 May 2023 07:23
Last Modified: 02 May 2023 07:23
URI: https://eprints.keele.ac.uk/id/eprint/12322

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