Territoires méridionaux et îles australes : laboratoires du masculin dans les premiers romans d’aventures pour garçons victoriennes

The South is ubiquitous within the extensive corpus of the first Victorian boys’ adventure stories. These southern and austral spaces, from the Mediterranean coasts to the South Seas, welcome the young British heroes of these novels which were absolute bestsellers. My paper will interrogate how this...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Valentine Prévot
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée 2016-05-01
Series:Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/cve/2515
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1832581230687682560
author Valentine Prévot
author_facet Valentine Prévot
author_sort Valentine Prévot
collection DOAJ
description The South is ubiquitous within the extensive corpus of the first Victorian boys’ adventure stories. These southern and austral spaces, from the Mediterranean coasts to the South Seas, welcome the young British heroes of these novels which were absolute bestsellers. My paper will interrogate how this southern space, eccentric and off-center, turns into a laboratory of the British masculine identity, drawing the outside towards the inside, the periphery towards the centre and the Other towards the Same. Through the trials and tribulations of Jack Easy in Marryat’s Mr. Midshipman Easy (1838) and the shipwreck of both the Henniker family in Marryat’s The Little Savage (1848) and the three heroes of Ballantyne’s The Coral Island (1858), the British imperial space spreads out at the same time as welcoming and heavenly but also as ferocious and unyielding. After an initial moment of clash and violence, these spaces allow themselves to be appropriated before turning into zones of contact. The encounter with cannibals, pirates or even women, generates frictions and redefinitions of the hegemonic masculine identity embodied by our young heroes. These southern spaces then materialize new conditions of possibility for the creation of a fluid, unstable and moving masculinity, key adjectives that define the Victorian culture. The repeated contacts with the space of the Other not only authorize a quest for the purification of masculinity, the conquest of territories and numerous experiences of hybridization, it also enables us to redefine the Same which eventually absorbs the Other when the British heroes inevitably go back to their island home. These southern and austral spaces, apparently marginal, end up being devoured by and swallowed in the centre, becoming the centre in their turn.
format Article
id doaj-art-4d4ad65f0a744e83bf3f465fdc408ccd
institution Kabale University
issn 0220-5610
2271-6149
language English
publishDate 2016-05-01
publisher Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée
record_format Article
series Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens
spelling doaj-art-4d4ad65f0a744e83bf3f465fdc408ccd2025-01-30T10:21:38ZengPresses Universitaires de la MéditerranéeCahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens0220-56102271-61492016-05-018310.4000/cve.2515Territoires méridionaux et îles australes : laboratoires du masculin dans les premiers romans d’aventures pour garçons victoriennesValentine PrévotThe South is ubiquitous within the extensive corpus of the first Victorian boys’ adventure stories. These southern and austral spaces, from the Mediterranean coasts to the South Seas, welcome the young British heroes of these novels which were absolute bestsellers. My paper will interrogate how this southern space, eccentric and off-center, turns into a laboratory of the British masculine identity, drawing the outside towards the inside, the periphery towards the centre and the Other towards the Same. Through the trials and tribulations of Jack Easy in Marryat’s Mr. Midshipman Easy (1838) and the shipwreck of both the Henniker family in Marryat’s The Little Savage (1848) and the three heroes of Ballantyne’s The Coral Island (1858), the British imperial space spreads out at the same time as welcoming and heavenly but also as ferocious and unyielding. After an initial moment of clash and violence, these spaces allow themselves to be appropriated before turning into zones of contact. The encounter with cannibals, pirates or even women, generates frictions and redefinitions of the hegemonic masculine identity embodied by our young heroes. These southern spaces then materialize new conditions of possibility for the creation of a fluid, unstable and moving masculinity, key adjectives that define the Victorian culture. The repeated contacts with the space of the Other not only authorize a quest for the purification of masculinity, the conquest of territories and numerous experiences of hybridization, it also enables us to redefine the Same which eventually absorbs the Other when the British heroes inevitably go back to their island home. These southern and austral spaces, apparently marginal, end up being devoured by and swallowed in the centre, becoming the centre in their turn.https://journals.openedition.org/cve/2515hybriditymasculinitySouthEmpirehegemonyboys’ adventure stories
spellingShingle Valentine Prévot
Territoires méridionaux et îles australes : laboratoires du masculin dans les premiers romans d’aventures pour garçons victoriennes
Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens
hybridity
masculinity
South
Empire
hegemony
boys’ adventure stories
title Territoires méridionaux et îles australes : laboratoires du masculin dans les premiers romans d’aventures pour garçons victoriennes
title_full Territoires méridionaux et îles australes : laboratoires du masculin dans les premiers romans d’aventures pour garçons victoriennes
title_fullStr Territoires méridionaux et îles australes : laboratoires du masculin dans les premiers romans d’aventures pour garçons victoriennes
title_full_unstemmed Territoires méridionaux et îles australes : laboratoires du masculin dans les premiers romans d’aventures pour garçons victoriennes
title_short Territoires méridionaux et îles australes : laboratoires du masculin dans les premiers romans d’aventures pour garçons victoriennes
title_sort territoires meridionaux et iles australes laboratoires du masculin dans les premiers romans d aventures pour garcons victoriennes
topic hybridity
masculinity
South
Empire
hegemony
boys’ adventure stories
url https://journals.openedition.org/cve/2515
work_keys_str_mv AT valentineprevot territoiresmeridionauxetilesaustraleslaboratoiresdumasculindanslespremiersromansdaventurespourgarconsvictoriennes