The Death of Christian Britain
The Death of Christian Britain
The Death of Christian Britain
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— Men in Discourse and Narrative 1800–1950 —<br />
press. <strong>The</strong> ‘moral man’, meanwhile, was a more complex character. Indeed,<br />
the discourse on him was confused, ambiguous and ambivalent. Nowhere<br />
in evangelical narratives was there greater uncertainty than with the religiosity<br />
<strong>of</strong> the secular hero.<br />
Popular reading for men did not have the same intensity <strong>of</strong> moral<br />
rhetoric as that evident in women’s or children’s magazines and books. <strong>The</strong><br />
man’s world <strong>of</strong> business, industry, politics and sport did not have the same<br />
narrow focus <strong>of</strong> the domestic sphere, the home and children, which so<br />
dominated female reading. Instead, the world was men’s oyster, and the<br />
themes <strong>of</strong> improving reading were wide and varied. Technical journals for<br />
artisans like <strong>The</strong> English Mechanic appealed to skill-based learning, the<br />
working <strong>of</strong> machines, accolades to the technological prowess <strong>of</strong> the skilled<br />
working class, whilst even the earliest general magazine for men, <strong>The</strong> Penny<br />
Magazine <strong>of</strong> 1832, promoted ‘improvement’ as a technological and<br />
economic phenomenon rather than a moral one. 118 Specialist magazines<br />
reflected elements <strong>of</strong> the discourse on moral men: the nobility <strong>of</strong> knowledge,<br />
industry and skill, strength and physical courage. <strong>The</strong>y implicitly put<br />
in relief parallel values: thrift and sobriety, civic responsibility and moral<br />
courage, and it was in general improving literature that the meeting point<br />
<strong>of</strong> values <strong>of</strong> the male domain was to be found. In biographical sketches,<br />
historical series and short stories, a moral conjunction was created at which<br />
the virtues associated with the male worlds <strong>of</strong> science, industrial skill and<br />
power (virtues <strong>of</strong> hard work, independence, self-reliance, and education)<br />
were placed within the overarching framework <strong>of</strong> female piety where they<br />
met the moral virtues <strong>of</strong> home and family (virtues <strong>of</strong> self-sacrifice,<br />
parenting, sobriety and thrift). <strong>The</strong> conjunction was a discursive minefield,<br />
for it was the point where the ‘masculine’ world met the ‘feminine’ world;<br />
the two had to be ‘merged’ in the evangelical conversion as the core <strong>of</strong> the<br />
exemplary man. 119 It was here that gendered virtues clashed, where heroes<br />
and villains were drafted as moral beings, where masculinity and femininity<br />
were married. This required the feminising <strong>of</strong> maleness – a difficult and<br />
perhaps impossible task.<br />
<strong>The</strong> major site for this clash <strong>of</strong> gender opposites within male sexuality<br />
was in the general improving magazine. For adult males, such literature<br />
was rarely designed to be men-only, but it was overwhelmingly family<br />
centred. <strong>The</strong> pioneer <strong>of</strong> the family improving magazine was Chamber’s<br />
Journal, founded in 1832 as a weekly ‘threeha’pence’ paper for all the<br />
family. As a family journal, it differed quite radically from women’s<br />
magazines in having a much greater focus on men’s issues in a mixture <strong>of</strong><br />
short stories, science news, social observation, ‘moral essays’ and biographical<br />
sketches <strong>of</strong> prominent men. <strong>The</strong> style <strong>of</strong> holy men found in<br />
evangelical reading had enormous influence on the construction <strong>of</strong><br />
‘secular’ heroes in popular improving papers like Chamber’s Journal. <strong>The</strong><br />
use <strong>of</strong> the life biography and the obituary was particularly common, though<br />
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