Clashing Masculinities in Aphra Behn's The Dutch Lover

Aphra Behn's 1673 comedy The Dutch Lover illustrates Pierre Bourdieu's contention that manliness "is an eminently relational notion, constructed in front of and for other men." Triangulating national stereotypes of manhood (Dutchmen, Spaniards, and Cavaliers), the play delineates not a monolithic masculine practice but various masculinities coexisting on a spectrum bounded by the terms warlike and effeminate. Satirizing warlike Spanish machismo and effeminate Dutch expediency as illustrating masculinities in extremis, the text privileges its Cavalier hero Alonzo as instantiating a man of honor but one who also exhibits protean qualities, marking him as a man of wit and spirit.