Manhood and the Duel: Masculinity in Early Modern Drama and Culture (review)

In the final paragraphs of her study of the early modern period, Jennifer A. Low suggests that "masculinity was not a monolithic concept. It functioned differently even for the same people in different contexts" (170). This may seem a disappointing and almost obvious concluding remark for anyone invested in studying the performance of gender, but the reason to read Manhood and the Duel: Masculinity in Early Modern Drama and Culture is the complex and innovative encounters, both social and cultural, that Low stages to make this point. Throughout her investigation of dueling in England (largely between 1580 and 1620), Low provides evidence from a diverse range of sources such as fencing manuals, antidueling tracts, and women's conduct books. She subsequently draws comparisons between real-life dueling and the dueling scripted in dramas of the day. The result is a richly detailed study that examines multiple approaches to masculinity in chapters such as "The Duellist as Hero," "Misperceiving Masculinity, Misreading the Duel," and "When Women Fight." Throughout Manhood and the Duel, Low targets dueling as a much-neglected locus for the study of early perceptions and practices of masculine behavior, both onstage and off.

At the heart of Manhood and the Duel is a thick description of two of the main categories of dueling. Judicial duels (trials by combat in which God was thought to intervene on behalf of the righteous) and extralegal duels of honor, in which duelists "perceived themselves as engaged in forming their own world in which aggression was a form of self-realization" (26), were both popular primarily among the aristocracy. Marshalling evidence from a variety of documents about these types of dueling, Low presents and problematizes the nuances of decorum, chivalry, and heroism—components of the nobility's "vague thoughts" and "unexamined assumptions" (5) about what it meant to be a man. Issues surrounding class surface in each chapter as Low charts how codified masculine practices reverberate from the upper classes outwards, such as when others attempt to emulate the nobility. Also, Low makes explicit the ways in which playwrights like Shakespeare and Jonson write about, exploit, and critique dueling, a practice of a class above their own.

Two chapters in particular are outstanding in their reach. In "The Art of Fence and the Sense of Masculine Space," Low analyzes fencing manuals and explores the history of the rapier to show how masculine personal spaces are pivotal to understanding a fight; the goal of a duel is to enter into your opponent's personal space without allowing him to penetrate yours. Low explains how various schools of dueling advocated different stances, footwork, and blade techniques to expand or to guard these fragile perimeters of masculine space. In "Sexual Status and the Combat," Low again turns to fencing manuals (and courtesy books) to describe how a masculine space and body can be rendered leaky and permeable within a duel. She suggests that "the combatant's penetration can redirect our thinking from the axis of gender to that of maturity" (76). In doing so, Low skillfully indicates the loser of a duel need not be looked upon as womanly, but rather as untrained or boyish. Both chapters concisely posit how one might better understand constructions of masculinity by looking at gesture, body language, space, and movement. This conceptual framework is just as applicable to ancient warfare, postmodern dance, and cinematic violence as it is to early modern dueling.

Low's writing is fluid and a pleasure to read. Despite her frequent citations of technical manuals and her occasional invocations of contemporary theorists such as Foucault and Levi-Strauss, each of her chapters can be consumed in a brief sitting, largely due to her ability to organize and distill evidence from a wide array of materials. And though she deftly wades through the complexities of Judith Butler and performance theory, Low's chief allies are the playwrights of this period and their...