Exploring the performance of masculinity on and off the nineteenth-century American stage, this book looks at the shift from the passionate muscularity to intellectual restraint as not a linear journey toward national refinement; but a multitude of masculinities fighting simultaneously for dominance and recognition.

Autorentext
Karl M. Kippola is an assistant professor of Theatre at American University, USA and has been a professional actor and director for the last twenty-five years.

Inhalt
Act Like a Man: Images and Rhetoric of Reconstructed Manhood A Glorious Image of Unperverted Manhood: Edwin Forrest as Masculine Ideal A Masculine Identity Worth Dying For: The Astor Place Riot Decorum and Delicacy: The Feminized Manliness of Edwin Booth Impossibly Genial: The Masculine Transformations of John McCullough Conclusion: Affirming White Masculinity by Deriding the Other