Masculinities in Queer Temporalities from George Eliot to Virginia Woolf

Studies of masculinities have challenged the monolithic concept of masculinity as patriarchy by examining men's diverse experiences in different historical periods. Studies of Victorian masculinities as sub-division of the field also have probed different and often marginalized experiences of Victorian men and thus have destabilized the unitary concept of Victorian patriarchy. In spite of the contribution to the deconstruction of the monolithic masculinity, studies of (Victorian) masculinities have shown limitation on account of the paradigmatic discipline of historicization. Although the exploration of the historically diverse experiences of men has proved pluralities of masculinities, its reliance on the historical approach seems past tense study, and therefore, it seems to only echo with the men in the past. This dissertation aims to remap current historical approaches in studies of (Victorian) masculinities by drawing upon the notion of queer temporality recently discussed in queer theorists. Specifically, this dissertation complicates the prevalent notion of time – which consists of past, present, and future – by speculating on the complex function of memory. Adding complexities of time in the form of queer temporality to current historical methodology of studies of (Victorian) masculinities, this dissertation aims to shift the seemingly past tense studies to present tense one. This work includes George Eliot's two Victorian texts and Rudyard Kipling, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf's post-Victorian texts. By making a dialogue between different epochs and by evoking a dialectics of masculinities, this dissertation most importantly aims to lead readers to ponder on masculinities as the matter of mode of being in the present rather than as the historical experiences in the past