An Anatomy of the British Polity: Alton Locke and Christian Manliness

Abstract

There is no definitive document of Christian manliness. It was never given formal theoretical expression, and what we can say about it must be gleaned from the various novels and sermons which were written or preached in its favour. This in itself is a significant fact, since a hostility to theories and an appeal to intuition and commonsense principles were partly definitive of the phenomenon. Necessarily, then, the conceptualisation of manliness which Kingsley (especially) promoted synthesised dominant ideologies and definitions to produce a version of ideal masculinity which was both conservative yet apparently innovative. Centrally, it has been interpreted as an attempt to resolve the tensions between corporeal existence and spiritual aspiration,¹ but questions about the historical conditions of its emergence have been largely neglected.