'“When you told people... you were a poet, didn’t you get your head kicked in?”: Precarious Manhood in the Poetry of Don Paterson and Simon Armitage' & 'By Twos': A Critical Dissertation and Creative Portfolio

Abstract

This thesis comprises a critical dissertation and a collection of poetry, 'By Twos'. In the dissertation, I focus on the relationship between poetry and masculinity in the work of Don Paterson and Simon Armitage. Throughout, I rely on Bosson’s Precarious Manhood Paradigm (PMP). This theory states that manhood is widely regarded as a fragile status, which is hard-won, easily lost, and requires public proof. In this context, I argue that poetry is viewed as an effeminate art, and that this acts as a “gender threat” to men poets. According to the PMP, men typically respond to gender threats with a “reparative response”, which aims to reestablish their masculinity in the eyes of others. This thesis is concerned with men poets’, and particularly Paterson’s and Armitage’s, reparative responses.

To work out what these responses are likely to be, it is necessary to understand how and why poetry – an art which has been dominated by men – has come to be associated with effeminacy. I argue, first, that Romantic changes led to a new feminised conception of the poet; second, that industrialisation gave rise to an ‘entrepreneurial manhood’, which valorised labour, utility, and
rationality, and so clashed with this Romantic ideal; and third, that men poets are “excused by success”.

I use these answers as a framework. In chapters three and four, I argue that both poets confound the post-Romantic expectation that a poet’s subject matter will be a sensitive exploration of their own emotions. In chapter five, I show that they represent poetry as rational, useful, skilful labour, by casting the poet in the roles of craftsman and industrial worker. Finally, in chapter six, I set out the ways both poets emphasise their professionalism, and draw a line between the feminine act of writing poetry and the masculine role of being a poet.