Walter Pater; Manliness; Sexuality; Greek Art; Winckelmann.
 

Engelhardt, Carol Marie. “Victorian Masculinity and the Virgin Mary,” in Andrew Bradstock, Sean Gill, Anne Hogan, and Sue Morgan (eds.) Masculinity and Spirituality in Victorian Culture (Basingstoke, U.K.: Macmillan, 2000): 44-57.
In this article Engelhardt considers how the understanding of the Virgin Mary of three Victorian clergymen, Kingsley, Edward Pusey and Frederick Faber, was related to their view of contemporary masculine identity and, in particular, how each used the Virgin Mary to define his own masculinity.  Kingsley's dislike of Mary was, as Engelhardy points out, understandable for one who hated Catholicism. However, she also relates his antipathy to the power that Catholics ascribe to Mary.  Kingsley shared the common Victorian view of the domesticity of women and that it was the role of females to inspire men but that they themselves should not aspire to power.  Engelhardt also contends that Kingsley's hostile attitude to Mary was related to fears about his own masculinity.  Early in his life Kingsley himself  had felt a pull towards Catholicism, a religion he later came to view as female-oriented and therefore unmanly. "It was no wonder, then, that Kingsley felt compelled to reject vociferously the most feminine part of this allegedly effeminate religion.  Kingsley was not just denouncing Mary; he was repudiating what he considered to be his own weakness and error in desiring Rome" (47).

Virgin Mary; Manliness; Catholicism; Yeast.
 

Bradstock, Andrew.  “'A Man of God is a Holy Man': Spurgeon, Luther and 'Holy Boldness',” in Andrew Bradstock, Sean Gill, Anne Hogan, and Sue Morgan (eds.) Masculinity and Spirituality in Victorian Culture (Basingstoke, U.K.: Macmillan, 2000): 209-225.
There are many references to Kingsley in this study of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, particularly with respect to the two men's views on aspects of manliness and muscular Christianity.

Spurgeon; Manliness; Muscular Christianity; Celibacy.
 

Dodd, Philip.  “Gender and Cornwall: Charles Kingsley to Daphne du Maurier,”  in K. D. M. Snell (ed.) The Regional Novel in Britain and Ireland, 1800-1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998): 119-135.
Dodd declares that the West Country in Two Years Ago is a region signifying for Kingsley a “forward-looking, confident masculinity” (125).  Its manly Protestant values complement the muscular Tom Thurnall while the London world is the appropriate place for the effete poet Elsley Vavasour.

Two Years Ago; Cornwall; Devon; Manliness.
 

Engelhardt, Carol Marie. “Victorian Masculinity and the Virgin Mary,” in Andrew Bradstock, Sean Gill, Anne Hogan, and Sue Morgan (eds.) Masculinity and Spirituality in Victorian Culture (Basingstoke, U.K.: Macmillan, 2000): 44-57.
In this article Engelhardt considers how the understanding of the Virgin Mary of three Victorian clergymen, Kingsley, Edward Pusey and Frederick Faber, was related to their view of contemporary masculine identity and, in particular, how each used the Virgin Mary to define his own masculinity.  Kingsley's dislike of Mary was, as Engelhardy points out, understandable for one who hated Catholicism. However, she also relates his antipathy to the power that Catholics ascribe to Mary.  Kingsley shared the common Victorian view of the domesticity of women and that it was the role of females to inspire men but that they themselves should not aspire to power.  Engelhardt also contends that Kingsley's hostile attitude to Mary was related to fears about his own masculinity.  Early in his life Kingsley himself  had felt a pull towards Catholicism, a religion he later came to view as a female-oriented  and therefore unmanly. "It was no wonder, then, that Kingsley felt compelled to reject vociferously the most feminine part of this allegedly effeminate religion.  Kingsley was not just denouncing Mary; he was repudiating what he considered to be his own weakness and error in desiring Rome" (47).

Virgin Mary; Manliness; Catholicism; Yeast.
 

Fasick, Laura.  “The Failure of Fatherhood: Maleness and Its Discontents in Charles Kingsley,” Children's Literature Association Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 3 (Fall 1993): 106-111.
Fasick declares that Kingsley's ideal of hyper-masculinity coexisted with his recognition of the need of such moral qualities of humility, gentleness, and patience.  However, she contends that Kingsley, who tended to prize the former ideal more highly, found it difficult to combine these two distinct spectra and certainly failed to illustrate their union in his novels.  "Despite his homage to gentleness and patience, Kingley's real attraction is apparently to the displays of power and aggression with which he adorns his novels" (109).

Muscular Christianity; Manliness; Fatherhood; The Water-Babies; Westward-Ho!.
 

Gay, Peter.  “The Manliness of Christ,” in R. W. Davis and R. J. Helmstadter (eds) Religion and Irreligion in Victorian Society: Essays in Honor of R. K. Webb (London and New York: Routledge, 1992): 102-116.
Gay declares that manliness for Kingsley was intimately connected with a distinct tenderness.  Though he repeatedly castigated what he viewed as the effeminacy of the Roman Catholic and High Anglican clergy, he manifested a number of female qualities himself.  “It was this ‘feminine’ side in him that allowed Kingsley to complicate his definition of heroism by adding to muscular qualities, justice, restraint, modesty, and the readiness for self-sacrifice” (115).

Muscular Christianity; Manliness.
 

Haralson, Eric.  “James’s The American: A (New)man is Being Beaten,” American Literature Vol. 64, No. 3 (September 1992): 475-495.
Haralson examines the influence of Kingsley’s notions of manliness and muscular Christianity on Henry James’s characterization in his novels, particularly the representation of Christopher Newman in The American (1877).  Though James in his youth was drawn to aspects of the manly hero, his views were by no means identical to those of Kingsley.  “To read James’s four reviews of Kingsley between 1865 and 1877 . . .  is to watch him struggle to come to terms with a youthful enthusiasm that was fast fading” (477).  In particular, Kingsley’s anti-intellectual strain in his heroes was objectionable to James.  Still, as Haralson treats at length, James used the Kingsleyan hero as a point of departure in his depiction of Christopher Newman.  Haralson also briefly sketches the influence of Kingsley’ manly hero on James’s portrayal of such protagonists as Caspar Goodwood in The Portrait of a Lady (1881), Basil Ransom in The Bostonians (1886), and Nick Dormer in The Tragic Muse (1890).

Manliness; Muscular Christianity; James, Henry.
 

Labbe, Jacqueline M.  “The Godhead Regendered in Victorian Children’s Literature,” in Alice Jenkins and Juliet John (eds.) Rereading Victorian Fiction (UK: Macmillan, 2000): 96-114.
Labbe argues that many texts of Victorian children’s literature substituted the Wise Woman, the Fairy Godmother, for God the Father as the sage of choice.  Christianity, in short, was being feminized.  In The Water-Babies such “female deities” as Mother Carey, Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby, and Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid with their female virtues of love, compassion and inherent knowledge are more important than the more manly qualities in the divine order.  “In Kingsley’s version of the female Christ, he realigns Christ’s gender, or rather his sex; this female Christ poses no threat to established gender roles, but rather makes plain the femininity of Christ’s character” (104).

Females; Religion; Manliness; The Water-Babies.
 

Lucas, John A. “Victorian 'Muscular Christianity': Prologue to the Olympic Games Philosophy,” Olympic Review Vol. 99/100 (1976): 49-52.
Lucas discusses the origin of and the influences on the philosophy of sport of Baron Pierre de Coupertin (1863-1937), founder of the modern Olympic Games.  He reveals that Coupertin’s Pedagogie Sportive (1934) credits Kingsley, as well as Arnold, with changing the definition and the course of non-professional sport.

Sport; Muscular Christianity; Manliness.
 

Maison, Margaret M.  The Victorian Vision: Studies in the Victorian Novel  (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1961).
Maison considers Kingsley’s religious and spiritual thought as represented in his novels.  She declares that matters of the soul tend to be well overshadowed in these works by stories of adventure, by depictions of physical activity, by scenes of daring and so on.  However, one pervasive religious theme in Kingsley’s novels is the spiritual development of the characters through strong physical activity.  She contends that one of Kingsley’s most dominant beliefs is that man’s soul necessarily suffers from long exposure to dire physical conditions.  It was as important a duty of the parson, Kingsley believed, to care for social, economic, and political reform as to cater to more spiritual elements.  “Thus might Kingsley answer any critic likely to accuse him of preferring sanitation to meditation” (127).  Maison also briefly considers Kingsley’s desire to reconcile religion with science.

Religion; Manliness; Science; Novels.
 

Muller, Charles H.  “The Heroes: Kingsley’s Moral Lessons,” Textures Vol. 2 (1986): 37-44.
Muller sees The Heroes, Kingsley’s retelling of the Greek legends, as “almost undisguised moral lessons.  This is clear from the biblical style, the personal addresses to the reader, the moral stance and numerous moral dictums and exhortations spun around the old Greek heroes who are presented as models of positive initiative, daring, courage and majesty – moral models for the young reader to admire and emulate” (37).

Heroes, The; Moral Lessons; Religion; Manliness; Females.
 

Newsome. David.  Godliness and Good Learning: Four Studies on a Victorian Ideal (London: Cassell, 1961).
Mention of Kingsley occurs frequently in Newsome’s work.  Newsome is particularly interested in Kingsley’s notion of manliness which he views as being very similar to the robustness, feistiness and vigorous vitality of  thumos, as opposed to the higher excellence of arete, equated by Coleridge with manliness.  Newsome also stresses that Kingsley, the first to combine manliness with godliness, considered manliness to be “an antidote to the poison of effeminacy – the most insidious weapon of the Tractarians – which was sapping the vitality of the Anglican Church” (207).  Manliness for Kingsley was using to the full all the qualities with which God has endowed men, including the sexual function.  That is why Roman Catholicism’s celibacy provided strong evidence of that religion’s lack of manliness and its consequent falling away from appropriate godliness.

Manliness; Muscular Christianity; Sexuality; Celibacy; Catholicism.
 

Rosen, David. "The Volcano and the Cathedral: Muscular Christianity and the Origins of Primal Manliness," in Hall, Donald E. (ed.). Muscular Christianity: Embodying the Victorian Age (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994): 17-44.
David Rosen provides a lengthy analysis of the development of Kingsley's views on muscular Christianity and manliness. He stresses that these were complex, many sided notions and that Kingsley's views on these topics, as well as his practical involvement in complementary areas, continuously evolved throughout his life. Rosen argues that among the many influences on Kingsley's concept of manliness was the notion of Platonic thumos which Kingsley considered was a primal manly force, the root of all virtue and which was manifested through sex, fighting, and morality. Rosen contends that Kingsley's views on manliness and related topics were highly influential and that diverse notions of Anglo-American masculinity from the mid-nineteenth century to the present owe much to Kingsley.

Manliness; Muscular Christianity; Sexuality; Plato; Carlyle; Hughes, Thomas.
 

Schiefelbein, Michael.  “'Blighted' by a 'Upas-Shadow': Catholicism’s Function for Kingsley in Westward Ho!,” Victorian Newsletter Vol. 94 (Fall 1998): 10-17.
Schiefelbein examines Kingsley's severe characterizations of Catholics in Westward Ho!, especially two of his keenest bete noires, Catholics' worship of the Virgin Mary and Catholicism's embrace of asceticism and condemnation of the flesh.  Kingsley, advocate of muscular Christianity and espouser of manliness, detested what he considered to be effeminate "Mariolatry" which was responsible for weakness and womanishness in society.  He also condemned the asceticism of the Jesuits Parsons and Campion which he held to be an unnatural rejection of God-given impulses.  They were "spiritual grotesques" (15).  However, Schiefelbein also argues that Kingsley reveals his own ascetic impulses and his attraction to monkish ways in Westward Ho! and reconciles the opposite pulls of asceticism and carnal and sexual nature.  Schiefelbein concludes that while "one may certainly object to the role Kingsley assigns to Catholicism . . . it becomes an effective foil for enlightening his readers - and, very likely, for reminding himself - of the dangers of Manicheanism" (16).

Westward Ho!; Religion; Catholicism; Virgin Mary; Muscular Christianity; Sexuality; Manliness.

Tozer, Malcolm. "Charles Kingsley and the 'Muscular Christian' Ideal of Manliness," Physical Education Review Vol. 8, No. 1 (1985): 35-40.
Tozer sketches Kingsley’s life and works paying particular attention to his views on manliness and its relation to muscular Christianity.  He declares that Kingsley was the individual who was most responsible for acquainting the English with the Romantic, Christian and Chivalric ideal of manliness, the ideal that had such a strong influence on the subsequent development of games and outdoor pursuits in education.

Overview; Manliness; Muscular Christianity; Education.
 

Tozer, Malcolm.  “Thomas Hughes: ‘Tom Brown’ versus ‘True Manliness’,” Physical Education Review Vol. 12, No. 1 (1989): 44-48.
Tozer declares that Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays was largely responsible for the emphasis of the physical in the definition of the Victorian gentlemen and for the era’s “emerging clamour of hearty athleticism” (44).  Thus, Tozer contends, Hughes severely distorted the far broader ideal of manliness of his Christian Socialist associates, Charles Kingsley and F. D. Maurice.

Manliness; Hughes, Thomas; Muscular Christianity; Christian Socialism.
 

Vance, Norman.  “Kingsley’s Christian Manliness,” Theology Vol. LXXVIII, No. 655 (January 1975): 30-38.
Vance declares that Plato's doctrine of thumos was central to Kingsley's notion of manliness.  In addition, his ideal of manliness required a sound religious basis as well as a distinct moral independence that eshews fatalism and moral inertia.  Rejecting what he called the Manichaeism of some Tractarians and Evangelicals who finding the world hopelessly evil withdraw from it, Kingsley held that the ideal of true Christian manliness required working strenuously within the world to ameliorate it. Kingsley also embraced the more common understanding of manliness by lauding the cultivation of the body by sport and physical exertion.

Muscular Christianity; Manliness; Religion; Plato.
 

Vance, Norman.  The Sinews of the Spirit: The Ideal of Christian Manliness in Victorian Literature and Religious Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
Vance devotes two chapters to Kingsley's life, thought, and literary works paying particular attention to themes of the relationship of manliness to religion in his novels.  "Christian manliness was not just an ideal in Kingsley's fiction, it was the basis of his practical work as pastor, teacher and reformer and the essence of his life and experience" (107).

Overview; Yeast; Alton Locke; Hypatia; Westward Ho!; Two Years Ago; Hereward the Wake; Muscular Christianity; Manliness; Newman Controversy.
 

Wee, C. J. W.-L. "Christian Manliness and National Identity: The Problematic Construction of a Racially 'Pure' Nation," in Hall, Donald E.  (ed.).  Muscular Christianity: Embodying the Victorian Age (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994): 66-88.
Wee discusses how Kingsley used the innovative treatment of the relationship of Christianity to race and cultural history in the novels Alton Locke and Westward Ho! "in a process of national self-definition, through what might be called 'cultural nationalism'." Wee argues that in doing so "Kingsley also reveals the problems surrounding the construction of a pure national-imperial identity based on racial and religious heritage, as he attempted to propagate the potent but unstable image of a masculine, charismatic, and authoritative Englishman who stands as a representative of a resolutely Anglo-Saxon and Protestant nation-empire" (67).

Yeast; Westward Ho!; Manliness; Muscular Christianity; Imperialism; Racial Prejudices; Social and Political Views.