Oldstone-Moore, Christopher. “The Beard Movement
in Victorian Britain.” Victorian Studies 48, no. 1 (Autumn 2005):
7-34.
Oldstone-Moore discusses the mid-nineteenth phenomenon of full beards becoming
much more common among the Victorian era’s respectable mainstream. The image
of manliness represented by the beard as opposed to the feminine smoothness
of modern society was a favorite metaphor for Kingsley. Oldstone-Moore points
to the manly bearded Claude Mellot of Yeast who associates shaving
with cowardice and deceit. According to Oldstone-Moore, one might indeed
identify a beard code in Westward Ho! by which the reader can determine
a character’s moral worth by the hirsuteness or smoothness of his face. However,
Kingsley’s advocacy of bearded masculinity did not imply support for mere
forceful physicality. Rather, for Kingsley and others beards were to be associated
with reason and self-control. “One might say that the beard was the sign
of the civilized warrior—a man who retains the nature of essential manhood,
yet remains within the bounds of Christian civility” (26).
Beards;
Manliness.
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