Abe, Ikuo. “Muscular Christianity in Japan: The Growth
of a Hybrid.” International Journal of the History of Sport 23, no.
5 (August 2006): 714-738.
The author examines the role that the notion of muscular Christianity played
in developing attitudes towards sports and modernity in Japan during the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Using Japanese translations
of the works of Thomas Hughes and Kingsley as an index of the extent that
muscular Christian ideas penetrated into Japan, Abe reveals that both Hughes
and Kingsley had an unexpected influence.
Muscular
Christianity; Japan.
Adamson, John William.
English Education, 1789-1902 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1964; first published 1930).
Among several other mentions of Kingsley, Adamson refers to his advocacy of
improved educational opportunities for women.
Females ;
Education
; Muscular
Christianity
Alderson, David.
“An Anatomy of the British Polity: Alton Locke and Christian Manliness,”
in Ruth Robbins and Julian Wolfreys (eds.) Victorian Identities: Social
and Cultural Formations in Nineteenth-Century Literature (Basingstoke,
Hampshire: Macmillan Press; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996): 43-61.
Alderson examines the history of the concept “Christian manliness” and, in
particular, Kingsley’s promotion of it in his life and works. He focuses
on the concept’s delineation in Alton Locke. He declares that
this novel “lays bare most clearly the anxieties and ideological commitments
which produced his influential conceptualisation of the relationship between
the masculine body and social order.” Alderson is particularly concerned
“with the imperatives of a counter-revolutionary and Protestant culture which
enabled the Kingsleyan sense of the ideal male body to become so central
to the masculine self-definition of Britain’s rulers” (43-44).
Manliness
; Muscular
Christianity ; Alton Locke
; Imperialism
.
Archer, Richard Lawrence. Secondary
Education in the Nineteenth Century (London: Cass, 1966).
Archer discusses the educational thought and practice of Kingsley and their
subsequent influence on British education. He stresses the connection
for Kingsley between religion and education; both served the same end.
Moreover, science in the curriculum was essential and was in no respect against
the teaching of religion. His ideal of mens sana in corpore sano
went hand in hand with his espousal of muscular Christianity. He detested
“the identification of bodily feebleness with spiritual strength” (200).
Archer also examines Kingsley’s important role in the sanitary movement and
his work in having hygienic instruction in schools.
Education
; Muscular
Christianity ; Sanitation
; Science
.
Bloomfield, Anne.
“Muscular Christian or Mystic? Charles Kingsley Reappraised,” International
Journal of the History of Sport Vol. 11, No. 2 (August 1994): 172-190.
In her treatment of Kingsley’s role in the history of human movement, sport,
and aesthetic gymnastics, Bloomfield examines his mystical nature and his
changing views on the religiosity of body, mind and soul. She also
hypothesizes that Kingsley’s views were influenced by the work of the Swedish
philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). She concludes that Kingsley’s
work in human movement must be viewed as being more significant than his
commonly accepted role in Muscular Christianity. “Kingsley possessed
a deep commitment to the mystical aspects of Christianity as well as its
physical elements, and in terms of the philosophical development of human
movement this accords him a place uniting two important branches of human
movement, the sports ethic and the dance ethic, both of which currently stand
distanced and bifurcated at polemical points within a common aesthetic field”
(189).
Muscular
Christianity ; Swedenborg,
Emanuel ; Sport ; Athleticism
; Sexuality
.
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
.
Brown, David. “Prevailing Attitudes Towards
Sport, Physical Exercise and Society in the 1870s: Impressions from Canadian
Periodicals,” Canadian Journal of History of Sport Vol. 17, No. 2
(Dec. 1986): 58-70.
From a study of Canadian periodicals Brown concludes that there was a distinct
link between, one the one hand, the prevalence in Victorian Canada of muscular
Christianity and an emphasis on sport and, on the other, the works of Kingsley
as well as of Thomas Hughes.
Muscular
Christianity ; Sport .
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
.
Haley, Bruce. The Healthy Body and Victorian
Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978).
Haley in discussing Kingsley's confrontation with Newman focuses on his complex
relationship with the notion of muscular Christianity. Kingsley disliked
the term and found offensive such critics as T. C. Sanders and Fitzjames
Stephen who stressed the "muscular" aspect of his Christianity. Still, Kingsley
strongly believed that the spiritual life was very compatible with both a
sexual and a vigorous, active, sporting life. Haley declares that he
found philosophical justification for this attitude in three of Carlyle's
theories: "the body is an expression of spirit, and therefore the obedience
to healthy impulse is a sign of constitutional harmony; the state of health
is a knowledge of the laws of nature and a compliance with these laws; and
heroism is a life of action made possible by observing the laws of health"
(111-112).
Newman
Controversy ; Muscular
Christianity ; Sexuality
; Health
; Carlyle
.
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’s 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
.
Harrington, Henry R.
“Charles Kingsley's Fallen Athlete,” Victorian Studies Vol. 21, No.
1 (Autumn 1977): 73-86.
In his treatment of Kingsley's views on sport, physical activity, and the
nature of manliness, Harrington declares that Kingsley, who detested the
notion of muscular Christianity, held that the manly Christian's passions
must be checked by "'feminine virtue'", that is morality and self-restraint.
Kingsley believed that it was difficult for the manly Christian to come down
from the exalted sporting moment which offered distraction from the problems
of normal existence and from sexual frustration. To do so is essentially
a fall. However, "because of 'feminine virtue', it is a fortunate fall.
Within Kingsley's private theodicy, the fallen athlete and the manly Christian
are one in a fictional world redeemed by his faith in 'feminine virtue'"
(74).
Athleticsm
; Sport ;
Muscular
Christianity ; Females .
Harris, Styron. “The 'Muscular Novel':
Medium of a Victorian Ideal,” Tennessee Philological Bulletin Vol.
27 (1990): 6-13.
Harris discusses the notion of “muscular Christianity”. It is epitomized
in three dominant figures of the novels: Amyas Leigh in Westward Ho!
, Tom Thurnall in Two Years Ago, and Hereward in Hereward the Wake
. Harris also discusses Kingsley’s influence on Thomas Hughes and on
Hughes’s portrayal of muscular Christianity in his novels Tom Brown’s
Schooldays, The Scouring of White Horse, and Tom Brown at Oxford
. Both novelists took care to distinguish the muscular Christian from
one who is mere muscle and both abhorred the hero of George Alfred Lawrence’s
novel Guy Livingstone who personified “muscularity without Christianity
or moral considerations”. Nevertheless, Harris agrees with David Newsome
that despite their broader meaning of muscular Christianity, “the muscular
novel according to Kingsley and Hughes contributed to the immense vogue of
athletics from the late sixties onwards” (11).
Muscular
Christianity ; Thomas Hughes
; Westward
Ho! ; Two Years
Ago ; Hereward
the Wake .
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
.
Mack, Edward C. Public Schools and British
Opinion, 1780 to 1860: An Examination of the Relationship Between Contemporary
Ideas and the Evolution of an English Institution (London: Methuen, 1938).
Mack briefly describes Kingsley’s Christian Socialism as an odd mixture of
democracy, socialism, Christianity, and fascism and observes that it was
more akin to Tory paternalism than to democratic socialism. Kingsley’s muscular
Christianity, according to Mack, meant little more than the state of cleanliness
and good physical development.
Christian
Socialism ;
Muscular Christianity .
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
.
Rapple, Brendan A. “The Educational Thought
of Charles Kingsley (1819-75),” Historical Studies in Education Vol.
9, No. 1 (Spring 1997): 46-64.
Rapple writes that though Kingsley’s educational works were not as considerable
as those of such contemporaries as Kay-Shuttleworth, Matthew Arnold, Spencer,
or Huxley, they were still significant. However, they have generally
received scant scholarly attention, with the exception of his muscular Christianity
activities. Contending that Kingsley the educationist requires a more
complete treatment, Rapple, “as a vanguard to the needed account,” examines
Kingsley’s “attitude to the young, his staunch belief that the State should
be deeply implicated in the provision of education, the relation between
Kingsley's 'Muscular Christianity' and his views on education, his fervent
conviction that science should figure more noticeably in the curriculum,
his belief that hygiene and sanitary knowledge should be universally taught,
and his advocacy of female education at all levels” (47).
Education
; Children
; Christian
Socialism ; Muscular
Christianity ; Science ;
Sanitation
; Females
.
Redmond, Gerald. “Before Hughes and Kingsley:
The Origins and Evolution of ‘Muscular Christianity’ in English Children’s
Literature,” Sporting Fictions: Proceedings of a Conference Held at the
University of Birmingham (September, 1981): 8-35.
From a thorough examination of earlier children’s literature, Redmond argues
that the presentation of the notion of muscular Christianity in the novels
of Kingsley and Hughes is the culmination of a trend that began in the eighteenth
century. Contrary to much opinion, neither Kingsley nor Hughes were
the founders of this doctrine. Redmond contends that certain elements
of muscular Christianity may be found in the works of such authors as Rousseau,
George Mogridge, William Howitt, William Clarke, William Martin, S.G. Goodrich,
Frederick Marryat, Maria Edgeworth, Dorothy Kilner, Harriet Martineau, Catherine
Sinclair, among others. “. . . as far as muscular Christianity is concerned,
Hughes and Kingsley may have reaped the harvest, but the seeds were planted
and the crop carefully tended by many lesser-known laborers beforehand” (30).
Muscular
Christianity ; Hughes,
Thomas .
Redmond, Gerald. "The First Tom Brown's Schooldays:
Origins and Evolution of ‘Muscular Christianity’ in Children’s Literature,
1762-1857," Quest Vol. 30 (Summer 1978): 4-18.
Redmond examines the origin and evolution of the notion of muscular Christianity
in children’s literature during the period 1762 to 1857. He declares
that elements of this notion may be found before Kingsley and Hughes adopted
it in such writers as Rousseau, Dorothy Kilner, George Mogridge, William
Howitt, William Clarke, William Martin, S. G. Goodrich, Maria Edgeworth, Frederick
Marryat, Harriet Martineau among others. The works of Hughes and Kingsley
might be considered as the climax of literary treatment of muscular Christianity,
“as the culmination of a gradual process of indoctrination which began in
the previous century” (8).
Muscular
Christianity ; Hughes,
Thomas .
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 .
Tuss, Alex J. “Divergent and Conflicting Voices:
Victorian Images of the Male,” Journal of Men’s Studies Vol. 4, No.
1 (31 August, 1995): 43-57.
In his examination of the many diverse and contradictory images of
masculinity in Victorian literature, Tuss briefly considers the scene of
the fox hunt in Yeast. He considers how Lancelot Smith failed to live
up to the accepted norms of right conduct for the male and consequently suffered
humiliation.
Muscular
Christianity ; Manliness
; Yeast
.
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 .
Winn, William E. “Tom Brown’s Schooldays
and the Development of ‘Muscular Christianity’,” Church History Vol.
29, No. 1 (March 1960): 64-73.
Winn declares that Maurice and Carlyle, particularly the latter, were the
principal influences on Kingsley’s muscular Christianity, a movement he founded.
From Carlyle he adopted wholeheartedly the belief in work and a liking for
Old Testament morality. Winn writes that Kingsley’s muscular Christianity
connoted both a hatred of the notion that the weakness of the body could
be associated with spiritual strength, as well as a dislike of asceticism,
Manicheism, and celibacy. Winn also briefly discusses the muscular Christian
hero common in Kingsley’s literary work and Kingsley’s later extreme jingoism
patent in both his deeds and his writings.
Muscular
Christianity .
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