Magic, Masculinity, and Form in English Poetry from Shakespeare to Yeats

Magic, Masculinity, and Form in English Poetry from Shakespeare to Yeats: Sons of Demons is the first study of how the poetry of five male writers across three literary periods represents magic and its intersections with gender discourse, with a focus on masculinity and patriarchy.

The monograph's five studies investigate the contexts and legacies of early modern theories of natural and ceremonial magic by philosopher-magicians including Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, and Cornelius Agrippa in a selection of verse drama and narrative and lyric poetry by Robert Greene, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, and Yeats. A common finding of all five studies is that magical poetics not only reinforce patriarchal discourses but also destabilise them. Poetic representations of the theory and operation of natural and ceremonial magic assessed in these studies are, implicitly or explicitly, dependent on female bodies, female magical discourse, and female or feminine performatives, through which (and against which) male characters define their masculinities.

This book will appeal to scholars and students of Shakespeare, Romantic poetry, Modernism, gender studies, and the history of magic, as well as general readers interested in the intersections of literature, magic, and masculinity.