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FORMS UNCONFINED: THE FIGURE OF THE MUSCULAR WOMAN, PHYSICAL CULTURE, AND VICTORIAN LITERATURE by MARCUS B. MITCHELL Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY August, 2018 CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES We hereby approve the thesis/dissertation of Marcus B. Mitchell candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Committee Chair Athena Vrettos Committee Member Christopher Flint Committee Member Kurt Koenigsberger Committee Member Renee Sentilles Date of Defense May 2, 2018 *We also certify that written approval has been obtained for any proprietary material contained within. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures………………………………………………………...…………………..2 Preface……………………………………………………………………………………3 Acknowledgements……………………………………….……………….……………..6 Abstract…………………………………………….………………………….…….…...7 Introduction: Physical Culture and the Complications of Female Musculature….…6 Chapter One: The Cultural Contradictions of Female Musculature in the Periodical Press………………………………………………………….35 Chapter Two: Visual Contrasts: Depictions of Female Musculature in the Illustrated Press…………………………………………………………59 Chapter Three: Muscular Women and the Difficulties of Categorization in Sensation Fiction…………………………………………………………….84 Chapter Four: Muscular Anxieties in New Woman Fiction……………………….114 Conclusion………………………………………………………………….………….143 Appendix………………………………………………………………………………152 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………..159 1 LIST OF FIGURES 1. “A Muscular Maiden” (The Girl of the Period Miscellany, 1869) 2. “Athletic Girls of the Period” (The Girl of the Period Miscellany, 1869) 3. “Hygienic Excess” (Punch, 1879) 4. “The Niobe of Nations” (Punch, 1870) 5. “The Modern Andromeda: Will She Be Released?” (Fun, 1870) 6. “Training Female Pugilists” (The Illustrated Police News, 1872) 7. “The Ascent of Leona Dare from a Baloon [sic] at the C. Palace” (The Illustrated Police News, 1888) 8. “Exciting Scene at a Menagerie” (The Illustrated Police News, 1888) 9. “A Fair Maiden Soundly Thrashes a Man Who Has Made Himself Objectionable to Her Father” (The Illustrated Police News, 1898) 2 PREFACE This dissertation grew out of four scholarly interests I discovered during my studies at Case Western Reserve University. First, I am fascinated by the notion of the human body, as it is depicted in both Victorian fiction and non-fiction texts, as a repository of meaning—an index of the ideologies, values, and anxieties of a wider society. I am also intrigued by constructions of gender in nineteenth-century England and concerns about shifting definitions of both womanhood and manhood that emerged as the century progressed. Additionally, I have come to find the Victorian periodical press an invaluable resource for gauging cultural attitudes toward—and reactions to—domestic and international events, at-times quirky topics, and abstract ideas. Lastly, I am fascinated by the nineteenth century British national fervor for physical culture, a rather loose, broad umbrella term that captures how commentators from different professional backgrounds advanced various approaches to health, exercise, and sports. Not only is physical culture concerned with how the human body functions, but with what goes in an on the body as well. In my effort to conceptualize a dissertation that captured these interests, I consulted the historian E.M. Palmegiano’s Health and British Magazines in the Nineteenth Century (1998), an annotated bibliography of articles covering topics such as nutrition, physical education, and hygiene. I was especially struck by the number of article titles listed that, in some way, gestured toward either girls’ or women’s physical training and muscular development. (Admittedly, I had just finished re-reading the author Menie Muriel Dowie’s Gallia (1895)—which includes a bodybuilder as one of the major characters— so the significances of muscles and toned physiques were on my mind.) Using databases such as the British Newspaper Archive, The Curran Index, the HathiTrust Digital 3 Archive, and the University of Florida Digital Collections, I located many of these articles and found competing commentaries on female muscularity. From there, I felt that I had the beginnings of a project. Although I focused my dissertation on depictions of muscular women in nineteenth-century British fiction and non-fiction texts, I often found myself thinking about the conflicting reactions that current, mainstream female athletes with muscular physiques have garnered. Accomplished athletes such as mixed martial artist-turned professional wrestler Ronda Rousey and tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams have occupied the covers of various glamor magazines, but they have also been body-shamed, through verbal attacks, as too muscular and described as masculine in both print publications and social media. (In the case of the Williams sisters, such attacks have often had a racially-charged undercurrent.) These attacks—particularly those against the Williams sisters—have generated commentaries about female athletes’ confrontations with what Guardian author Erika Nicole Kendall has called the “femininity police.”1 Throughout my study, I found it striking that the figure of the muscular, athletic woman in mid- and late-nineteenth century England was the subject of similar conversations about either perceived disconnections or links between muscularity and femininity. Furthermore, in my early research for this project, I was struck by how earlier critical discussions of female musculature in Victorian England were often small portions of wider studies about freak shows, or perhaps one chapter in a sizable historical study of professional strength athletes. By examining debates about female musculature that took place across literary and non-literary genres, and by exploring the roles that that figure of 1 See Kendall, “Female athletes often face the femininity police – especially Serena Williams.” 4 the muscular woman played in the Victorian physical culture movement, my project seeks to show that this figure deserves sustained attention within her own space. 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have received support and encouragement from many individuals throughout my composition of this dissertation. My advisor, Athena Vrettos, has been an incredible mentor. Her guidance has helped me think critically about the ideas I consider in this project, and her feedback on drafts has pushed me to sharpen my writing. From our conversations, I have learned much that I will carry onward. I am also grateful for the advice that the additional members of my dissertation committee—Christopher Flint, Kurt Koenigsberger, and Renee Sentilles—have offered. My entire committee has made this journey a rewarding one. Additionally, I would like to thank Bob Nicholson, of Edgehill University, for pointing me in the direction of several images I analyze in the second chapter of this project. His enthusiasm for my work has been a source of inspiration. My support network throughout this process has extended to other faculty and staff members at Case Western Reserve University as well. Without pep talks and words of encouragement from Marilyn Mobley, Kimberly Emmons, Kristine Kelly, Judith Olson-Hammer, and James Eller, I am not sure I would have reached this point. Finally, I would like to thank Molly Youngkin, of Loyola Marymount University, for her feedback on presentations I’ve given at annual meetings of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals. Her questions and words of encouragement were especially motivating as I navigated the first two chapters of this project. 6 Forms Unconfined: Muscular Women, Physical Culture, and Victorian Literature Abstract by MARCUS B. MITCHELL This dissertation examines contradictory representations of the figure of the muscular woman in Victorian fiction and the periodical press. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, writers debated whether the muscular female body should be celebrated as a fresh alternative to the wasp-waisted ideal of female beauty or condemned for its perceived destabilization of established social and aesthetic codes of feminine decorum. Within this debate, commentators advanced competing views about the efficacy of rigorous physical fitness regimens for women, the relationship between muscularity and women’s reproductive capacities, and the coherence of female musculature and traditional formulations of womanhood. These conflicting views illuminated wider cultural concerns about national fitness and changing configurations of gender. My project analyzes representations of muscular women in chapters that focus on women’s physical fitness commentaries, magazine illustrations, sensation narratives, and New Woman novels in order to demonstrate how muscular women necessitated revisions to Victorian cultural configurations of beauty, motherhood, femininity, and masculinity. The dissertation also explores connections between the muscular woman’s unconventional embodiment of physical culture ideals and the “transgressive” forms of the literary genres in which she appeared. I argue that depictions of muscular women in 7 Victorian fiction and the periodical press reveal fissures and contradictions in the gender and sexual ideologies underpinning Victorian physical culture, thus illuminating the muscular woman’s versatility as both a fictional character and real-life social conundrum. My project demonstrates how muscular women’s bodies could figure as both

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