Empire Boys: Defining Masculinity at the Fin de Siècle
The Periodical as Object
Implicit in the study of the Victorian serial is the ultimate recognition of print as commodity. The heated debate over the literary merits of the myriad texts discharged by fin de siècle presses (then and now) often ignores the style of reading connected with the magazine— the casual perusal. In other words, the weekly papers were meant to be flipped through. In the never-ending economic competition to corner a section of the popular reading market, publishers experimented drastically with not only the content but also the form of their products. Because of high distribution rates, these experiments altered the visual experience of reading in ways (and on a much larger scale) that the slower production process of the traditional book could not. Successful publishers were quick to exploit the revolutionary new media:
To get your ideas through the hurried eyes into the whirling brains that are employed in the reading of a [paper] there must be no mistake about your meaning…you must strike your reader right between the eyes. (O'Conner 434)
The fin de siècle periodical, a product of popular culture, defies definition as distinctly a work of literature (stories by Dickens and other Victorian authors are published contemporarily in whole, no longer in part-installments) or as a work of art. The particular emphasis on illustration in this exhibit is an attempt to deconstruct the publisher’s use of image and text to produce his imperial message; how does the relationship between the two modes either undercut or reinforce colonial politics to stimulate a reader on multiple levels? Edwin J. Brett’s use of illustration throughout his publications contributes in large part to the reading environment of his magazines, regardless of the cheap (and therefore low quality) method of production. Much as the famed Victorian illustrator Aubrey Beardsley imagined his drawings as items to be read in the scheme of a publication’s “visual order” (Frankel 272), so too can those Brett included in Boys of the Empire. The result is a more comprehensive understanding of the literature as it was packaged for a juvenile audience. - next