Masculinity, Effeminacy, Time: Conceptual Change in the Dutch Age of Democratic Revolutions

This chapter in the 2004 edited volume  Masculinities in Politics and War: Gendering Modern History examines the ways constructions of masculinity functioned as central tropes of restoration and preservation of historical continuity in Dutch political discourse from the 1780s to the 1830s. Throughout this period political discourse had the restoration of national greatness at its center and time and again virtuous male figures featured as the crucial links that connected a great past to an equally great future. Mythical ancestors from Roman times, 17th century naval heroes, contemporary war heroes and the republican virtuous citizen were all at one moment or another called upon to embody a deeply desired historical continuity, or to legitimize political projects that promised to deliver such continuity. The analysis that draws upon texts from high political debate, pieces of political propaganda, nationalist poetry, war propaganda and obituaries.