Contesting Masculinities in Thomas Amory's The Life of John Buncle, Esq. (1756‐66)

Abstract

Long dismissed as eccentric and implausible, the fiction of Thomas Amory has more recently been highlighted for its formal experimentalism and distinctive views of Irish life. This article reads Amory's The Life of John Buncle, Esq. (1756‐66) as a novel that engages critically with sentimental images of men as caring husbands and fathers, which were extended to middling‐sort as well as elite patriarchs. The novel illustrates the extent to which stock figures such as the ‘man of feeling’ were contested, and reveals how masculinity intersected with class and nationality, through its tale of a poverty‐stricken Irish gentleman.