The Depiction of Masculinity Between Love and War
Hannah Walters
Class of 2012

Masculinity is perceived in many different ways, but the overall perception of masculinity is that it is the strongest one out of the male and female. Males and females need each other to counterbalance one another in the aspects of fertility. “Femininity and masculinity are rooted in the social (one's gender) rather than the biological (one's sex). Societal members decide what being male or female means (e.g., dominant or passive, brave or emotional), and males will generally respond by defining themselves as masculine while females will generally define themselves as feminine” (Stets 1). That is one of the many aspects as to how the Renaissance perceived the males and females, is through societies norms of masculine and feminine. The males were strong, powerful, courageous, honorable, these characteristics and many more were how males were perceived. In some ways, males are still to be perceived this way in the Western culture as well. During the Renaissance William Shakespeare was one to challenge this thought in his plays that he wrote and his company that performed it for him. Many of Shakespeare’s characters are perceived as hypocritical and all because of the desires and thoughts of love. Granted that Shakespeare’s plays were all done by his theatre company as men, in which case all of the male and female characters are played by men. Regardless of the male and female characters in Shakespeare’s plays, Shakespeare seems to still stay true to the Renaissance era of the males as heroes. There is a process of how men become heroes, in which case it involves a female character to help the male through his “manhood.” This manhood is the one big characteristic that defines masculinity and is represented in the play Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare. The play defines masculinity between the ideas of love and war through masculinity.
The Renaissance era depicts males as the hero, “For the Renaissance the heroic ideal is essentially masculine. The qualities it evokes courage, physical strength, prowess in battle, manly honour, defiance of fortune—may be summed up in a word whose Latin root means 'a man'” (Wells 2). This era challenged the perception of masculinity because of the stereotypes what males are supposed to possess in characteristics in order to be considered masculine. During this era Shakespeare as well as many other writers, wrote about their plays that were based on what was happening in society right then and there. During the time when Shakespeare was writing Troilus and Cressida, there was a man named Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Essex, in which Shakespeare seemed to have written about in Troilus and Cressida. It was stated that he, “was ultimately a victim of his own success and later his own bad judgement” (In Search of Shakespeare 1). Essex started off well in his reputation, but then failed miserably by his own choices, in which these characteristics are similar to that of the character of Troilus:
“In Troilus himself who acknowledges that the kind of 'manhood and honour' celebrated in the chivalric tradition is in the most fundamental sense anti-rational. However, what comes across with great clarity in the debate on relativism is not just the irrationality of the honour code, but the destructive power of its appeal. In 1601 this was a highly topical question. Had Essex's revolt succeeded there is every likelihood that England would have been committed to an escalation of a 'cormorant war' that had already caused so much 'loss of time, travail, expense, / Wounds, friends' (n.ii.4–6). That Essex himself was emotionally unstable is well known; some contemporaries actually began to doubt his sanity. But how did he manage to persuade so many of his aristocratic supporters that 'valiant and magnanimous deeds' were a serious basis on which to construct foreign policy in a modern state? The answer is not very far to seek. 'Honour and renown' are a feature of many pre-civilized cultures and are probably the manifestation of some deeply rooted feature of the ancestral male psyche.” (Wells 59)
Essex perception of women was similar to that of the Renaissance era, because most men don’t like the thought of a woman over-powering them, it is degrading of their masculinity and there can only be one that has obtained the characteristics of a higher power. Essex let this thought over take him and therefore resulting in a bad outlook on women, “According to the masculine code of values that Essex espoused, women were to be served, obeyed, and adored as pseudo-religious symbols, but not as military commanders. While Essex feigned helpless susceptibility to Elizabeth's beauty, in reality he deeply resented being subject to a woman's authority. Troilus and Cressida shows very clearly the price women had to pay for their idealized status in the world of chivalry. Helen and [Cressida] are powerless ciphers” (Wells 53). Therefore the females in Shakespeare’s plays were looked at from a different point of view.
Shakespeare’s theatre company consisted of all the parts in Shakespeare’s plays were played by males. The main male characters in most of Shakespeare’s play were perceived as very incapable of being a man and the main female character’s role was the strongest, although the male and female characters in all of Shakespeare’s plays were played by males. It is perceived that most of the main female characters are strong, the perception of putting a male into a female role changes the perception of what Shakespeare really thought of women. “Though women may occasionally display heroic qualities, they are exceptions that prove the rule. Heroes in Shakespeare are, by definition, men” (Wells 2). Shakespeare did take a risk of stepping out the norm of his society at the time in challenging masculinity. Since the Renaissance era had conjured up the ideal idea of what it is to be masculine. Shakespeare’s plays become hypocritical when he first perceives the male main character as characteristics of the typical female and the female main character as the typical male. The climax involving love is where the main male and female then reverse the roles as to what they were supposed to be according to the norm of the Renaissance era. The main male character breaks out of his emotional feelings and becomes more independent and the female main character becomes fragile and dependent. That is Shakespeare’s way of manipulating masculinity within his plays, because he realizes the stereotypes of the males in the Renaissance. Therefore he wants to please his audience by giving them exactly what they want, which involves the masculinity between two important factors.
In Troilus and Cressida masculinity is perceived under two main topics that reoccur throughout the whole play, which is love and war. In the beginning of the play it starts off in the prologue where there is going to be a war, but instead of getting a war after the prologue we come to Troilus. Troilus is being perceived as a man, who doesn’t want to go to war because he is in love with Cressida, but he is letting his feelings and emotions of love get in the way of going off to war. Troilus admittedly states that he is weaker than a woman and is not afraid to say so because he is letting delusional thoughts of Cressida get in his way, “But I am weaker than a woman’s tear, tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance, less valiant than the virgin in the night, and skilless as unpractised infancy” (Shakespeare 449). Although Troilus’ name appears in the title of the play many of Shakespeare’s focus on most of the main male characters in the play are all very emotional to begin with. Which in most cases the main female character in the play is completely turned away by someone like Troilus at first. Cressida, who is supposedly supposed to be the main female role, is more masculine than the main male character himself. Cressida is perceives women differently from men, “Women are angels, wooing: things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing. That she belov'd knows nought that knows not this: men prize the thing ungain'd more that it is. That she was never yet that ever knew love got so sweet as when desire did sue. Therefore this maxim out of love I teach: achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech” (Shakespeare 453).
 It is as if Shakespeare wants the audience to know that there is a worst side to a male and as stronger side to the female. In most stereotypical settings, mainly modern day, the male is shown at his best and the stronger of the two and the female is looked upon as helpless and desperate. To see a male be degraded or looked down upon because he is showing his feelings is something that was not culturally accepted in the Renaissance era. Troilus is perceived as this character at the beginning of the play as the main male character wants attention from Cressida, “Deprived of Cressida's nurturance, he regresses into infantile helplessness” (McCandless 135).  This depicts Troilus as the stereotypical female, but also that a female (Cressida) is what really ends up bringing out the true masculinity from him. This happens because of love, or because of the different versions of love throughout the play. Troilus has an idea of love by thinking thoughts of Cressida, in order for Troilus to reach manhood he must sleep with Cressida and that is his idea of love. Cressida is completely aware of what Troilus wants from her or what most men want from her in order to gain masculinity. Cressida accepts the fact that is her fate and no matter who it is with that is her purpose of being female. She changes this when she ends up being with Diomedes and betraying Troilus. From this event Troilus is then angry about his love for Cressida and this finally sparks Troilus to be at war, “Who should withhold me? Not fate, obedience, nor the hands of Mars beck’ning with fiery truncheon my retire, not Priamus and Hecuba on knees, their eyes o’ergalled with recourse of tears, nor you, my brother, wish your true sword drawn opposed to hinder me, should stop my way, but by my ruin”(Shakespeare 488). For Troilus in order to get him to fight again was by using love, which in turn ruined him and made him want to fight, but it brought out the characteristics that were perceieved from the Renaissance era. The Renaissance era perceives masculinity based on their social norms, Shakespeare’s perception of masculinity is portrayed in Troilus and Cressida. The masculinity between love and war is portrayed in this play between entering manhood. These characteristics between the Renaissance era and Shakespeare both coincide with one another at certain points in the play that involve the two main points which are love and war.

Works Cited

In Search of Shakespeare. Earl of Essex | PBS." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. MayaVision International, 2003. Nov. 2010. <http://www.pbs.org/shakespeare/players/player33.html>.

McCandless, David Foley. Gender and Performance in Shakespeare's Problem Comedies. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1997.
Shakespeare, William. Troilus and Cressida. p. 444-493. 1601.

Stets, Jan E., and Peter J. Burke. "Femininity/Masculinity." Washington State University. Department of Sociology, Washington State University. Nov. 2010. <http://wat2146.ucr.edu/Papers/00b.pdf>.

Wells, Robin Headlam. Shakespeare on Masculinity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP,
2000.