ABSTRACT
Maria Edgeworth fashions a composite male figure capable of propelling a reconstituted masculinity forward into the nineteenth century. When Maria Edge worth wrote Castle Rackrent in 1800, she took on the formidable task of attempting to reshape masculine politics. Ennui tells the story of a young aristocrat beset by clinical boredom, a physically manifested psychological condition that exaggerates the complaisance Edgeworth had already condemned nine years before in the character of Sir Condy Rackrent. In The Absentee, she gives an internally sound Irish lord of unimpeachable pedigree faced with seemingly insurmountable external problems. Libertinism, abuse of power, cruelty to dependents, and cretinously reckless confidence mark a seriously flawed version of masculinity in Maria Edgeworth's estimation. Through the character of Viscount Colambre, Edgeworth calls upon her readers to acknowledge an ideal masculinity in someone who can validly inspire the sentiment, 'I thought I never set my eyes upon a finer figure of a man'.
