ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the different strands of thinking that lay behind Defoe's representations of men by playing on the two senses above: one a characteristic of Defoe's writerly attitude; the other indicating a matter of gender definition. On the definition of manliness, Defoe's attitude largely reflected his own time's. This definition encompassed physical vigour, personal courage, rationality, a belief in God, an adherence to the role of authority in marriage, self-control over desire, and an ethic of civic or national utility. Instead Defoe was drawn to failings of masculinity: one need only think of Sardanapalus in Jure Divino; the trader as hypocrite or as mimic-gentleman; Prigson; Colonel Jack. But, while these texts sometimes offer satire, irony, or religion as a means of indicating clear moral intent, Defoe's attitude is never that simple, for his clarity of vision did not let his readers easily off the hook.
