Course Blog 13: Cody, Whitney, Courtney and Dorothy

Readings of Indispensable Requisites for Dandies of Both Sexes a movable book from Dublin, 1823

Introduction: 

(To help understand this text, we've provided a supplementary description of "dandyism," provided by Whitney. This gives the historical contextualization for the following readings.)

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The figure of the dandy first appeared in England in the mid-1790’s and signaled the emergence of a new kind of bourgeois fashion figure. In her article on dandies in The Fashion History Reader: Global Perspectives, Olga Vainshtein writes that “the coming of the industrial revolution and the development of a more democratic society” made these emerging, more middle class fashion figures possible (Vainshtein 329). While Vainshtein goes on to argue that the culture of the dandy was one of “conspicuous inconspicuousness” (a culture formed from subtle visual messages – “encoded through the careful folds of starched neckcloth, the turn of a callor or cuff, fine gloves or the blackening of the soles of boots”), the printing of a book like Indispensible Requisites for Dandies of Both Sexes suggests that dandy culture was significantly recognizable and there were clear visual signs associated with it (Vainshtein 329). Because the book appears to be a slightly satiric criticism of the fashion associated with dandyism, these visual signs were potentially more recognizable by a general public than Vainshtein supposes.

This text seems to privilege the accessories of the dandy almost to the level of fetishization, suggesting several possible motivations for printing that come directly from the content of the text itself. First, it’s possible that this is a straightforward satire of dandy culture; commenting on the morally corrupt tendency of the dandies to value their materials to such a level that they become equated with elements of virtuous character. Alternatively, the text suggests an underlying anxiety that this equation of material and virtue has spread beyond the dandies and into the general public. Rather than placing significant satirical weight on the larger aspects of dandy culture, most of the items pictured and commented on are small accessories – head scarves, neck stiffeners, jewelry, etc. According to Vainshtein, one of the main critiques against dandyism was the reckless spending habit associated with the culture’s fashion. And, taking this critique to an even more abhorrent level, as this text seems to do, outlandish spending habits that result in these small, purchased materials become evidence of an almost absurd, blasphemous marketability. In other words, the materials purchased and worn (flaunted) absurdly become, as the Indispensible Requisites suggests, equivalent to purchased artificial morals and virtues. According to Vainshtein, “the dandies mastered the strategy of objectifying personality, transforming an individual style into marketable goods” (Vainshtein 331).

Like Bernstein's alphabet book (or, for that matter, any book), I read "Indispensable Requisites for Dandies of Both Sexes" as a scriptive thing, that is, in Bernstein's words, as a performative object that solicits a certain action from its participant(s) and, therefore, "enscripts" or interpellates the participant into a certain social role.

In the case of "Indispensable Requisites," this book's "scriptive-ness" is to be found not only in the turning of pages but also in the flipping of the on-page drawings/"engravings," under which reveals another drawing.  In order to understand the connection between the drawings and the subsequent poems, it is absolutely necessary that the reader flip each on-page drawing if s/he wishes to learn fully the intended lesson of each vignette.  The cover of the book itself calls attention to this scriptive thing's interpellative act--"indispensable requisitesfor dandies of both sexes."  Thus, the first interpellation is that of hailing the dandy--though, this hailing is somewhat deceptive since the book's contents turn out to be of an "anti-dandyism."  Thus, from page to page, the "top" drawings, as stereotypical representations of dandies, interpellate the reader as a dandy (or, as someone interested in dandyism).  The "under-drawing" and the subsequent poem perform a much more accusatory or correctional type of hailing, that is, explaining the virtues of non-dandyism (knowledge and wisdom, sobriety of mind, abstinence, modesty, etc.) to the subjectivated dandy reader. Hence, the interpellations, across the 8 vignettes, vacillate between hailing the reader as "stylish dandy" and "ostentatious transgressor."    

- Cody

What I wanted to consider was a particular page, “The Acme of Perfection in Man,” in which the scriptivity of the thing breaks down, quite literally. On this page, the paper flap that covers the hidden image is missing. Whether by mishandling, age, poor construction, or any other number of reasons, the damage done to the book prevents the proper scriptive interaction from taking place. If the equation of Bernstein’s scriptive interactions is as follows: the thing + the latent presence = the scriptive interaction, then the equation of this particular page is skewed. This missing piece makes the scriptive interaction itself a latent presence in which the reader can see what the interaction should be (lifting a flap representative of dandy fashion to find an image representative of a particular virtue), yet this “should be” is not fulfilled by the object. Here we have a breakdown of scriptivity in which the thing seems to be interacting back with the reader in the withholding of scriptivity.

This relation is further complicated by the fact that the text of this page and the following page do not seem to adhere to the fashion/virtue format outlined by the book as a whole. The text on the page with the image (which would have been hidden under another image) reads: “A Whiskered Animal.” On the following page is the poem:

A WHISKERED ANIMAL

I AM a Man—but would be something more,

To be like others, is a perfect bore—

I have it!—T’will make the world go brisker,

I’ll shave the Cat, and wear his whisker!

That the would-be hidden image and the poem have no virtue to distill makes this page even more disturbing within the context of Indispensable Requisites for Dandies of Both Sexes. Thus, the page withholds even further by preventing the reader from even imagining what the fashion/virtue relationship would have been had the book been in its proper condition. “The Acme of Perfection in Man,” a fittingly ironic title for this page, is therefore the site of a total breakdown in the scriptivity of the interactive book. The reader cannot “play the game” or even guess what the game was meant to be.

- Courtney

I’d like to look specifically at the “neck stiffener” accessory pictured in this text. The quasi-pop-up plate of the neck-stiffener folds back to reveal the words “artificial uprightness.” The OED has several definitions for “uprightness” that seem relevant here. The first is “the state or condition of being sincere, honest, or just; equity or justness in respect of principle or practice; upright quality or conduct; moral integrity or rectitude” (1541, first instance). The second is “the state or character of being erect, vertical, or upright; erect or vertical attitude; erectness” (1645, first instance). These definitions, then, allow the phrase “artificial uprightness” to signify both a literal description of the material and a more abstract description of the artificial virtue equated with the material. The neck stiffener literally holds the neck upright, erect, vertical, etc. and it also artificially imposes the view that this person, by nature of their upright neck, conducts himself in an upright fashion. The signification of virtue becomes artificially constructed by material signification. What’s interesting, though, is that the text does not seem to take issue with the notion that dandies might be lacking in moral integrity or upright conduct, but that moral integrity is being “fashioned” or performed – “artificial-ized” – by the material object. This reading circles back to my first hypothesis that this book was printed to parody the immense weight the dandies themselves put on their material objects. To this text’s audience, it would then be laughable to imagine that, for a dandy, a neck stiffener could signify a value as important uprightness.

According to the OED, one definition for “stiffener” is “a band of stiff material worn round the neck to keep a neck-cloth in place.” This definition suggests that there was actually a functional use to this accessory. Does this fact undercut the satirical nature of the book a bit? By presenting a very functional accessory (compared to some of its other pictured choices – jewelry, for instance) as the symbol for one of its critiques against dandyism, this text performs its own “pop-up”; it pulls back a surface level critique of dandyism to reveal an underlying insecurity in its construction. If functional accessories need to be incorporated into what is already a very short book, it almost seems as if this critique is grasping at straws. This possibility, then, leads to my second hypothesis about the printing of this text. Rather than functioning as a direct and transparent satire, does this critique help us construct an idea about the value placed on fashion and its material accessories by even a wider public than simply those within the dandy culture? If a neck stiffener can actually give an “illusion” of uprightness, enough for this text to feel the need to reveal the truth (literally) behind the artifice of these accessories, is there some fear that dandy culture and its prioritization of material accessories, and the importance of “dressing” one’s body in a particularly careful way, might be invading what some considered the proper values of nineteenth-century culture?

My methodology here is a conglomeration of the analysis methods we’ve been looking at in our recent course readings. Like others, Bernstein and Soffer to name a few, I started by trying to ground my arguments about the object within a historical context. If this was a book written about dandies in 1823, what was the significance of the dandy culture at that time? What might this movement suggest about a shifting surrounding culture that might account for the printing of a book like this one? Then, like Davis’ close engagement with theatricality, I turned to the OED to pin down the key terms of my object of analysis (“stiffener” and “uprightness” in particular). Using these definitions as a starting point, I analyzed the performance of the larger text based on a close reading of one small element of it. This seems to follow Bernstein a bit, in that she reads larger historical significance in one tiny sampling from a historical moment (a photograph). I looked only at the image of the neck stiffener and the phrase revealed in folding back the image to think about how the larger book is performing this same gesture – attempting to reveal essential problems with the dandy culture while, at the same time, potentially revealing its own insecurities about the larger implications of such a culture.

-Whitney 

SINGULARITY AND FOLLY

The Fop despairing of renown

By gaining Bays or Laurel Crown,

Invok'd the Gods with loud acclaim,

To point a swifter path to Fame.

Great Momus heard the Fopling's pray'r,

With peals of laughter shook the air,

Then bid the Youth CUT UP A WHALE,

Transform his bones to Coat of Mail,

And lace his ribs so wond'rous tight,

That like a Wasp be shou'd be slight,

The humours then squeez'd in so hard,

And from their usual space debarr'd,

Flying above, might read his head,

And heat, perchance, the lump of lead:

The Insect, then, he'd be so like,

He must, in truth, all gazers strike;

His body gaudy, gay and fine,

He'd buz about, and love to shine:

His life in busy nothing's past,

And Folly VICTIM at the last;

But still his pray'r acceptance found,

And as a DANDY be renown'd.

I chose the emblem of the man-in-stays, because I think it provides an interesting gendered standpoint. Throughout the satirical book the author praises feminine modesty in dress and, as seen in Whitney's writing on the neck-stiffener, uses elements of masculine dress as allegories for morality, but in section of stays seems to have been given the most venom and thusly has an even greater desire to cause a specific affectual response in the reader of incredulity and dismay.

The poem that accompanies these images, of a man slimming his waist by trying on a new pair of whalebone stays and then the stays removed to show his "singularity and folly" first raises the question, why a man? By 1823 women had been wearing stays for quite some time and it was often considered more inappropriate for a gentile woman to appear without her stays on than with. As this book is directed at both sexes this section seems like there is a heightened awareness of the societal inappropriateness of a man becoming as involved in his appearance as a woman. Thusly this section plays into a type of social scripting that tells the reader there must be a clear delineation between the cultivation of feminine charms (aesthetic) and the masculine (apparently not).

There is a clear statement here that a man who seeks his vision of aesthetic beauty must obviously be making a trade off in terms of the works of his life. To be a dandy of renown'd his life must pass in busy nothing's! The scriptive command of the book (to pull down the transparency and read the moral) is even more intriguing to me here as this is a book directed at young people. If anyone remembers pop-up books, there is a certain fun in these books, you want to see the secret message. In this context, the secret message is that if you see a man with an artificially shaped figure, you know that he is empty inside and seeking attention through the compromise of his physical health. It is almost as if, once the command is followed and the flap is lifted and the poem is read, if you don't agree with the message it isn't the script that has failed, it is you. The desired responses to this seem to be either a) You agree therefore your response is mocking laughter b) You disagree therefore you response is shame. Of course, as we discussed in class in relation to Berlant, there are more responses including c) You disagree therefore you don't care about this book. The object of this object reads to me as an attempt to grab readers before they are at that state of self-possession that they think "Well, I just like the figure I cut in these stays, so critics be damned!" and script their response in an attempt to make them conform (folly and singularity) assuaging the youthful fears of becoming the Other.

-Dorothy