Figueroa Dorrego, Jorge2016-07-152016-07-152008AEDEAN 2008, 31: 433-440 ISBN-978-84-9749-278-2978-84-9749-278-2http://hdl.handle.net/2183/17057[Abstract] In Alexander Oldys’s The Fair Extravagant (1682), the male protagonist is anxious about his authority as a husband due to the heroine’s superior social rank and wealth, her strong personality, and her free agency. This paper shows how this is presented in a kind of novel of trial that intends to test the protagonist’s manly virtues through a comic displacement of chivalric romance. It draws on Bakhtin’s concept of Prüfungsroman and his idea that the novel is a markedly dialogic genre, often permeated with irony and parody. This analysis also assumes that manhood is a social and cultural construction which is materialised in a status that men must achieve under the constant scrutiny and assessment of others.engconference outputopen access