ABSTRACT Wilkie Collins’s Man and Wife (1870) has notoriously been criticised by both Victorian and contemporary reviewers for its seeming oversimplified antagonism toward athleticism and sport. However, Man and Wife provides profound insights into the debates and anxieties of the time regarding the cultivation of physical prowess in conjunction with British imperialism. Collins’s antagonism represents a view into Victorian discourse on the unprecedented vogue of athleticism, which made England the first modern sporting nation. This essay argues that Collins became a representative antagonist against athleticism due to his concerns about the decline of intelligence, morality, and even health combined with a concern about the popularity of amateur sports, which served as a means to segregate class. Collins’s controversial portrayal of an aristocrat’s excellence in sports was a warning against elite athleticism, which went against the Victorian current of class mobility. Analysing discourses on athleticism in Victorian periodicals and magazines, this essay offers insights into the shifting contours of sporting ethos and class identity in mid- to late Victorian society and into British endeavours to strengthen its economic and national power by adopting an innovative practice of athleticism.

中文翻译：

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威尔基·柯林斯《夫妻》中的运动对抗

摘要威尔基·柯林斯（Wilkie Collins）的《男人与妻子》（Man and Wife，1870年）臭名昭著，受到维多利亚时代和现代评论家的批评，因为它似乎过于简化了对运动和运动的对抗性。然而，《男人与妻子》对结合英帝国主义培养体力的时代辩论和忧虑提供了深刻的见解。柯林斯的对抗性代表了维多利亚时代关于运动史上空前的时尚的论述的观点，这使英格兰成为第一个现代体育国家。本文认为，由于柯林斯担心智力，道德乃至健康下降，再加上对业余运动的普及（这是隔离阶级的一种手段）的担忧，因此成为反对运动的代表。柯林斯对一位贵族在体育运动中的卓越表现的有争议的描述是对精英运动能力的警告，这与维多利亚时代的阶级流动性背道而驰。通过分析维多利亚时代期刊和杂志上关于体育运动的论述，本文提供了对维多利亚州中后期社会体育精神和阶级身份的变化轮廓的洞察力，以及通过采用创新的体育运动方法来增强其经济和国家实力的英国努力的见解。