“The streaming eyes of all the many men”: Revisiting male weeping in British commemoration of the First World War

Oct 22, 2026

Uploaded by Hazel

This article argues that British commemoration practices after the First World War—especially on Armistice Day and during the two minutes’ silence—acted as incubators for changing feeling rules. It traces how a brief, tightly framed moment exposed a fundamental shift in norms governing the “emotional regime” of the “stiff upper lip,” particularly regarding male weeping. The silence challenged inherited nineteenth-century contempt for tearful mourning, increasingly seen as inadequate amid wartime emotional turmoil.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages19

Reading Time48 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Background: Two minutes’ silence and commemoration

Feeling rules as subsets of emotional regimes

Social Science History (2024), 48, 667–685 doi:10.1017/ssh.2024.33 SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE “The streaming eyes of all the many men”: Revisiting male weeping in British commemoration of the First World War Karsten Lichau Center for the History of Emotions, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany Email: [lichau@mpib-berlin.mpg.de](lichau@mpib-berlin.mpg.de) [https://www.cambridge.org/core](https://www.cambridge.org/core)[ ](https://www.cambridge.org/core)[https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2024.33](https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2024.33) Abstract This article argues that commemoration practices performed in the aftermath of the First World War, on occasion of the British Armistice Day, and during the two minutes’ silence in particular, served as incubators for a change in feeling rules for the British population. It will show how British society engaged with, challenged, and finally shifted what the“emotional regime” of the period – commonly referred to as the “stiff upper lip” – commanded them to feel. A very short lapse of time – two minutes – turned into a moment where a fundamental change in an important subset of feeling rules specifying this emotional regime became manifest: those applied to male weeping. The two minutes encapsulated a challenge to the harsh contempt for expressive mourning through the shedding of tears, a verdict that was inherited from the nineteenth century but increasingly seemed inappropriate, not the least in the wake of the emotional turmoil that Britons had faced during the “Great” War. Keywords: Great Britain; War remembrance; masculinity; stiff upper lip; two minutes’ silence On November 21, 1920, the illustrated supplement of French newspaper Le Petit Journal published a colored drawing of the “two minutes’ silence” held in Britain on Armistice Day, November 11 the same year, in commemoration of the soldiers killed during the First World War (Figure 1) . In the scene depicting a loosely dispersed group of people at London’s Trafalgar Square, in proximity to the bronze lions at the bottom of Nelson’s column, French illustrator André Galland showed the emotional attitudes that different strata of British society adopted on the occasion. Most of the people bow their heads and cast their eyes downward. Thered-cloaked woman on the left covers her face to hide her tears, while the tall man next to her stands rigid, with a forward gaze that suggests perfect composure. Galland’s scene resonates with the British norm of emotional restraint and harsh self-control known as the “stiff upper lip” (Dixon 2015: 185–245) . Everyone – the woman in the red cloak included – is making an effort to not succumb to unbridled © The Author(s), 2024 . Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Social Science History Association. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence ([https://creativecommons](https://creativecommons). org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. , subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at [https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms](https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms) 668 Karsten Lichau Figure 1 . André Galland (1920)“Les deux minutes de recueillement en Angleterre.” Colored drawing from the cover of Le Petit Journal, Supplément illustré, November 21. Courtesy [of Gallica.bnf.fr/Biblioth](of Gallica.bnf.fr/Biblioth)èque nationale de France. feelings and to avoid a public display of emotion, notably, weeping. The picture nicely reflects the subject of this article: it depicts the participants’ struggle to navigate between compliance with the emotional regime of the stiff upper lip and the public expression of grief and mourning (through tears) . The tall man on the left epitomizes this conflict: his upright posture, which places him in noticeable contrast to the rest ofthe crowd, suggests re

FAQs

What is the central claim about British commemoration after World War I?

Commemoration practices on Armistice Day, particularly the two minutes’ silence, helped change British feeling rules governing how people should respond emotionally.

Why do the two minutes’ silence matter for male weeping?

The article argues that this short, structured moment made a fundamental shift visible in norms about male weeping, challenging contempt for tearful mourning.

How does the article connect the “stiff upper lip” to changes in feeling rules?

It treats the stiff upper lip as an emotional regime and focuses on how its subset rules disapproving male weeping evolved after the First World War.

Oct 22, 2026

Uploaded by Hazel