You might have noticed the homoeroticism present in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. You know, if you have eyes. What's interesting to me, however, is the role that the ladies play in enabling and conducting the homoerotic and homosocial play between the male characters.
To me, the first instance of homoeroticism is not the first kiss but the first meeting between Gawain and the Knight.
"Now hold your grim tool steady
And show us how it hacks.'
'Gladly, sir; all ready.'
Says Gawain; he strokes the ax.
The Green Knight upon ground girds him with care;
Bows a bit with his head, and bares his flesh;
His long lovely locks he laid over his crown,
Let the naked nape for the need be shown"
(25)
The first section, in Borroff's translation as well as Tolkein's, read like flirting. There is a give and take between The Knight and Gawain. The words are measured out and the cadence of the two lines indicates a kind of flirting. There's also the instance of the highly sexualized word choices of "tool" and "strokes."
Moving on, The Green Knight is feminized with his "long lovely locks." To top that off, in order to lay them over his crown, wouldn't he have to be bent over? He's also aligned with his wife, who is the only other character in the poem to bare her flesh - "her fair throat freely displayed" (56)
But how does a woman enable this behavior? This entire act is done for the benefit of Guenevere; one man to scare her and one man to defend her honor. More on this in a moment.
I'm going to gloss now over the kissing scenes because I think the sexualized nature of them is fairly obvious. In short, Gawain kisses the Knight because The Knight's Lady kissed him. The Lady is the conduit for the desire of Gawain and the Knight, as well as being the desire-object for both of the characters. In short, they are a love triangle. In the words of Eve Sedgwick "in any erotic rivalry, the bond that links the two rivals is as intense and potent as the bond that links either of the rivals to the beloved." (Between Men, 21)
What part do Guenevere and The Lady play, then? They are the mirror that reflects the men's desire for each other. Without the women to form that triangulated bond, the men probably couldn't make a spectacle of their homoerotic desire. At least, according to queer theory.
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2 comments:
I really think it is pretty funny just how blatantly the author places the homoerotic gestures between the two men. In fact, I feel as though it is inevitable that sexual rivalry should turn two men closer together, after all they both covet the same flesh.
So what happens if Gawain consummates the sexual relationship with comely wife? Obviously it appears he must then to take to bed the Lord in the exchange. It seems to me the whole challenge or game though is set-up for homoeroticism. Even Gawain wasn't giving the Lord kisses he won, they are both surrendering at the end of the day they honor, pride and winnings to each other.
I agree that women facilitate the matter. In fact, it is the Old Crone who sends the Green Knight to Gawain. It is the power play between women that dance the men puppet together. Why shouldn't the men not embrace in their shared servitude?
I agree that Guenevere and The Lady serve as mirrors of the homoerotic desire between the knights, and that without these reflections, the implications of this would be less obvious. And, I admit right now, that I am woefully uneducated in Queer Theory. It seems to me that by othering the feminine in this poem, the actions and desires of the men are given more room to play, and somehow less focus. If the whole story, in a nutshell, can be centered around the three women who are in some way challenging and competing with one another, then that makes them all, as a gender, othered and distanced from the relationships of loyalty, love and honor that play out between the men. I'm not saying that this isn't as homoerotic as it sounds, because, well, come on, but I wonder if this is partly a case of emphasizing the nature of masculine relationships in such a way as to also emphasize their unique intimacy. After all, as I understand it, the Greeks believed that women were less than men intellectually and therefore spiritually, so the only way to have a real, intimate connection with an equal was to have that relationship with a person of the same gender. Is this more than just the bond between men?
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