Embracing Queerness in Medieval Literature
Part II: Queer Possibility in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
So two knights walk into a gay bar.
Wait, is that how it goes?
Welcome back to the Whale-Road, weary traveler! This post is the second part of my three-part series on queerness in the Middle Ages and what that means for us in 2024.
In Part I, “What Even is Queerness in Medieval Literature?” I explored the broadness of “queerness” and how that might look generally in the Middle Ages or medieval literature. In Part II, we’re going to hone in on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
In this post, I do not propose either a definitive queerness within Sir Gawain or a definitive lens through which to perform a queer reading of the text. Instead, I propose merely a glimpse into how different queer readings might apply to this poem full of knights and sorcery.
And remember, a big part of this series is “what a queer reading of medieval literature means for us in 2024.” That will be important later.
Let’s kick things off with a blog post—as one does—about the subversion of homosocial culture through homosexuality between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In “Queer As Folklore: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” L.B. Limbrey, under the handle scornalott, explains, “Carolyn Dinshaw argues1 that the ‘unintelligibility’ of the kiss between Gawain and Bertilak contrasts with the overt sexuality of the kisses between Gawain and the Lady: the heterosexual kiss has potential for sex within the poem, where the homosexual one doesn’t.” In other words, the kiss Sir Gawain shares with Lord Bertilak does not carry the same sexual weight as the one that Lady Bertilak gives to Sir Gawain. In response, Limbrey suggests that the poet had “to reign in explicit sexual connotations between same sex couples due to contemporary views of homosexuality as sinful.” Considering Sir Gawain is rife with Christian symbolism, Limbrey is probably on to something.
More could be said of the gay potential between Sir Gawain and Lord Bertilak, and more certainly will be said in a bit. Before that, I want to continue with Limbrey, who offers a possible asexual reading of Sir Gawain. Limbrey points out that “[the reader is] told the desire of the Lady, of Bertilak, of Morgan, but not of Gawain: he brushes off attempts of seduction from both Bertilak and the Lady. The only thing he accepts eagerly is the girdle which might protect his life.” Sir Gawain rejects all sexual advances, they mean, opting instead for practicality. A queer reading of Sir Gawain specifically then might fruitfully suggest that Sir Gawain himself is asexual.
Additionally, they add, “Though throughout Arthurian literature [Sir Gawain] has various lovers, and multiple children, he is one of the knights not tied specifically to a wife. Malory paints him as a ‘Maiden’s Knight,’ a champion of all women.” While some Arthurian tales ensure that Gawain marries a woman, what Limbrey suggests is that Gawain is not tied to the marriage of another person like, say, Arthur is to Guinevere. Marriage is not a significant component of his legendry. Perhaps, then, as Limbrey indicates, a queer reading of Sir Gawain throughout Arthurian literature (and not just Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) could, if taken just a step further, also suggest that he is actually asexual.
Asexual representation? In our medieval literature? Maybe. Maybe not. Outside the scope of this project, dear reader.
I leave these threads loose because we power on. Remember, this adventure is one of many queer windows through which one might peer, not simply one definitive window.
Back to the gay potential between Sir Gawain and Lord Bertilak. In one of her own Substack posts back in February, my friend and classmate Hanh-Nhan Tran did her own fantastic queer reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, entitled “Sir Gawain and Lord Bertilak's. . .Courtship?” Toward the end of “Courtship?” Tran challenges us to “recall from where their relationship started, with coy private flirtations” and suggests that “these quickly over the course of a few days evolve into bold, flaunting displays of affection that require us no longer to read between lines or hunt for details. Instead, we just need to pay attention.” We just need to pay attention! (Thanks, Hanh-Nhan!)
Tran also compares Lady and Lord Bertilak directly to draw out the queerness of Lord Bertilak. She explains that “when Gawain goes to leave [the] first banquet, the lord pulls him aside and Gawain is ‘ushered by his host / to his host’s own chamber and the heat of its chimney’ ([lines] 1029-1030)” and suggests that use of “heat” and the “chimney” carry an intimate context, which is certainly an important detail in conjunction with the location: Lord Bertilak’s own bedroom! And a bedroom is exactly where Lady Bertilak attempts to seduce Sir Gawain.
Coincidence? I think not!
A queer reading here could go as follows. First, both Lady Bertilak and Lord Bertilak kiss Sir Gawain, and they do so willingly and perhaps even joyously. Sir Gawain, too, is a willing and happy participant in this exchange.
Second, by placing Sir Gawain into bedrooms with both Lady and Lord Bertilak, he is engaging in intimate behavior with them.
Third—and this is where Tran’s reading is especially helpful—Lady Bertilak’s intimacy in the bedroom is a kiss, while Lord Bertilak’s is through the “heat” of the “chimney,” as Tran indicates. These moments are different, and so Sir Gawain’s intimacy with the two Bertilaks also differs. Sir Gawain rejects Lady Bertilak’s sexual advances, but he does not reject the kisses; however, he also brings the kisses to Lord Bertilak. Kissing becomes an exchange, a commodity, and in some silly little way, a game among Sir Gawain and the Bertilaks. Maybe Dinshaw isn’t wrong about a kiss just being a kiss.
But maybe Tran is right about the “heat” of the “chimney” indicating something deeper, something warmer, something more intimate about Lord Bertilak’s and Sir Gawain’s movement into the bedroom and, indeed, a quiet understanding beneath the commodification of their kisses, which is put on display for Sir Bertilak’s entire court to witness.
Or maybe Sir Gawain is just asexual.
While more could be said about everything I’ve mentioned here, I’ve done what I’ve come to do: briefly explore the queer potential within Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and sow the seeds for Part III.
Thanks for sticking with this part’s line of thinking, dear reader. Until next time!
Works Cited (and Referenced, for good measure)
Limbrey, L.B. as scornalott. “Queer As Folklore: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” The Witching Hour. WordPress, 18 March 2020, https://scornalott.wordpress.com/2020/03/18/queer-as-folklore-sir-gawain-and-the-green-knight/.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse Translation. Translated by Simon Armitage, W.W. Norton and Company, 2007.
Tran, Hanh-Nhan. “Sir Gawain and Lord Bertilak's. . . Courtship?” In Honey’s Company. Substack, 21 February 2024, follow this hyperlink because Substack is embedding it by default.
Limbrey is referring here to Dinshaw’s 1994 essay “A Kiss Is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” which I don’t directly reference in my post for the reason that I just don’t want to. (Kidding—the reason is a little more complicated than that, which I hope will become clear in Part III.)