Bertilak/Gawain OTP
Mar. 1st, 2005 03:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
felis_ultharusYou know, I can take homophobia from 12th-Century Latin-scribbling clerics. When Andreus Capellenas says that love between two men is impossible, I can just grin and bear it. I tell myself, he didn't know any better.
But I'm getting mighty annoyed at the subtle homophobia of modern critics.
Take Sir Gawain and Green Knight. This story is rich with subtext, not least of which is that one of the possible outcomes of the three games (the most likely outcome, at one point), is that Sir Gawain will be forced to have sex with his muscular, good-looking male host Sir Bertilak. But no critic ever notices this. I've read dozens now, and they pick apart the poem for the tiniest details of commercial language, chivalry, Christianity, paganism -- geometry, for fuck's sake! It isn't just an extra detail, either -- it's part of what's driving the plot!
And meanwhile, J.R.R. Tolkien insists on translating swete ("sweet one") as "good sir knight" when Bertilak says it to Gawain, while everywhere else in the poem he has it as "fair lady." And R.D. Miller spends a third of his introduction to hermit Richard Rolle's long treatise on God's love explaining why we shouldn't "psychologize" (that is, "homosexualize" -- he can't bring himself to write the word) Rolle's poetry and prose, where he talks about wanting to kissed and screwed by Christ.
I mean, the minute Gawain gets to Bertilak's castle, they strip off his armour, put him in soft, brightly-coloured unisex robes, leave him at the castle while the men go out hunting, and then the Lady comes in and woos him like a knight woos a lady, while he's in bed. And if he gives into her, then Bertilak gets a crack at Gawain's "thik Þrawen Þyez."
*sigh*
I still have about 1800 pages to read, 7 to translate, 29 papers to mark, and a prospectus to draw up.
But I'm getting mighty annoyed at the subtle homophobia of modern critics.
Take Sir Gawain and Green Knight. This story is rich with subtext, not least of which is that one of the possible outcomes of the three games (the most likely outcome, at one point), is that Sir Gawain will be forced to have sex with his muscular, good-looking male host Sir Bertilak. But no critic ever notices this. I've read dozens now, and they pick apart the poem for the tiniest details of commercial language, chivalry, Christianity, paganism -- geometry, for fuck's sake! It isn't just an extra detail, either -- it's part of what's driving the plot!
And meanwhile, J.R.R. Tolkien insists on translating swete ("sweet one") as "good sir knight" when Bertilak says it to Gawain, while everywhere else in the poem he has it as "fair lady." And R.D. Miller spends a third of his introduction to hermit Richard Rolle's long treatise on God's love explaining why we shouldn't "psychologize" (that is, "homosexualize" -- he can't bring himself to write the word) Rolle's poetry and prose, where he talks about wanting to kissed and screwed by Christ.
I mean, the minute Gawain gets to Bertilak's castle, they strip off his armour, put him in soft, brightly-coloured unisex robes, leave him at the castle while the men go out hunting, and then the Lady comes in and woos him like a knight woos a lady, while he's in bed. And if he gives into her, then Bertilak gets a crack at Gawain's "thik Þrawen Þyez."
*sigh*
I still have about 1800 pages to read, 7 to translate, 29 papers to mark, and a prospectus to draw up.
