For most academics, the story of Sir Gawain is centred on the three hunting versus bedroom scenes in the tale. Notably it is a binding of similarities and differences between these linked passages that has been fodder for academics to banter over for many years. The tale goes that the lord and Sir Gawain rise around dawn to set out on their hunt and then return with their kill. Immediately after the lady tempts Sir Gawain in the privacy of his bedroom. Then Gawain joins the lord to celebrate their morning kill. The story repeats itself three times, the first two incidents similar in nature, the last one the deceiving, duplicitous nature of love – desired and deadly in its nature. The following two paragraphs consider the hetero/homo sexual meaning of the text through language, symbols and actions.
The symbolic meaning of the hunt would have been for mediaeval men a rite of passage for any young man in order to acquire the necessary virtuous traits he needed to become an honourable man, to find his status in society, to prove his power in manhood, to become eligible to good women and to be prolific in wealth and procreation (Sonia206). In comparison to Gawain, the “mentor” Bertilak is described as a man “who goes hunting on his horse ‘through dense thickets,’ ‘blowing his horn,’ guiding the hounds after the boar (1464-70)” (Sonia206). And Gawain who is supposed to be the epitome of a valiant knight should be like Bertilak. But is he?
In the two incidents of kissing Bertilak, when they celebrate their manliness together, that has been text “ripe” for the questioning by queer theorists. On the other hand, Dinshaw’s viewpoint suggests that homosexuality might be pressing the analysis of the text too far. In particular, he argues that the “cultural environment” has to be understood in order to consider if Gawain and Bertilak’s kisses were indeed homoerotic in nature (Dinshaw 20). What this means is that the symbolism of the medieval landscape needs to be considered before any gendered analysis of the text can occur.
And this goes for the language too. Is the language the style of the time less about gendering the character or is it reflection the reality of “how they talked back then.” In addition to this, one has to consider the literary significance of the languages used in creating this text, for the language of the 14th century was a combination of 60% Old English, 25% French and 10% Norse (The language ). Considering the cultures and their gendered ideas and use of language to describe genders, there is a lot more to consider when it comes to Gawain’s gender. It appears what queer theory finds easy to “pin point,” other scholars find more complicated to “find.”
Works Cited
Dinshaw, C. “A Kiss is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Diacritic, vol. 24, no. 2/3, Summer-Autumn, 1994, pp. 205-226, http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/david.matthews/Dinshaw_Gawain.pdf. Accessed 27 January 2017.
Sonia206. “Gender and Sexuality in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” 2013, https://literaturessays.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/5/. Accessed 25 January 2017.
“The language of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” 2005, https://www.csun.edu/~sk36711/WWW/engl630AL/gawainlang.htm. Accessed 25 January 2017.
