Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
This is going to be a long read - settle in.
The Story
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an Arthurian legend and epic poem whose author is unknown. This poem is considered a classic in Western literature and has been translated by multiple people, including Burton Raffel and JRR Tolkien. Recently the story was adapted into a movie by A24, starring Dev Patel.
I had to read the Burton Raffel translation in my literary traditions class. In the story, Gawain beheads the green knight, who survives, and he is thrown into a quest to seek the knight out and receive his own beheading. The poem revolves around Gawain's journey, but most of the time is spent on his interactions with Lord Bercilak. Gawain and Bercilak agree on a game, through which they end up kissing each other three times.
The language of the story and the way that the characters talk to each other felt, to me, like a love story between the two men. I didn't feel like there was a space in the class discussion for me to share my perspective of this story, and in searching for essays or artistic representations I found very little that fit with my interpretation.
I find the ideas of shame, duty, honor, and fear that are explored in this story to be very related to the queer experience, especially as it intersects with religion, and I wanted to emphasize that connection.
The green belt is an important symbol in the story - it represents Gawain’s sins, shame, and failure, but also serves as a reminder of the forgiveness and acceptance he is met with at the end of his journey. The belt stays with Gawain for the rest of his life following the events of this poem, and the other knights of the round table adopt the garment in support of Gawain, and as a reminder that they are imperfect but resilient.
As a queer person, I didn't grow up with many role models who shared my experience of identity. My parents, my older brother, the older kids I looked up to at school and in sports and in Youth Group, none of them were trans, and none of them were openly gay.
There's something in my brain and in my heart that latches on to older queer men, especially when they are kind to me. I want to be recognized and acknowledged by them as One of Them. I'm afraid of pretty men and nervous around queer people who are confident and open. If they don't like me does that mean I don't belong?
In this poem I recognized the shame, anxiety, fear, longing, and guilt that Gawain struggles with. I recognized the "rules'' that you have to follow to walk between these different groups and different languages - the people who you love and trust but who don't understand you, and the people who might understand you but maybe don't like you that much.
Like Gawain, I feel afraid, on the outside and not good enough. A failure to God, to my family's expectations, falling into temptation and lust and broken promises and sin - but still unable to reach that other side, powerful and confident and unashamed for not always following the rules.
So when a tall, beautiful man appears and asks Gawain to follow him, to search for him, to Find Him - and Gawain is taken in by a man who offers him warmth, and comfort, and the finest gifts, and the biggest game he can catch, and who accepts kisses and touch and company from Gawain - and when Gawain breaks down and chooses his own safety over a promise, and when the man forgives him, and understands his choice, and absolves him of his guilt and shame -
how could this story not be about a young queer man searching for acceptance from someone he looks up to and doesn't want to disappoint?
