Sodomy, Misogyny, and Displacement: Occluding Queer Desire in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

By the late fourteenth century, the institution of chivalry had already lost much of its social value. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight attempts to defend chivalric ideals by blaming their decline on external forces: queer male behavior and desire that derives from the deceits and wiles of women.