ENGLISH

Homoeroticism and Chivalry: Discourses of Male Same-sex Desire in the 14th Century

By Richard E. Zeikowitz

Book information

Publisher
Palgrave
Year
2003
DOI
10.1007/978-1-137-09456-8
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
12 MB (12856408 bytes)
Series
The New Middle Ages, vol. 35
Pages
220\220
Topic
History
Time added
2016-07-23 09:56:28
Global and Transnational HistoryHistory of Medieval Europe; European History; Gend

Description

Zeikowitz explores both affirming and denigrating discourses of male same-sex desire in diverse fourteenth-century chivalric texts and describes the sociopolitical forces motivating those discourses. He attempts to dethrone traditional heteronormative views by drawing attention to culturally normative 'queer' desire. Zeikowitz articulates possible homoeroticized spectatorial interactions between male readers and imagined or actual model knights, dramatized accounts of same-sex unions, and mutually stimulating - or competing - forces of homosocial and heterosexual desire in chivalric texts, such as Charny's Book of Chivalry , Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , and Troilus and Criseyde . He also examines how intimate male bonds are rendered sodomitically-inflected, dangerous attachments in chronicle narratives of the reigns of Edward II and Richard II.

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