Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Abstract

If queer is an applicable label for that which aims to subvert or counteract normativity, then Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Wife of Bath's tale, and her Prologue are each, in their own ways, queer texts. I examine the ways in which the feminine presences of Morgan le Fay and the Loathly Lady influence and challenge the heteronormative, homosocial space of Arthur and his knights. The two knights in each respective tale journey away from their heteronormative spaces, in which a complex system of homosociality and chivalric patriarchy dominate, to a queer space where each must go against his societal norms and rely on feminine agency and talismans in order for their quests to succeed - and to ensure their survival. It is this very convergence of heteronormative and queer spaces that enables Morgan's defiance of heteronormativity and dominance over those who enter her feminine, non-normative domain.

Extent

v, 81p.

Comments

by Jessica Pitts.|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011.|Includes bibliography.|Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.|by Jessica Pitts.

Identifier

FADT3318679

Format

pdf

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