Mary, Unmindful of Her Knight: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Traditions of Sexual Hospitality

Abstract

Reads the 14th-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in light of the traditions of "sexual hospitality," in which a host shares his wife with an honoured guest, and of "the imperious host," whose demands of his guest, including sex with the host's wife, must be obeyed at the risk of death. In this poem, the Virgin Mary does not intercede to save the hero from the lady's wiles, as has long been assumed: rather, the knight is rendered impotent because he does not know whether it would be a graver sin to accept, or to reject, her advances.

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