Audrey Thorstad
Lectuer in Early Modern History
a.thorstad@bangor.ac.uk
The popularity of queer theory in the historical discipline has
steadily increased over the last few years, but it is not a new approach to the
past. Thirty-five years ago, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick published Between Men: English Literature and Male
Homosocial Desire (New York, 1985) and it is widely recognised as one of
the foundational works for queer theory, particularly thinking about male
sexuality. In the monograph, much of her argument is structured around an
asymmetrical erotic triangle wherein men who desire each other (sexually or
otherwise) transmit that desire through a woman, thus creating a triangulation.
This trope, Sedgwick argues, was commonplace in literature from the pre-modern
to our own contemporary. According to Sedgwick,
‘…in any erotic
rivalry, the bond that links two rivals is as intense and potent as the bond
that links either of the rivals to the beloved: that the bonds of ‘rivalry’ and
‘love’ differently as they are experiences, are equally powerful and in many
senses equivalent…and within the male-centered novelistic tradition of European
high culture, the triangles…are most often those in which two males are rivals
for a female’.[1]
For Sedgwick, the beloved –
almost always a woman – then becomes the object, or conduit, of relationships
between two rival men. The rivalry creates a common cause: to win the heart of
the beloved, but their rivalry relationship is just as strongly desired as the
desire for the object of their infatuation. For Sedgwick, then, homosocial
desire – encompassing platonic friendships, affection, sex, and more – is a
given amongst men within the triangle. As a result, the homosocial is drawn
back into the orbit of ‘desire’, of potential eroticism, and creates not a
binary of sexuality and gender, but an unbrokenness of a continuum between
homosocial and homosexual, and thus broadens our understanding of sexuality.
To illustrate the erotic triangle and the homosocial desire that it
creates, I want to look at hunting during the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547).
On 24 June 1509, Henry VIII had a joint coronation with his wife of two weeks,
Catherine of Aragon. Edward Hall (c. 1496-c. 1547) provides a detailed account
of the ceremonies in his contemporary chronicle, including a rather interesting
hunting scene that was performed in front of the new queen and her ladies:
‘like a parke,
paled with pales of white and grene, wherein wer certain Fallowe Dere, and in
the same parke curious Trees made by crafte, with Busshes, Fernes, and other
thynges in likewise wrought, goodly to beholde. The whiche Parke or diuyse,
being brought before the Quene had certain gates thereof opened, the Dere ranne
out thereof into the Palaice’.[2]
The pageant-like [3] issuing
a challenge to all comers. This challenge was answered by eight servants of
Diana.[4] A
deal was struck between the two groups of men: whoever vanquished the other
group of knights in their ‘dedes of armes’ kept the deer that were killed and
the greyhounds that helped kill them. After the challenge was accepted Queen
Catherine called for her husband, Henry VIII, to oversee the
competition and to ensure the rules were fair.
performance continues with eight mounted knights
calling themselves the scholars of Pallas
This scene was very much for entertainment, it was a make-shift park
with trees ‘made by craft’ and it was all set up within the palace. It did,
however, have real deer, real greyhounds, and real men, and we should not
forget that several deer were killed for the narrative. For our purposes, this
episode as described by Hall, can be approached through Sedgwick’s asymmetrical
erotic triangle with the two groups of rival knights as the rival opponents chasing
the beloved: the deer. Although women are mentioned in the narrative – it is
performed in front of Queen Catherine and her ladies – it is not their favour
that the knights desire. The deer, at least in this episode, is more important,
and I would argue that the violence and bloodshed that came along with the
killing of their prize is the activity that helped link the two rival groups
together. Moreover, with the deer as the conduit for male homosocial desire it
meant that the ingredients for heterosexual desire were not all accounted for:
the woman was of course missing. The ladies’ favour as the ultimate prize was
usurped by that of the slaughtered animals. With the arrival of Henry VIII to
oversee the hunting scene, we get an added element. Not only do the groups of
knights want to win the prize of the deer and greyhounds, but they now want to
impress their king, who is young, physically fit, and an avid hunter. The goal,
then, is to impress other men rather than women. Their ambition to impress the
king and win the challenge are the ingredients for creating a situation in
which ‘homosocial desire’ can be fostered. The prize is simply an object to be
won. The importance of the exchange comes in the form of emotional closeness to
the other men in the triangle. Rivalry, competition, teamwork, and physical
exertion can all create emotional closeness, and all were needed in the hunt. In
this sense, it might be argued that homosocial desire can be obtained outside
the parameters of the heterosexual pursuit of the lover/beloved scenario with
the woman – the beloved – easily replaced with another object to be won.
What does the
exploration of such case studies tell us about the Tudor period? First and
foremost, it demonstrates that a queer reading of the pre-modern past is
possible and allows us to see the Tudor court in a new and exciting way.
Hunting was one of the most important pastimes that an elite, able-bodied,
white, educated man in the sixteenth century could perform, and he needed to
perform it well in front of his peers and superiors, usually other men. By
applying queer theory to the hunt, we get the sense that it enabled those of
the hegemony to perform homosocial desire for one another without stepping
outside the boundaries of the expected warrior masculine identity. Being able
to perform these pastimes allowed men to become part of the hegemonic power
structure at the Tudor court, thus giving them access to high-ranking officials
and, more importantly, the king. Secondly, the hunting scene from Hall’s
Chronicle demonstrates the role – or lack thereof sometimes – that women
played in male homosocial desire. The woman, the ‘beloved’ in the triangle,
could quite easily be replaced by an animal. Indeed, in Middle English romance
literature the hunt of a deer is often paralleled with the chase of courtly
love, both of which liken the ‘prize’ (whether that is the deer or the woman)
as an object to be won usually by the pursuer physically exerting themselves in
order to prove they are worthy. Thirdly, I do not want to deny the fact that
women did hunt and they certainly could be in a hunting party at this time. In
these situations, the role of women changes slightly, particularly if they are
partaking in the hunt rather than simply spectating. In any case, female
homosocial desire and its construction were outside the scope of this short
piece; however, I am sure it would prove to be a fruitful endeavour. Finally,
to reiterate the fact that ‘homosocial desire’ does not automatically mean
sexual desire. What this concept does is
gives us a broader continuum of sexuality, moving us away from binaries and enables
more freedom to understand emotions, bonds, desires, and relationships in the
past.
In the thirtieth
anniversary edition of Between Men,
Wayne Koestenbaum writes in the foreword:
‘Sedgwick
demonstrates that a good reason for a critic to be clever and to identify
buried erotic metaphors in canonical poetry is to figure forth a society in
which people are encouraged to take an empathetic and benign attitude toward
sodomitical behaviours…she wants to help us dream up a culture that gives ample
acreage for unaccustomed pleasure, without shame’.[5]
As purveyors of
the past, surely we can grant this to the historical figures that we
explore.
[1]
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick published Between
Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (New York, 1985), p. 21.
[2]
Edward Hall, The union of the two noble and illustre famelies of Lancastre
and Yorke […] (London, 1548), p. vi.
[3]
Pallas is the epithet given to the Greek goddess Athena who is associated with
wisdom and warfare.
[4]
Diana is the Roman goddess of the hunt, wild animals, and fertility.
[5]
Wayne Koestenbaum, ‘Forward’, in Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick published Between Men: English Literature and Male
Homosocial Desire, 30th
anniversary edition (New York, 2016), p. xv.
