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Didn't Read It
A guided tour through the stories that have shaped our culture and the world we live in.
Whether you’re a literature nerd, a romance aficionado, or just Not That Into Books, there’s no denying that the “great works” of literature have played a part in influencing everything from public policy to superhero movies. If you’ve ever wanted to know whether that pretentious guy on Twitter is correct in referring to news stories as “Orwellian,” wondered what stories inspired shows like Bridgerton, or just been curious about why, exactly, your high school English teacher was so insistent about assigning books by Dead White Guys, Didn’t Read It is the podcast for you.
Didn't Read It
Part Two - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Chivalry and Right-Wing Propaganda
Part Two!
We're BACK in the swing of things with resident Medievalist gal-about-town, Toni, to take a ride through Sir Gawain and the Green Knight--and to discuss the, ah, somewhat polarizing A24 adaptation.
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Hello and welcome to Didn't Read it, the podcast that sometimes loses track of time while making dirty jokes about literature. I am your host, Grace Todd, and I will be joined soon by resident medievalist Galabout Town Toni. As you may remember from the end of Part one, Toni and I were having such a lovely time that we completely missed the cutoff for part one. So the beginning of this week's episode may feel a little abrupt, but I hope you'll enjoy the rest of our conversation about the Green Knight.
>> Speaker B:Books. Books. Books. Bugs. Bugs. Books.
>> Speaker C:So we go into the next day, and the second time we have a scene of Bertilak hunting a boar. So we have a creature that is, like, far more, like, vicious, far more of a challenge than hunting deer. And at the same time, we have Gawain facing more of a challenge where, you know, Bertilak's wife comes in and again, is sort of like, taunting him about the fact that he hasn't kissed her yet. And she's very like, you know, surely such a strong man as you could even, like, take what you want by force if you wanted. Which is very, like. It's very much like a. This weird little commentary for a moment, actually, on, like, the sort of danger that underlies, like, the night, like, because you're bound by the system of honor. But, like, knights are forceful people. That's their whole point.
>> Speaker A:Yeah, I found it really interesting that it made sexual violence text. And I mean, granted, it was in a flirtatious way, in a weird flirtatious way. But, like, she was just like, yeah, I don't know. You could do whatever you'd like. I'm in danger.
>> Speaker C:Right? and M. Gawain, like, Dimircy's very, like, oh, but that would be unchivalrous of me. And it would be unchivalrous of me to try to take a kiss when you didn't want it. So basically, he's like, rest assured that, you know, I am your servant and you can kiss me whenever you wish to. And so she kisses him, and then they talk for some hours and he entertains her. And then they kiss again before, Bertilak arrives back home with this boar that he has courageously slaughtered. And again, there's this, like, very vivid scene of them, like, trussing it up on the, like, big stick to carry, like in the movies and whatnot. And Gowan comes out, and he's given this boar. In exchange, he gives Bertilak two kisses again, quite heartily. The next day is where everything falls apart. It's where honor falls apart. It's where the rules of the game fall apart. It's where Gowan's courage fails. Bertilak's wife again comes to Gawain, and basically, first she's like, why? Why have you gone no further? Like, why. Why will you not love me as much as I want you to? Like, do you love someone? Is that what stays your hand? And he's very like, there's actually this memory's like, no, I don't love anyone. And also, right now, I'm not really looking to.
>> Speaker A:I found that. And granted, I was reading the modern translation, but that felt very modern, just like, oh, I'm not really looking for anything serious right now.
>> Speaker C:It's not you, it's me.
>> Speaker A:I'm focusing on myself. I have some, like, big career junctures coming up, and I just don't have the time to make anyone else a priority.
>> Speaker C:I only just got knighted. Like, it would not be, So she. She's basically like. She accepts this with some, you know, sadness. She kisses him and is very like.
>> Speaker B:I'll take it no further, but, like.
>> Speaker C:Let me give you a gift, like, a favor to remember me by. And she offers him this, like, beautiful gold ring. And he's like, no, I won't take this. I will take. No. Well, actually, first she asked for a gift from him. She's like, you know, give me, like, some. A glove or something to remember you by. And he's like, unfortunately, like, I. I don't have all my stuff with me. Like, it's just me and my horse and my armor. I wish I had a worthy gift to give you, but I don't. And she's like, even though I've had no gift from you, let me give you a gift. So she offers him this beautiful gold ring, which he turns down. He's like, this. This thing is too precious. You owe me nothing. like, I can't take this. And she's like, what?
>> Speaker B:You know what.
>> Speaker C:What about this? And she has this green sash or a belt, a garter. It's described in various terms. You know, it's nowhere near as, like, ornate as the ring, but it is described in terms as, like.
>> Speaker B:It is.
>> Speaker C:It is a nice thing. It is embroidered. It's, like, trimmed with a little bit of gold. Gowen again tries to turn it down. And the lady is like, is it because this is such, a rude gift?
>> Speaker B:Such a.
>> Speaker C:Such a, you know, small thing? I know it looks that way. And yet this is the most precious Item you could imagine anyone, so long as they are wearing this, no harm shall ever befall them. And Gowen, who notably doesn't want to get his head cut off at this point, relents and he takes the sash. So this is like the moment where his courage fails. He takes the sash not because he wants a gift, not out of love for the lady, but because he doesn't want to be hurt.
>> Speaker A:And this makes him a pussy.
>> Speaker C:Yes, exactly. Not exactly. I mean this is even, this is even like later it'll be sort of talked about like who would, like who would want to get their head cut off?
>> Speaker A:Right. Well, I mean, but that's the thing about all of these sort of very like high minded, you know, all of these sort of chivalric, like the ideas. It simultaneously is like, yes, who wouldn't? No one wants to get their head cut off. But also the sort of true pinnacle of honor and masculinity is to be like me. I want my head cut off.
>> Speaker B:Exactly.
>> Speaker A:Because it's the right thing to do.
>> Speaker C:So, at, at the same time that this is happening, Bertilak is hunting a fox. So we have like, we have like yet another sort of like promotion in terms of the animal being hunted because like foxes are wily and they're smart.
>> Speaker A:Right.
>> Speaker C:And it is a scene that is like in many ways a counterpoint to what's going on with Gawain. Because in this scene the fox is cornered and at the end of the day, like, rather than die a sort of cowardly death, the fox turns and faces and is like killed. He's killed with a sword, which is notable because like a sword is not a weapon that you would kill a fox with while hunting. So there's. Right, there's a sort of knightly character to this death. Bertilak comes home, he brings the fox to, Gawain. There's this interesting scene, I've never known exactly what to make of this, where he says that all he has to offer Gawain is this stinking pelt, which is.
>> Speaker A:That jumped out at me too. Yeah, yeah.
>> Speaker C:It's not super in keeping with like the value of foxfur at the time. So I don't know, I really, I don't know know what to make of it being described as like a stinking pelt. And Gowen notably kisses Bertilak and says that that's all that he's gained that day. He doesn't give Bertilak the sash.
>> Speaker A:Sneaky, sneaky.
>> Speaker C:Right. Even though like he is breaking the Rules by the terms of the truce or, by the terms of the game. The sash should be Bertilax. But again, Gowan doesn't want to die. So the next day, the lord of the house, he provides Gawain a guide who takes him across, you know, the Dell or whatever to the Green Chapel. It's interesting. the Green Chapel, like, in the film, is actually an old medieval church, apparently. Like, it's the actual old medieval church that is overgrown like that. The. They used it as a filming location, which is interesting because I think for us, it creates the same character as what is described in the poem, which is a barrow mound.
>> Speaker B:Like, it's.
>> Speaker C:Yeah, it's describing, like, a prehistoric, like, Neolithic burial site, like Newgrange, or, any of these, like, barrow mounds all across, like, Ireland and Scotland and Wales. He goes in and he meets the Green Knight. And he actually, first, the guy who guides him is like, you know, I wouldn't blame you if you ran. I would keep your secret. I would tell everyone that you bravely went and faced your fate, like, but I. You should run. Like, don't go get your head cut off. And Gowan is like, no, I will keep the terms of the deal. I will fight, face my fate. Which is, of course, funny because, like, at the same time, Gowan has cheated.
>> Speaker A:Right? Although I suppose he doesn't know for certain that the magic. He thinks the magic will work, right? But there's no guarantee.
>> Speaker B:So this is where we have the.
>> Speaker C:Beheading game come full circle. Gawain enters the Green Chapel. He encounters the Green Knight. And the Green Knight, you know, Gawain, like, kneels and submits to take the blow that he is meant to take. And we have three swings of the axe that happen the first time. The Green Knight swings the axe and Gawain flinches away.
>> Speaker A:Bitch.
>> Speaker C:And, yeah, this is what the Green Knight says. He's like, surely this is not Gawain. Did I flinch when you cut off my head? Did I flinch when it was my turn? Like, uphold your end of the deal. Don't be a little bitch. Don't flinch. So the second time, Gowan sort of, like, excuses himself. He's like, I won't flinch. It won't happen again. Bertilak takes another swing with the axe. And this time, Gowan doesn't flinch, but Bertilak stops his swing just before it would hit Gowan's neck. And now it's Gowan's turn to be angry. And he's like, what are you doing? Don't toy with me. Take your blow and be done with it. So finally, Bertillock swings a third time, and it's described as, like, this very, like, mighty blow that easily, like, could have cut Gowan's head off. And yet it only, like, kisses the skin. Like it cuts the back of Gowan's neck. And then it stops. And then Gawain, like, leaps up. He, like, pulls his sword, readies his shield and is like, you've had your blow. If you try to take another, we're going to fight. And this is where the Green Knight reveals the whole game. He reveals that he is Bertilak. He is the lord that Gawain has been staying with these days. And he is like, for your honesty the first day, for the fact that you gave me what was entitled to me, you had a kiss from my wife, and you gave that kiss in turn. I pulled my first blow. On the second day, you had two sweet kisses from my wife, and you returned them in turn. And so again, I pulled my blow. On the third day, though, you failed, you know, you had the green sash for my wife, my own Sasha, and you didn't do what was expected of you. You didn't give me the sash. That was my due. And so for this, I have, like, marked you. For this, I have cut you. I think it's worth noting that, like, based on the implication that the he does come to harm, like, his neck is cut, the sash doesn't stop him from being hurt. The Green Knight's mercy does. And yet it's implied the Green Knight would have been more merciful.
>> Speaker A:Yeah.
>> Speaker C:Had he done his duty.
>> Speaker A:Well. And it's also the implication that the Green Knight had the sash and that's how he put his head back on to begin with. It was his sash.
>> Speaker C:True.
>> Speaker B:Now, I need to go back and.
>> Speaker C:Think about the description of the Green Knight at the start of the poem and whether he's described as wearing a sash.
>> Speaker A:He's wearing a lot of things, and they're all green. It's just layers and layers of green.
>> Speaker C:Yeah. Emeralds and green furs. And his horse is green. He's so green. This is also where, like, this is the point of the weird reveal where he's also like. And also this whole thing was organized by Morgan Le Fay, who cast the spell to make me green. And it's like, the only time that, like, Morgan Le Fay comes into it and it's just, like, dropped in, like, two sentences.
>> Speaker A:Well, we were still figuring out how to do plots.
>> Speaker C:Yes. Yeah. plots were actually invented in the 19th century by Sir Thomas plot to sell more realist novels.
>> Speaker A:It's true. We were still very new at the whole, like, narrative fiction concept wrapping our heads around.
>> Speaker B:And there's.
>> Speaker C:There are, like, arguments that have been made that, like, the Green Knight is, like, akin to a novel in structure in ways that a lot of other stuff at the time isn't. I don't.
>> Speaker B:That's.
>> Speaker C:That's getting into a type of formalist argument that, like, even though I am on some level a formalist, that's not the type of formalism I do.
>> Speaker A:I. I mean, without taking too firm a stance, because I am also not great at, like, theory and structure necessarily. This has a more coherent sort of plot. Plot than a lot of other stuff that I've read from the era. Like, it's got the sort of instigating incident and then you get kind of chapters.
>> Speaker B:Yeah.
>> Speaker A:That lead to a conclusion. And importantly, all of the elements of those chapters work their way into the climax of the story in a way that does not always carry in more episodic storytelling elsewhere. Does that make sense?
>> Speaker C:Yeah, I think that's very true and I think is almost a natural feature of the way in which the poem is, like, very interested in, like, cyclicality and like, mirroring because it naturally, I think, creates that kind of plot structure. There is an interesting moment in which the knight actually, like, Gawain, like, admits his cowardice and apologizes and sort of begs forgiveness. And the knight, the green knight, immediately forgives him. He's sort of like, you can really only be blamed so much. Like, who would want their head cut off? He actually. He, like, begs Gowyn to come back to the castle and stay with them longer and be treated to more food and drink. But Gowan is like, it's. It's time I return to Camelot. But till the day I die, I will wear this green sash as a reminder of my failure, as a reminder of, like, how my courage and my chivalry failed.
>> Speaker A:Well, and there's. There's a really interesting kind of subtext to, like, the. The Green knight in this story has done exactly what he said he was going to do. At every step of the way he has behaved with, like, very kind of crisp, predictable honor every step of the way. But the first thing that Gowan does when he cuts the back of his neck is he puts on all of his armor and prepares to fight him and is like, you said. You said you wouldn't hit me again, and you've done it and you're done now. And he has no reason to think that this guy isn't going to fulfill the terms of his deal. Right.
>> Speaker C:Like there's one who's cheated.
>> Speaker A:Exactly. Like he's, he's still being defensive in a way that implies like he is underestimating the other person's honor in part because he clearly feels a little fragile about his own. And I think that's interesting that it carries all the way through to the very, very end.
>> Speaker B:Hm.
>> Speaker A:and the Green Knight's like, dude, I did everything I said I was gonna do.
>> Speaker C:Yeah. so we then we have this, like, we have this last little scene when he returns to Camelot. And it's short, but I think it's actually really important where he comes home and he tells. Everyone's, elated to see him. Everyone's sort of shocked that he's returned. He tells the story of his exploit and the story of his shame. King Arthur's court and the knights of the court and Arthur decide. And we actually, we had some like debate the other day about whether this is mocking or not. I don't think it is. I think there's something else going on where they like, they take it as a symbol. They're like, you know, we will remember this by wearing as a mark of the knighthood a sash as a reminder of this. And it's presented as being like an origin of like the, the Order of the Garter, the like highest order of knighthood that still exists not in like a continuous sort of lineage, but that exists in a like revived form in the modern day. and it's interesting to me because like, I don't, I don't think it's mocking, but I think it goes back to that like Knights of Summer thing where like G is here now and like he's seen some, and he's seen some things like he's got the thousand yard stare of like having really actually gone out and put his life on the line and faced a real challenge. And what immediately happens when he gets back to Camelot, they turn it into a symbol. Right?
>> Speaker A:A kind of toothless symbol. Yeah, exactly. So I, and this is where I will make my last sort of defense of the film in that I think emotionally and thematically this poem and the film adaptation to me capture the kind of wistfulness of feeling like you live on the tail end of an Age of Wonders. Right. Like the movie very much has the sensation of being of taking place in a world that was Grander and more magical. And is now that door is closing. The giants are leaving. The sort of King Arthur's trappings, like the trappings of King Arthur's court are falling apart. Right. They are aging. They are no longer grand. You can kind of see that they were once grander and warmer, but they aren't anymore. And the poem, similarly, has that kind of sensation of, like, all of these knights, all of the. Like, this whole court is populated by these people who are like figures of legend. And Gowan, also explicitly in the poem, although less so in the film, less so than in the film, still has something to prove. He needs to catch up with all of these already established figures. And from the perspective of the narrator and the people writing and listening to it at the time, there is this sensation of being just past this. This age of magic with dragons and giants and all of these things. And he's trying to establish himself in this world, but it's a little too late. And he can have his exploits and he can, like, you know, he can have his big chivalric adventure, but he's not going to quite. He'll have his sash, but it will get kind of sublimated into something that is toothless and normal.
>> Speaker B:Yeah.
>> Speaker C:And I think this is, like. I think that is definitely a good read. And I think it's looking at something that I think, again, this is like, something that Gowen is doing. It's also something that, like, contemporaneously, the squire's tale was doing, where, like, the squire, like, compared to his father, who is this sort soldier with this, like, long history of soldiering. The squire. I assume we'll talk about this more when we get to Fragment five. Like, the squire authorizes himself as a knight by, like, mastering all these, like, symbols and signifiers, not by, like, any actual martial prowess. And there is. Yeah, I think this idea that, like, the big age of the true knight is actually over, and now we have, like, a generation of youth who don't really have anything to make them truly knightly. That chivalry has become a thing that is kind of, like, vapid and empty.
>> Speaker B:Yeah, I know we talked about this when we talked about Fragment one of the Canterbury Tales. There is this way in which chivalry is a system that exists to kind of COVID up a level of atrocity. Right. Like, knights are somewhere between, like, soldiers and cops and gang members, like, in terms of the function that they serve in society. And, like, at the end of the day, the function that a knight serves is violence.
>> Speaker A:Right.
>> Speaker B:Like, what makes a knight a knight is the ability to summon up a certain amount of equipment and men at arms, the ability to keep horses, the ability to afford armor. And like, this is part of what justifies the, like, privileges that knights receive as members of, like, a noble class is they get privileges in order to help them pay for all that stuff, so that when they are needed by their liege, they can bring a whole lot of violence to bear.
>> Speaker A:Right. And their. And their capacity to stomach that violence. Right. Like, which is also important.
>> Speaker B:Right. And so the. And like, it's. It's something that shows up all the time, like, kind of lurking at the edges of chivalric literature. We talked about how, like, in the Knight's Tale, there's this thing of, like, oh, which one is it that dies? I think it's Arcete, like, is described being wounded in quite graphic detail. Like, he gets his, like, chest staved in and his head smashed open. And like, it's these moments where, like, the Knight's Tale is very orderly and neat and then these little bits of violence break through. And you see it in other chivalric literature. Cretin de Troyes, who wrote a series of Arthurian romances that are part, of what's known as the French Matter of Britain. One of my favorite of his works, Event, or the Night with the lion, there's this scene of, a, fight. A, like, ritual, sort of like trial by combat fight between Yven and between Gawain, actually, who is a character in that and as he often is in a lot of Arthurian literature, is Event's, like, closest friend in Comrade. And they, like, find themselves on opposite sides of this trial by combat. Neither of them knows who the other one is. Like, they both shown up in their armor and all of that, not realizing they're on opposite sides of the dispute. and the way Chron describes this fight, like, it is brutal. They're hammering on each other's helmets, they're bursting each other's shields, they're destroying each other's clothes. You know, it's, these mighty blows that would be ripping limbs off and staving chests in if it wasn't for their armor and all that. And like, Kratie and keeps having this little. This little sort of like a side of like. But, oh, but if they only knew who each other were, their brotherly love, you know, they would embrace each other. And it's almost like Kratien is, like, reassuring himself, okay, that, like, they don't want this Violence, like, if they just knew the circumstances, while they're doing horrendous violence to each other. And so there's this way in which, like, chivalry is a system that takes violent, horrendously violent, dangerous, also probably kind of, you know, sexually rapacious. There's an assumption of like, sort of sexual desire. There's an assumption at times even of like, homoerotic desire. All these sort of like, base impulses that chivalry as a system exists to control.
>> Speaker A:The myth of a good man who abhors violence but will engage in it when it's necessary.
>> Speaker B:Yes, this was, this, was the presentation I actually gave at the last, International Congress of Medieval Studies. I gave a presentation on like, afterlives of the chivalric in like, modern right wing rhetoric. And one of the things that we looked at was like memes of like, ah, pictures of knights with kittens and stuff. And that jerk off Jordan Peterson quote about like, oh, a dangerous man isn't, you know, incapable of doing violence. That's a harmless man. Hold on, let me see if I can get the Kermit the Frog voice. A, dangerous man is capable of great violence but chooses not to. I don't. Sorry, I. I should have taken a benzo before I came here so I could really get my. Jordan Peterson.
>> Speaker A:A dangerous. No, that was. That went. That went the other direction. That was a different Muppet altogether. A dangerous man. There we go.
>> Speaker B:This podcast is gonna get sued.
>> Speaker A:A dangerous man is not a man who's incapable of violence, but a man who's been pushed too far.
>> Speaker B:There we go. Yeah, it's the dangerous man who chooses to do good. And one of the very few bits of the Green Knight movie that I am actually quite fond of is in this final scene in the Green Chapel, they reduce the number of times that he flinches. There's just the one flinch, I think, in the movie. But then there's this scene in which the Green Knight swings his axe and Gawain gets up and he runs away and he runs back to Camelot and he turns into the worst evil, most terrible bastard ever. He steals his prostitute girlfriend's baby and, you know, acts like he's buying it from her and, you know, then marries a much like more blonde white lady. He.
>> Speaker A:I was gonna say he like, specifically marries like a Nordic ice queen.
>> Speaker B:Yes. Yeah, with the rain, which was not.
>> Speaker C:Lost on me, you know, and you.
>> Speaker B:See him like, going to war and his son dying at war and just this rain of blood and eventually like it ends with this scene where it's like he's on the throne and there's the invaders at the gate, and, like, all of his family abandoned him. And then at the last minute, he, you know, removes the sash and it's done. Like, there's, like, the hole in his tunic that he's always using to fondle the sash, and he pulls it out in this way that it's like he's pulling out his own entrails.
>> Speaker A:Yeah.
>> Speaker B:And then his head falls off. I think it does.
>> Speaker A:It just sort of bounces away.
>> Speaker B:And I could not stop laughing when we rewatched the film, because all I could think of was the green ribbon. Yes. And the girl's head on the floor. And then Gowan comes to, right, and he's back in the green chapel, and he's like, hold on. And he takes the sash off, and he, you know, kneels to take the blow. And, you know, the Green Knight says something very BDSM Y to him. I don't remember what it was, but it's like. It's very, Like, putt playish. Like, good boy. Kind of patting him on the cheek, kind of. It's very. It's actually, I think, one of the horniest scenes in the film. But that's. We don't have time to get into that, I think. And then he's like, now, let's cut off your head. And that's when it cuts to black.
>> Speaker A:Yep. Well, and one of the things that I liked about that whole aside is that, yes, for him, that whole thing is him going and. And doing the wrong thing and. And doing the bad thing. But what it actually portrays is, like, a pretty standard. Like, there's nothing remarkably evil about it.
>> Speaker B:Yeah.
>> Speaker A:If that makes sense. Like, it's. It's a very. It's just like that. Well, yeah, that's a standard kind of medieval ruler's arc. Like, have a bastard marry for convenience, wage several wars, lose one eventually when your luck runs out. Like. Yeah. Bing bang boom. Yeah.
>> Speaker B:it. It really isn't out of the ordinary, but it's out of the order. Ordinary for, like, a chivalric romance. Right. Chivalric romances don't typically. Crusader romances. Sure. But chivalric romances don't have people fight bloody battles of territorial expansion. They fight giants and dragons and unambiguously evil people. The funny thing about giants is that, like, giants are literary mirrors for knights. They are knights without chivalry. They are all the excess that knighthood could allow for without the Control. The. The reason I love that scene, though, is because it is showing in a very good way, I think. Exactly. That anxiety that underlies a lot of chivalric literature where, like, Gowen is seeing for a moment what he could become if he fails to uphold the values of a knight, if he fails to keep to his. His oath and be faithful. And so, like, it's. You know, I'm not a huge fan of the movie, but, like, that bit for, like, five minutes, I think, just really gets a thing that chivalric romance repeatedly does.
>> Speaker A:Yeah.
>> Speaker B:And then. Yeah. So, you know, I mentioned, I talk at the International Congress of Medieval Studies about chivalric romance and, like, modern white nationalist propaganda. Right.
>> Speaker A:Yeah.
>> Speaker B:I don't know if you remember, like, maybe 10 years back, there was this boom in, like, jokes about, like, what chivalry was, where it'd be like, comedians, like, talking about, like, oh, you know, everyone says they want chivalry in a relationship, but, you know, I looked up what chivalry was, and, you know, it's actually a code of standards for battle in that way that, like, people do, where they act. Like a really complex concept is actually just, like, one book that no one read or whatever.
>> Speaker A:Yes.
>> Speaker B:And, you know, it didn't have anything about, like, pulling chairs out or anything like that.
>> Speaker A:I specifically remember that era because it filtered down to some of my dude friends and definitely influenced some of the jokes that they were making at me about feminism at the time. Like, I remember this vividly.
>> Speaker B:Right. Yeah. All this, oh, you want chivalry? Well, you know, we'll marry you off to secure our alliance with Poland type thing.
>> Speaker A:Yes. And it was. It was so funny the first time and the 15th time and the 35th time and the 135th time.
>> Speaker B:Right. And. And the thing is, I hate those jokes in part because they actually fundamentally fail to understand that, like, very much by, like, like. Yes, chivalry in French means, like, horsemanship, but, like, very quickly as knights become nobles, like, very quickly. Chivalry is a term even in the Middle Ages, understood to mean all the, like, sort of noblesse that comes with being a knight. But it's also, like, something that always bothered me was, like, I actually want to talk about. I've spent several years now talking about and even having some amount of people, what passes occasionally for a large crowd in academia. listen to me talk about reframing a certain type of masculinist behavior in the modern day as being, in fact, very much like chivalry.
>> Speaker A:Yeah.
>> Speaker B:That it is something that is worth talking about in terms of chivalry and especially, you know, I talk a lot in a lot of my work about like white nationalists. I talk about incel culture. I talk about a lot of the sort of just like very misogynistic chauvinistic movements of the modern day. You know, I wrote this paper a while back that was inspired by some of the stuff that happened here at UNC with the protests against the situation in Gaza. I, think, you know, many of you may have seen on the news, the like frat boys holding up the American flag.
>> Speaker A:Oh, no, I missed that.
>> Speaker B:Yeah. So, you know, a group of protesters, very Briefly, for like 30 seconds, the university made such a big deal out of it, but for like 30 seconds, took down the American flag in the center of the quad and raised a, Palestinian flag. And then a bunch of frat bros marched in, like, made a big show of like holding the American flag off the ground so that Old Glory wouldn't touch the, the ground. And then, our new chancellor comes out and raises the flag back up. And it started this whole right wing response. A bunch of people, like, started a Kickstarter to throw these guys a rager that raised like half a million dollars.
>> Speaker A:Like, oh my God.
>> Speaker B:Some of which got used to throw what ended up being apparently a very creepy Republican rally that was like, mostly like 40 year old men who were hoping to meet college girls. And the rest of it suspiciously disappeared into the pockets of like right wing pundits.
>> Speaker A:Oh, no, I don't. Audio medium. You can't see that. The listeners can't see the face I'm making, but it's an upset Kermit the frog face. We'll just.
>> Speaker B:Yeah, well, no, so not that. in the Kickstarter for this, there was the. It starts off with this line early on where it describes these frat boys as being like modern crusaders clad in Patagonia and vineyard vines fighting off the evil Hun or Turk or whatever word they used. like describes those like brave bohemians and like referencing the like Tatar invasions in, bohemia in the 15th century. It's like, it's so over the top. And this is not like a unique thing. Right wing imagery right now is full of chivalric imagery. It is full of images of knights and everything from the logos of white supremacist groups to the protesters in Charlottesville walking around with shields that say Deus Volt on them. God, yeah, honestly memes, and this is part of why we're looking at memes like right wing memes that are full of images of knights. This idea of, oh, you know, we are like the modern crusaders, and this idea of like a masculinity that is chivalric. And as medievalists, I think one of the like, main kind of responses from medieval studies has been to like, really abjure this to be like, we don't want this connection between white supremacy and medieval studies. Like these people, you know, are depicting a version of chivalry that is, you know, ahistorical, that is based in a very like, chauvinist reading. And like, it's, it's a very understandable impulse because like, who wants their professional field to be associated with neo Nazis and the KKK and all of that. But one of the things that I've been saying for years is that I think as a field, medieval studies needs to step back, feel that impulse to push away any association with the far right, you know, get, get over that feeling and then start talking about the ways in which there is kind of a connection between right wing rhetoric and chivalric identity. Not necessarily in there being any like real intellectual through line. Not necessarily in a way in which the readings that white nationalists do medieval romance are like, at all good. A while back I was doing some research on Stormfront and like reading this one. Neo Nazi's description of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was the funniest thing I've ever read because like, they do not have any idea what they're talking about.
>> Speaker A:Not a demographic known for their reading.
>> Speaker B:Comprehension, no media literacy, real bad there. But there is a discussion to be had about the way in which these right wing masculinities and chivalry as a like, structure of masculinity serve very similar functions.
>> Speaker A:Yeah.
>> Speaker B:For the people who have a vested interest in like controlling those structures of identification and using them as tools for hegemonic expansion. Because the reality is like, what are incels and white nationalists, and proud boys, if not angry, violent, horny men who need some way for the people who find them useful to control them.
>> Speaker A:Yeah. Well, in this associate, like, like it or not, like, I'm, I'm sympathetic to what you're saying about medievalism as a field. Wanting to be like, no, thank you. Like, don't, we don't, we don't really want, like, I, we don't want to deal with this because it's stressful to deal with. But like, as a person who spent a good amount of time in and around like Victorian, Victoriana, same Problem. Right. It's a lot of you. You have to deal with the fact that there are a lot of people who really yearn for the peak of the days when the sun never set on the British Empire. But also like the specific association you're talking about with medievalism and white supremacy goes way back. I mean, I think a lot of people don't really think a ton about you and I think about these kinds of things, but a lot of people don't think about the fact that it is specifically medieval literature that underpins a lot of the mythos of the American south and the pre Civil War American South. Like those book, those stories are how young white Southern men are squaring the circle of their own supposed nobility. And the ex. The thing, the horrible things that they are perpetuating through chattel slavery. And that same myth gets invoked for the Lost Cause narrative. And I mean there's a reason that the, the proper name of the KKK is the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Like they are envisioning themselves as crusaders and as sort of embattled knights way back, you know, in the 1800s, early 1900s. So.
>> Speaker B:Yeah, yeah. I like one on the issue of Victoriana, like, I think it is like fair to say that it is exactly the same issue in that like the Victorians are to blame for a large part. Victorian, medievalists even are like largely to blame for the worst parts of medieval studies because you know, like modern medievalism really has its roots in Victorian antiquarianism. And like a lot of it was deeply vested in this idea of constructing a noble lineage of Anglo Saxon glory. And like, I think it's worth noting like every time that medievalists want to just like completely be like, well we don't want anything to do with that. That it's like, yeah, maybe the field at large, but like there's always some 70 year old academic in some like important British professorship who's like, I actually think we should have less black people in medieval studies.
>> Speaker A:Yeah, there's always. Well and I think any field has to take responsibility not just for the actual history and literature of the period, but also for the scholarship around that has been like, you have to take responsibility for not just what actually happened, but also its legacy.
>> Speaker B:Right. And I think this is where I'm really like, hopefully, hopefully a lot of other medievalists and especially older medievalists won't be listening to this because I might upset some people. But I think this is actually where the like very strong Cis white maleness of Medieval studies, even compared to other areas of academia, maybe makes us even worse at this. Because if there's one thing that white people in general love to do, CIS white people, and especially CIS white men love to do, it's be like, well, I'm not really responsible for what my ancestors did, while also denying any, like, meaningful effort to fix those things. Right. Like, well, maybe you weren't responsible for the fact that they did it, but, like, do we not all have some responsibility as, like, white people for the fact that we have the opportunity to try and undo some of those things now and some of. Some of us don't want to?
>> Speaker A:Would you say that cishet white male academics have been given some kind of totemic protection, shall we say, from the vagaries of fate that they may be in possession of, but are now responsible for how they use? In a way?
>> Speaker B:I would say yes. with the caveat that not any CIS white male academic who has any power to affect, my teaching appointments or paycheck, y'all are perfect and doing the work.
>> Speaker A:Yeah. But, you know, they have. They all have a green sash around their waist. And the question is, how will they use it? Yeah, how will any of us use it?
>> Speaker C:Yeah.
>> Speaker B:but I think the other thing. So one of the things in the course of my research that I have had to do a lot of is reading some really unpleasant literature, the type of thing that most of us, I think, don't want to read. I think a lot of books I. That most people have probably joyfully never heard of. You know, I've read the Turner Diaries. I have read the White nationalist M Manifesto from Back to Front. I can't think of the book, but the similar, to the Turner Diaries, it was written by the people who run the, like, Northwest front or the Northwestern front, which is the group that wants to, like, move as many white nationalists as they can to, like, Washington, Oregon and Idaho and then, like, take over.
>> Speaker A:Yep.
>> Speaker B:And out of, like, all this horrible, racist, sexist, misogynistic literature that I've had to read in the course of my research, if there is one book that I would recommend people choke down in order to really understand something about how a massive portion of American identity works, it is Thomas Dixon's the Klansman, which is the book that Birth of a Nation is based on.
>> Speaker C:Yeah, one.
>> Speaker B:I mean, one thing that is, like, fascinating about it is that it is actually a very well written book. Horrifyingly so, because you're like, no wonder so many people read this. If you're not coming at it with the, like, desire to already not, like, sympathize, with a deeply racist book. It is written with sort of all the skill of the best sympathetic novelists of the time. And it's very much in that mode m of like, sympathetic romance. But it is also a great book for understanding that intersection between chivalric identity and the lost cause. Because the way in which the members of the clan are talked about and especially the way in which the main character, the way that, Benjamin Cameron is talked about in it is very much in terms of the heroic knight who only does acts of violence because they are necessary to protect his people and to protect order. And then there's even this whole thing where Ben Cameron, who's the Grand Dragon or Imperial Dragon, I think, yeah, Grand Dragon of the kkk, falls in love with a Northern woman named Elsie Stoneman and also becomes close friends with Elsie's brother Phil Stoneman, who I think also falls in love with Benjamin's brother Margaret. And of course, just as Benjamin Cameron is a former Confederate soldier, Phil is a former Union soldier. And yet there is all this thing, just like that bit between Yven and Gawain where the, you know, Dixon talks about how, like, these two are like brothers that if not for the war that had happened between their states, right. Would have marched arm in arm together as comrades.
>> Speaker A:If they hadn't been separated by those damned inferior races, they would have come together as two beautiful white men. Like God intended.
>> Speaker B:Exactly.
>> Speaker A:Now that's a chunk of audio I hope never pulls out of this.
>> Speaker B:Oh, you idiot. Milkshake. Doc. there's also like, even this is less so in the, book. I mean, it comes through. But then some of the imagery that gets used in, the film, which again, is uncomfortable but worth watching if you want to understand a big part of American culture where, like, the way black people are presented is much the same way that, like, the Saracen is presented in, like, crusader romance, as this, like, mockery of personhood, as this ape like creature that tries to behave like a person but will never really be a person. And like, you know, I don't know that a lot of people really fully comprehend just how successful Birth of a Nation was. Oh, it was huge as a film. I mean, honestly, a lot of modern Hollywood owes itself to how successful Birth of the Nation was because, I mean, it was the first blockbuster. It was the first film to, like, get people going to movie theaters in droves.
>> Speaker A:Well, and I might be slightly misremembering but isn't it, like, technically incredibly well done? Like the actual, like, movie making of it?
>> Speaker B:Yes.
>> Speaker C:Yeah.
>> Speaker B:Just like the book is very technically well written. Yes. It pioneered filming techniques.
>> Speaker A:Yeah. It, like, introduced a bunch of things that were very important in the long run. And so, like it or not, it is much like chivalric romances. Like it or not, it is an underpinning of everything that came after.
>> Speaker B:And so I think then you also have to think about, like, when we think about the ways in which imagery enters pop culture and that sort of, like, semiotic moment in which, like, the. The signified under a signifier solidifies to some degree. If we're kind of trying to look at how American culture especially conceives of, like, Nights, it's worth noting that, you know, some of people's, like, first written kind of introductions to chivalry into knighthood come in things like Ivanhoe and, you know, the, like, 19th century literature of white Anglo Saxon glory and this sort of search for national identity. And so naturally has kind of a nationalistic character to it, but also one of the crucial visual images that first, like, enraptured American audiences and I think has had more of an enduring effect on how American audiences perceive of, like, a nightly figure is this horribly racist film about white triumph over, you know. Yeah, black people who are going to destroy the nation. And so, like, that appeal of, like, chivalric character to white nationalist masculinities has been around. It's not a new thing by any means. It's been around for at least a century and a half. And it's something that has been very deliberately constructed by people who were very familiar with actual chivalric romance.
>> Speaker A:Right. It's interesting, too, because I think. I think that has also really rubbed off on the way that we culturally talk about and sort of present cops. Yeah, Like, I think that's had a big influence on the way that we mythologize around police work and police men. Like, I. When you think about, like, procedural drugs, like propaganda, right. From Law and Order to the many, many English, like, detectives specifically, are really on that same wavelength of, like, the good man who's been worn down by all of this exposure to the realities, the grim realities of warfare. Except it's not warfare. It's domestic, domestic crime.
>> Speaker B:But, I mean, my. My wife and I were just talking the other day about, like, every once in a while we'll be sitting around watching SVU talking about, like, how much we love Muncie and how sad we were that they Took her off the show. And then we're like, are we bad people? Also, like, are we those lesbians whose ethics go right out the door the minute there's, like, a pretty brunette on the screen? But, And the thing is, I. I know so many leftists like this who. I'm like, I don't like cops. I actively dislike cops. I do like a good police procedural. And I know so many leftists who are like, yeah, SVU is my guilty pleasure.
>> Speaker A:I mean, look, I love Father Brown, the show. And that is not just Copaganda, It's Catholic Copaganda.
>> Speaker B:Yeah. When I think it's one, it's that thing of, like. It's the same reason why, like, we all hate bureaucracy, but then we play video games that are just bureaucracy simulators. It's, like, because we want things that actually work for us. So I think, like, it's really nice to step away from the real world and imagine cops who are good people who serve the public interest and take bad, monstrous people off the street. And, like, even now when, like, things like Law and Order are starting to, like, depict police abuses and stuff like that a little more, it's still always with this thing of, like. But then the good cop comes and locks them away. Or, you know, oh, Tutuola's, you know, being haunted by this specter of his past when he put a young man away and ruined his life. But he redeems himself, right? And it's nothing like real life.
>> Speaker A:So, I mean, is that. In a way, is that what stories like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are for their own contemporary readers? Which is like, a nice fantasy where these, in reality, violent and largely unaccountable men who are necessary for the society that they live in to keep functioning in the way that it does. A story that would be comforting not just for themselves. Right. Because that's an important part of it. Like, Copaganda is so important in part because it comforts cops themselves and people who support cops. And so, like, is. Is this something that is not just so that knights can. Men of violence in the era can feel better about themselves, but so that other people whose lives are dependent on the violence done by those men can have a nice, comforting, charming story of, like, gosh, what if they were, like, thoughtful and poetic and soft deep down underneath all of the bloodshed?
>> Speaker B:You know? I think so. This is. This is the type of question that, like, I am loathe to give a definitive answer to, because, you know, as a, as a lit scholar, like, the thing I can do is I can, like, speak to the meaning that is present in the literature that, like, you can read in the text. But we don't have a lot that survives in terms of people, like, talking about their experiences of consuming this literature. Like, the. The reception studies exist, but, like, you know, a lot more of reception studies, when it comes to chivalric romance and whatnot, is dealing with, like, modern reception. And, you know, at the end of the day, I don't want to be CS Lewis insisting that I understand how the medieval mind worked and that, you know, I know how medieval people thought about things. But while I don't think I can definitively say, like, yeah, this is how medieval readers conceived of this literature, I will say that if there's one thing that I observe over and over again in every kind of research I do, it's that people haven't really changed. Propaganda hasn't really changed. The way societies operate hasn't really changed anywhere near as much as we would like to think. We've always been the same sort of gullible apes just trying to, like, get through life and find, like, women to eat and bits of chocolate to. And, like, you know, we don't change. So I don't know, man. Maybe.
>> Speaker A:Probably Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Copaganda for the ages.
>> Speaker B:You know, I think the worst part, you know, or the best part was when you said that, I immediately had this thought. You know, we talk about the thin blue line, which now has been, like, you know, obviously it's been taken as, like, a metonym for the entirety of, like, the police force and, like, police power. And we think about, like, the thin blue line flash flag. But my understanding was that the original thin blue line was the little piece of blue ribbon that police officers would wear over their badges as a, like, sign of mourning for, other officers, but also frequently as a way of obscuring their, badge numbers.
>> Speaker A:Oh.
>> Speaker B:And I'm like, well, look, a totemic ribbon.
>> Speaker A:Fancy that. A totemic ribbon with a devious ulterior motive, even.
>> Speaker B:Exactly.
>> Speaker A:Wow, look at us go.
>> Speaker B:Oh, I've just received word that, we've been boycotted by the Fraternal Order of Police.
>> Speaker A:Because they were big supporters up until this moment.
>> Speaker C:Yes.
>> Speaker A:Yeah, they loved my leftist queer literature podcast.
>> Speaker C:They were.
>> Speaker B:Every week, you know, all the cops were out there just really wondering if Fortunato and, Montresor in those catacombs.
>> Speaker A:Yeah. Every week I was getting fan mail from cops just all over the Nation, they loved Me. And now my most dedicated listener demographic is going to leave me. Leave me high and dry. Medieval literature. What do we do with it?
>> Speaker B:I mean, what I do with it mostly is get drunk with my friends, watch weird adaptations of it, and make fun of them.
>> Speaker A:All right, so getting back just briefly to sort of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, specifically, what. I don't know, what are your kind of closing thoughts? What would you say about it in terms of, like, for those of us who are interested in and, you know, charmed by medieval literature, but are maybe increasingly, uncomfortably, uncomfortably aware of the ways that it has been sort of reused, recycled, and, you know, sometimes in ways that probably very closely match its original intentions. But, like, what. What can people look for in it? What do you find in it that still feels meaningful to you today as, like, a trans lady in 2025?
>> Speaker B:You know, I think. I think this speaks to why it is one of those pieces of medieval literature that, even though I have a complicated relationship with it, I do actually deeply love. Sir Gawain in the Green Light is Green Knight. Sir Gawain in the Green Light, is kind of everything. Like, I think Sir Gawain in the Green Knight is one of the richest surviving pieces of medieval literature, and it is one of the most studied. And I think that is something that makes it just so fun to engage with because there is so much to it. I mean, there's this thing to be had about chivalry, and disorder. There's this thing about the, like, you know, there's that meme about men, boxing and the like. We construct elaborate rituals to find excuses to touch other men's skin. And it's like, hey, as a trans lady living in the South, I'm very interested in, like, the elaborate rituals that cultures construct, both to let people of the same sex or people of the same gender touch each other's skin, but also just, like, the rituals that we construct to help us explore the things we aren't supposed to explore. Like, the ways that we get to, like, fight, follow the rules, and not, follow them m. At the same time. I don't know if you remember this, but maybe you do. Apparently, it has stuck in the minds of a lot of people. But I remember when I came out as trans, my sister Angie, being like, you know, I just had this weird flashback to the time that you borrowed a bunch of my clothes for the powder puff day that Yalls High school did, and you were, like, so excited about it. And then Like, I was talking to, Alex, who dressed up with me that day, another time, and they were like, oh, yeah, Powderpuff day, right? Like, was that you? You were, And so many people have brought that up to me, and I'm like, was I that obvious? Like, was I that gleeful about getting to wear a skirt? Like, you know, and like, the type of engagement that exists with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Everything from popular engagement to scholarly engagement. Like, if you are someone who enjoys reception studies, which obviously I am, I think probably if you're listening to this podcast, even if you don't consciously think of yourself as someone interested in reception studies, you probably are, because, like, this podcast does so much reception studies. I think Gowen is a really fun and a really illuminating and at times a really grim place to dip your toe into these big critical questions about how we engage with medieval literature. Because there are feminist readings and anti feminist readings, and there are chivalric readings that are like, pro knighthood and there are uncritical white nationalist readings of the poem as just a happy story about a good knight who goes on an adventure. And there are queer readings and there are, you know, readings about social phenomena, and there are readings about, like, pagan survivals and just like, every possible kind of, like, interest or stake in dissecting the Middle Ages in that, like, Umberto Echo way where we are, like, obsessed with the Middle Ages because on some level we conceive of it as the place that we come from as modern people. The Green Knight is just such a great place to start. And it's fun. It's a fun poem.
>> Speaker A:It is. I enjoyed, I enjoyed reading it and I, still like the movie and you can't stop me and all my.
>> Speaker B:Goal was never to stop you, just to make fun of you on that's.
>> Speaker A:You know, that is your prerogative. And really quick just for. For any listeners who might not have been familiar with the term, although they probably could have sort of contextually figured out more or less what it means. Would you like to give a quick definition of what reception studies is?
>> Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So reception studies, like, really broadly is the field of study around literature or other media. I mean, I work some in reception studies with, like, video games as well. the field of studies around literature and other media that explores not just the literature itself, but. But the way in which it has been read and consumed or watched or played or otherwise engaged with by audiences in various periods. you know, and this is, this is, you know, I'M obviously you and I have talked a lot about the fact that I am very much a, student of Roland Bart in the way that I think about how literature functions. And so I am a firm believer that, like, to really understand literature, we have to think not just about, like, how it was written, but how it was read. And that's, that's what reception studies does. It just looks at, like, who and how and why and all these W and H questions about the reading of literature.
>> Speaker A:Yeah. Which, and as you said, is something that we spend a lot of time talking about here.
>> Speaker B:We do.
>> Speaker A:Because I, am of the opinion, just like you, that it is important and also that it has a pretty substantial impact on the lives we live and the culture we are swimming in. See Copaganda.
>> Speaker B:Yeah. 1. I mean, it's also like. It's worth noting too that when we're talking about like a film adaptation, I tend to think of. Of adaptations. And, I'm certainly not alone in this. I tend to think of adaptation as a form of reading.
>> Speaker A:Yeah, right.
>> Speaker B:Like in order to adapt something, you have to think about, like, what do you take away from that work? What do you consider important? What kind of lens are you reading it through? which is, you know, for one thing, why we probably shouldn't have let a director who I assume was heterosexual adapt the Green Knight. Because, you know, there's not enough kissing.
>> Speaker A:Not enough kissing. And, at least apparently, according to my subconscious, not enough hand jobs. Because I hallucinated that whole one. My brain, I forgot my brain was so dedicated to the necessity of a hand job that it just auto filled one.
>> Speaker B:Maybe, maybe it's a Mandela effect thing, like. Or maybe like you, you saw it and then they cut it a 24 release. The guy on guy hand job cut of the Green Knight. I really hope that this podcast studio is as soundproof as they say it is because, the media, the Library media team moved their desk from upstairs back downstairs to where the studios are, and they are like right outside.
>> Speaker A:We're a 24 hand job truthers. I want to see Dev Patel give a hand job to. Oh, shit, what is that actor? He's very handsome.
>> Speaker B:I don't know. I just know him as young Uncle Owen from, the last Star wars prequel.
>> Speaker A:He's also. He played, Tom Buchanan in the Gatsby remake. The recent.
>> Speaker B:See, I wouldn't know. I have gone out of my way to never watch any adaptation of the.
>> Speaker A:Great Gatsby because you don't like the Great Gatsby. Or because you don't like adaptations of the Great Gatsby?
>> Speaker B:I do not like the Great Gatsby.
>> Speaker A:I love the Great Gatsby. Actually, I reread it recently and was like, God damn, this hits different in your 30s.
>> Speaker B:I, The Great Gatsby is just one of those books in which, like, I. When I had to read it, I was very like, wow, everybody in this is a bad person. And not in the way that it's enjoyable to, like, consume. Not like, you know, watching. You know, I. I've been on a huge kick. I've been obsessed lately with watching Arcane and, like, that show. You're like, wow, half the people in this show are bad people, and I love them.
>> Speaker A:All right, though. Genuine question, though. When was the last time you took a pass at the Great Gatsby? Was it high school?
>> Speaker B:It was not high school.
>> Speaker A:Were you, under the age of, like, 25?
>> Speaker B:I think so. Yes. Yeah. No. The closest I got to the Great Gatsby recently was, when I finished my bachelor's degree in my late 20s. The intro to Critical Theory book that we used for our senior seminar. every chapter was, like, an introduction to a particular type of critical theory and then a reading of the Great Gatsby through that critical theory lens. And even then I was like, I'm not reading this book again. M. Like, I will read these essays, all right? But I'm not reading that book.
>> Speaker A:do me a favor. At some point, if you can just, like, wipe the slate of your mind clean. And as a reminder, it's a very short little book. Sit down on a Sunday and revisit it now that you are, like, a whole ass adult who has experienced, like, loss and grief and specifically who is, like, woken up and been like, oh, there are doors that are closed to me now because I. Because of decisions that I made as a younger person.
>> Speaker B:Hey, now, I up a lot when I was young. I had plenty of grief and plenty of closed doors because of bad decisions I made.
>> Speaker A:Perspective on it yet. Because you were still a child.
>> Speaker B:That's fair.
>> Speaker A:Anyway, stay tuned for my, Sir Gawain Gadsby mashup, Sir Gawain and the Green Light. You'd watch it?
>> Speaker B:I would. I would, yeah. but I watch a lot of bad things.
>> Speaker A:That's fair. That's what happens for listeners who have not gone to grad school. And a. Of all, don't, but be of all. If you do, don't but be of all. Yeah. If you do, don't but C of all, if you do, what quickly winds up happening is that you lose the capacity in your off hours to do anything but watch terrible things. Because all of the space in your brain has been taken up by critically engaging with good but complicated things as your de facto job.
>> Speaker B:Eventually, you lose the ability to even engage with good but complicated things for a little while and you just, like, spend a year looking at your phone and telling people you're a scholar.
>> Speaker A:Yep. I mean, I knew a lot of people in grad school who suddenly developed like, an acute interest in the Bachelor.
>> Speaker B:A friend of mine in the program keeps asking me if I've watched Love island, and every time I look at him and I'm like, what? Like, no, why would I have watched Love Island? Like, that's, that's horrible.
>> Speaker C:What do you.
>> Speaker B:Who do you think I am? And then I'm thinking about the fact that after like 10 years of not watching it, my partner and I decided to go back and watch 10 years of missed Law and SVU, so.
>> Speaker A:So who can say what's good or bad?
>> Speaker C:Yeah.
>> Speaker A:All right, any, any closing thoughts on, the Green Knight? Fascism, white supremacy, medieval literature.
>> Speaker B:You know, I think that's it. I think we've, you know, I think I, I think I mentioned at the start of this podcast that like, we could easily create an entire multi episode podcast just about the Green Knight. And I'm like, there's, there's more we could say, but like, at some point we gotta, we gotta draw a line.
>> Speaker A:Under this after, after about two hours of conversation, I think we'll, we'll put a pin in it for now. well, thank you so much as always for being, being with me today. Toni.
>> Speaker B:Thank you as always for having me.
>> Speaker A:We will get back together to continue, our very pleasurable pilgrimage through the Canterbury Tales at some point.
>> Speaker B:Yes, we have Fragment five next when we'll be talking about chivalry.
>> Speaker A:Hey, this is, this is the chivalry season 2025, the year of chivalry. And yeah, so that's exciting. Thank all of you for being here with us this week. We appreciate it. It's been fun. I hope you enjoyed kicking off the new year with Sir Gawain, which is definitely better than Smiling Jack. And yeah, as always, if you can this week, this month, this pay period, consider supporting a living author because they could really use the love. Bye.
>> Speaker C:Hey.
>> Speaker A:Didn't read. It was created, written, researched and recorded by me, Grace Todd. Maddie Wood is our co producer and social media maven. Editing by Tally, a true podcasting professional, and Grace Todd. Our theme song is books 2.0 written, performed and recorded by William Albritton. Special thanks to blackiris Social Club in Richmond, Virginia. Reach out to us with questions, concerns, or academic scrutiny@ didn't readititpodmail or dot com.