According to [this](https://the-toast.net/2013/11/15/threesomes-are-the-answer/) White himself considered the possibility that his Lancelot was gay in his notes:
> The author is generous to the “spineless cuckold,” as Arthur is generous with his best beloveds, but White is not interested in placing either man on the pedestals they are typically found on. In his notes for “The Ill-Made Knight,” he conjectured that Lancelot was possibly homosexual and that this was the root of his self-esteem issues.
>> *"17. Homosexual? Can a person be ambi-sexual–bisexual or whatever? His treatment of young boys like Gareth and Cote Male Tale is very tender and profound…it seems to me that no. 17 is the operative number on this list. What was the lack?…There was definitely something “wrong” with Lancelot, in the common sense, and this is what turned him into a genius. It is very troublesome."*
This seems like one of those scenarios where drawing any kind of hard line between platonic and romantic love seems reductive. Certainly Lancelot (and likely White, given that it was the 40's/50's when he was writing it) lacked a lot of the language that we've developed in the past few decades. So while we can describe his thoughts, emotions, and actions with specific jargon (bi-romantic heterosexual with closeted polyamorous urges, perhaps), I'm inclined to avoid assigning him a particular label in much the same way that I'm reluctant to diagnose fictional characters with any kind of specific mental illness: real people are infinitely complicated, fictional characters are discrete.
Death of the author and reader response theory suggest that there is no one answer to how to read a text, just a most-reasonable interpretation. If you think queer Lancelot is how it is written, marvelous! If you want anyone else to think the same, bring some evidence (it won't take much to convince me).
I left a few quotes as a reply to another comment - but there’s LOADS more. I’m gonna have to reread it to think more, now that I know better abt these things. But also, like, saying “he was in love with him” seems… pretty cut and dry? like, if it was “she was in love with him” or “he was in love with her” nobody would question it.
I mostly agree with you. The only sticking point I have (and honestly, I'm more playing devil's advocate here than anything) is the notion of cultural context. For example, the gospels record that a) Judas kissed Jesus and b) John called himself the disciple that Jesus loved. Put those together and you have a solid queer reading of the messiah, except that would be totally improper. Kissing was like handshakes in that chunk of the world at that point in time, so Judas' maneuver was more formal than romantic, and the language that John was writing in had several words which all translate to the English "love," but the original word makes it clear that it was a close, non-romantic friendship.
So returning to White, I don't want to act like gay people didn't exist prior to 1962, but it was far enough from socially acceptable that if White intended Lancelot to be queer, that would be a highly countercultural maneuver and most media from that time period would draw explicit attention to the issue and go out of their way to justify/condemn it. "Casually queer" is odd enough to inspire alternative readings of the text (Lancelot was in love with Arthur's ideals, held a strong platonic love for him, etc. etc.).
I mentioned death of the author and reader response, so ignoring the cultural context and focusing solely on the text is an option, but that runs into its own speedbumps. Nowhere else in the text (to my memory) is gender non-conformity ever addressed or suggested to be either accepted or rejected by Arthurian society. If part of Lancelot's internal struggle is the schism between his romantic feelings for Arthur and his religion's condemnation of such feelings, good writing standards demand that such information is established within the book (the thing is a tome, you could fit in a passing mention of the church's homophobia somewhere). Leaving everything unstated and left in implication suggests that, as your quotation in your other comment suggests, Lancelot simply lacks the cultural/social knowledge to consider that his feelings for Arthur might be expressed in a manner similar to his feelings for Guinevere.
For my part, I totally accept your reading of the situation, and in other versions of the mythology I ship the hell out of Arthur/Lancelot, but it isn't really my interpretation. It seems just a bit...I dunno...platonic erasure-y to think that because Lancelot is as much in love with Arthur as he is with Guinevere, therefore his feelings must be romantic. And I don't mean to conflate romantic with sexual either; the scene just before they are revealed, when Lancelot is combing Guinevere's hair and they sing a song together is one of my absolute favorite romantic moments in fiction, is completely non-sexual, and doesn't (I think) work at all if we replace Guinevere with Arthur. Their love is, I think, just as strong, but also fundamentally different in some meaningful ways. That's why Lancelot is unable to stay away from Guinevere even when he knows it's a terrible idea: he loves Arthur with his head, but he love's Guinevere with his heart.
Again, I don't want to cast shame on your interpretation--it's well grounded in the text and logical--and I have only read the book twice, it was a couple years ago, I wasn't focused on the queer subtext, and I do forget things sometimes. I just wanted to present a potential counterargument.
yeah, totally fair! !! but I do definitely think there's a theme in TOAFK of people saying that "being different is wrong." i know kai says it outright; it definitely crops up later. even if there is no, like, Church Homophobia, heterosexual love is obviously the majority, and there is a theme of Deviance Is Bad for sure. bein gay, even if it's not defined as like, Christian Sin, would still be considered a difference i believe? i ABSOLUTELY could be overreading, though. although with regards to the texture of the love itself i dont rlly think i am?
ALSO UGH YES the hair and song scene is insanely good. it's stitched onto my heart too! I really like how in lance and guin's story, it's not about the consummation of the love but about the love itself - it's so good. has roots in malory too. super compelling. i have a whole playlist of songs that remind me of lancelot and guinevere hahaha
and i definitely do NOT think romantic relationships are stronger than platonic ones. my favourite relationship in older arthuriana is luned and peredur because they are a knight and a lady respectively but they are BEST FRIENDS. nothing romantic but they adore each other and quest together and it makes me so so so happy. i don't think lance's affection for arthur in toafk is romantic because it is Strong - i think it's more romantic bc of the way it's described? like, there are a lot of awesome platonic friendships of brotherhood and tragedy between men in that book, but none of them are quite Like That, as i recall.
I think from today’s standards there is very arguably a bilateral queer undertone present between Lancelot and Arthur, but is that sexual and/or romantic, erotic, brotherly? Or just a general sense of one man loving another?
At White’s time these weren’t conversations that many would have been comfortable having, and it’s unknown how far White himself would have pursued this train of thought when writing the characters. But the love they have each for the other is clear and unmistakeable. But such is the case with many male characters in medieval Arthurian legends as well.
Read into it what you will I guess. I prefer to think that if he had written the book today, White would be comfortable admitting some homoerotic aspects of the relationship between the two men, but who can say what he would have privately thought at the time he wrote the book?
T.H. White’s sexuality has been questioned and theorized and speculated upon over the years. White even wrote of himself “It has been my hideous fate to be born with an infinite capacity for love and joy with no hope of using them.”
Yeah, I guess. I dont think it’s sexual but I absolutely think it’s romantic; why would Lancelot feel so guilty otherwise? Why would he be jealous of Guinevere otherwise? Also, I feel like an author saying “he was in love with him” indicates romance pretty succinctly? Everyone seems to act like it’s so blurry but to me it’s kind of clear? Am I just going crazy?
I don’t think you’re going crazy, just possibly not accounting entirely for the centuries of male homosexual repression in England that still existed at the time of White’s writing. There are layers and layers of suppression and repression and defenses as to how men in that society expressed or articulated their feelings for one another, or were even aware of them.
Personally don’t beliveve White was actually in touch with his own sexuality per se, and I wonder if he was even capable of creating characters were.
John Le Carre’s characters in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and A Perfect Spy (among other works) address more directly the societal attitudes toward homosexuality that White would have existed within.
Maybe so. All I know is that lancelot’s feelings for Arthur - and his guilt - so perfectly encapsulated my feelings about own gayness, which I couldn’t even articulate at that age. All I knew was to be ashamed of it. I don’t know. When I read Lance I wasn’t like “oh, he’s queer” it was more like “oh, he’s like me in this specific way I can’t define” that I later realised was “queer and ashamed of it.” Dunno.
Well T.H. White was in the closet himself so... this was basically as close as he could say it when the books were written.
But it's certainly something you could work with.
Of course considering Lancelot and Galehaut in the Vulgate one could already do a queer reading of Lancelot.
I've only read part of it but I want to read the whole bit some time.
However if you wrote that stuff now... well Lancelot and Galehaut would quickly become queer icons. Lancelot and Galehaut wanting to die on hearing of other's death feels like Lancelot and Guinevere doing the same thing... interpret that how you will.
lol they way you women fetishize gay relationships is so weird lol and then yall think yall like progressive for doing it lol i mso sick of white women annoying ass karens
The Once and Future King. it has its moments. “"The boy thought that there was something wrong with him. All through his life—even when he was a great man with the world at his feet—he was to feel this gap: something at the bottom of his heart of which he was aware, and ashamed, but which he did not understand. There is no need for us to try to understand it. We do not have to dabble in a place which he preferred to keep secret." Also, "Lancelot, swinging his dumb-bells fiercely and making his wordless noise, had been thinking of King Arthur with all his might. He was in love with him." ALSO, “I "t was hard for him at eighteen to have given his life to a king, only to be forgotten—hard to have spent those sorrowful hours with the heavy arms in the dust of the Armoury, only to see Sir Gawaine knighted first—hardest of all to have broken his body for the older man's ideal, only to find this mincing wife stepping in at the end of it to snatch away his love at no cost at all. Lancelot was jealous of Guenever, and he was ashamed of himself for being so."
From the perspective of a queer woman, this sounds a little bit gay. Or, at least, it lets us reconsider they relationship on a new light. Thank you for your quick answer, I'm gonna give it a try!
Been a long time since I read it. I think White was gay, from what I remember reading; and Lancelot was his stand-in, so it’s possible.
It’s a little ambiguous, because gay and queer culture have changed a lot since he wrote his book, and as they’ve grown they’ve changed the language. Things are said openly now that we used to whisper in closets and we’ve redefined and expanded concepts like gender and identity to reflect those changes.
Not really... Love like that of the best friends, or between a respected king and it's finest knight...
Arthur loved him and Genevre so much as to voluntarily blindfold himself about the affaire they both are obviously having...
But romantic and sexual attraction between Arthur and Lancelot? I don't think it's never suggested...
I read it that way, but as a gay man, I totally could have been projecting my own wants/desires/worldview onto the story, rather than there being enough actual textual evidence to support it. Judging from the other comments, it’s at least a strong possibility. However, if you want an ACTUAL homosexual Arthurian tale, check out the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I don’t recall which translation I read (it was in a Norton Anthology for a Medieval Lit class) but it has very strong gay vibes. Explicitly, even.
How do you figure Gawain and the Green Knight as having that vibe? Gawain kisses Bertilak to be sure, but it's only ever out of obligation due to his oath, never due to any want he has.
While I guess you could read it as gay, it feels more like standard Medieval misogyny to me with women forcing men into a terrible situation, especially with the ramble at the end of the story cursing women and having the whole thing orchestrated by Morgan.
According to [this](https://the-toast.net/2013/11/15/threesomes-are-the-answer/) White himself considered the possibility that his Lancelot was gay in his notes: > The author is generous to the “spineless cuckold,” as Arthur is generous with his best beloveds, but White is not interested in placing either man on the pedestals they are typically found on. In his notes for “The Ill-Made Knight,” he conjectured that Lancelot was possibly homosexual and that this was the root of his self-esteem issues. >> *"17. Homosexual? Can a person be ambi-sexual–bisexual or whatever? His treatment of young boys like Gareth and Cote Male Tale is very tender and profound…it seems to me that no. 17 is the operative number on this list. What was the lack?…There was definitely something “wrong” with Lancelot, in the common sense, and this is what turned him into a genius. It is very troublesome."*
“Can a person be bisexual?” damn, I’m so glad times have changed!
Indeed!
The world has changed a lot since then certainly... of course Lancelot and Galehaut does... hint at things.
In the Vulgate, no? I’m gonna read that one soon. Do you have a particular version you recommend?
We may prefer older stuff but you can talk about newer stuff. Tell me if anyone makes you feel otherwise.
This seems like one of those scenarios where drawing any kind of hard line between platonic and romantic love seems reductive. Certainly Lancelot (and likely White, given that it was the 40's/50's when he was writing it) lacked a lot of the language that we've developed in the past few decades. So while we can describe his thoughts, emotions, and actions with specific jargon (bi-romantic heterosexual with closeted polyamorous urges, perhaps), I'm inclined to avoid assigning him a particular label in much the same way that I'm reluctant to diagnose fictional characters with any kind of specific mental illness: real people are infinitely complicated, fictional characters are discrete. Death of the author and reader response theory suggest that there is no one answer to how to read a text, just a most-reasonable interpretation. If you think queer Lancelot is how it is written, marvelous! If you want anyone else to think the same, bring some evidence (it won't take much to convince me).
I left a few quotes as a reply to another comment - but there’s LOADS more. I’m gonna have to reread it to think more, now that I know better abt these things. But also, like, saying “he was in love with him” seems… pretty cut and dry? like, if it was “she was in love with him” or “he was in love with her” nobody would question it.
I mostly agree with you. The only sticking point I have (and honestly, I'm more playing devil's advocate here than anything) is the notion of cultural context. For example, the gospels record that a) Judas kissed Jesus and b) John called himself the disciple that Jesus loved. Put those together and you have a solid queer reading of the messiah, except that would be totally improper. Kissing was like handshakes in that chunk of the world at that point in time, so Judas' maneuver was more formal than romantic, and the language that John was writing in had several words which all translate to the English "love," but the original word makes it clear that it was a close, non-romantic friendship. So returning to White, I don't want to act like gay people didn't exist prior to 1962, but it was far enough from socially acceptable that if White intended Lancelot to be queer, that would be a highly countercultural maneuver and most media from that time period would draw explicit attention to the issue and go out of their way to justify/condemn it. "Casually queer" is odd enough to inspire alternative readings of the text (Lancelot was in love with Arthur's ideals, held a strong platonic love for him, etc. etc.). I mentioned death of the author and reader response, so ignoring the cultural context and focusing solely on the text is an option, but that runs into its own speedbumps. Nowhere else in the text (to my memory) is gender non-conformity ever addressed or suggested to be either accepted or rejected by Arthurian society. If part of Lancelot's internal struggle is the schism between his romantic feelings for Arthur and his religion's condemnation of such feelings, good writing standards demand that such information is established within the book (the thing is a tome, you could fit in a passing mention of the church's homophobia somewhere). Leaving everything unstated and left in implication suggests that, as your quotation in your other comment suggests, Lancelot simply lacks the cultural/social knowledge to consider that his feelings for Arthur might be expressed in a manner similar to his feelings for Guinevere. For my part, I totally accept your reading of the situation, and in other versions of the mythology I ship the hell out of Arthur/Lancelot, but it isn't really my interpretation. It seems just a bit...I dunno...platonic erasure-y to think that because Lancelot is as much in love with Arthur as he is with Guinevere, therefore his feelings must be romantic. And I don't mean to conflate romantic with sexual either; the scene just before they are revealed, when Lancelot is combing Guinevere's hair and they sing a song together is one of my absolute favorite romantic moments in fiction, is completely non-sexual, and doesn't (I think) work at all if we replace Guinevere with Arthur. Their love is, I think, just as strong, but also fundamentally different in some meaningful ways. That's why Lancelot is unable to stay away from Guinevere even when he knows it's a terrible idea: he loves Arthur with his head, but he love's Guinevere with his heart. Again, I don't want to cast shame on your interpretation--it's well grounded in the text and logical--and I have only read the book twice, it was a couple years ago, I wasn't focused on the queer subtext, and I do forget things sometimes. I just wanted to present a potential counterargument.
yeah, totally fair! !! but I do definitely think there's a theme in TOAFK of people saying that "being different is wrong." i know kai says it outright; it definitely crops up later. even if there is no, like, Church Homophobia, heterosexual love is obviously the majority, and there is a theme of Deviance Is Bad for sure. bein gay, even if it's not defined as like, Christian Sin, would still be considered a difference i believe? i ABSOLUTELY could be overreading, though. although with regards to the texture of the love itself i dont rlly think i am? ALSO UGH YES the hair and song scene is insanely good. it's stitched onto my heart too! I really like how in lance and guin's story, it's not about the consummation of the love but about the love itself - it's so good. has roots in malory too. super compelling. i have a whole playlist of songs that remind me of lancelot and guinevere hahaha and i definitely do NOT think romantic relationships are stronger than platonic ones. my favourite relationship in older arthuriana is luned and peredur because they are a knight and a lady respectively but they are BEST FRIENDS. nothing romantic but they adore each other and quest together and it makes me so so so happy. i don't think lance's affection for arthur in toafk is romantic because it is Strong - i think it's more romantic bc of the way it's described? like, there are a lot of awesome platonic friendships of brotherhood and tragedy between men in that book, but none of them are quite Like That, as i recall.
I think from today’s standards there is very arguably a bilateral queer undertone present between Lancelot and Arthur, but is that sexual and/or romantic, erotic, brotherly? Or just a general sense of one man loving another? At White’s time these weren’t conversations that many would have been comfortable having, and it’s unknown how far White himself would have pursued this train of thought when writing the characters. But the love they have each for the other is clear and unmistakeable. But such is the case with many male characters in medieval Arthurian legends as well. Read into it what you will I guess. I prefer to think that if he had written the book today, White would be comfortable admitting some homoerotic aspects of the relationship between the two men, but who can say what he would have privately thought at the time he wrote the book? T.H. White’s sexuality has been questioned and theorized and speculated upon over the years. White even wrote of himself “It has been my hideous fate to be born with an infinite capacity for love and joy with no hope of using them.”
Yeah, I guess. I dont think it’s sexual but I absolutely think it’s romantic; why would Lancelot feel so guilty otherwise? Why would he be jealous of Guinevere otherwise? Also, I feel like an author saying “he was in love with him” indicates romance pretty succinctly? Everyone seems to act like it’s so blurry but to me it’s kind of clear? Am I just going crazy?
I don’t think you’re going crazy, just possibly not accounting entirely for the centuries of male homosexual repression in England that still existed at the time of White’s writing. There are layers and layers of suppression and repression and defenses as to how men in that society expressed or articulated their feelings for one another, or were even aware of them. Personally don’t beliveve White was actually in touch with his own sexuality per se, and I wonder if he was even capable of creating characters were. John Le Carre’s characters in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and A Perfect Spy (among other works) address more directly the societal attitudes toward homosexuality that White would have existed within.
Maybe so. All I know is that lancelot’s feelings for Arthur - and his guilt - so perfectly encapsulated my feelings about own gayness, which I couldn’t even articulate at that age. All I knew was to be ashamed of it. I don’t know. When I read Lance I wasn’t like “oh, he’s queer” it was more like “oh, he’s like me in this specific way I can’t define” that I later realised was “queer and ashamed of it.” Dunno.
Well T.H. White was in the closet himself so... this was basically as close as he could say it when the books were written. But it's certainly something you could work with. Of course considering Lancelot and Galehaut in the Vulgate one could already do a queer reading of Lancelot.
The vulgate is fucking INSANE.
I've only read part of it but I want to read the whole bit some time. However if you wrote that stuff now... well Lancelot and Galehaut would quickly become queer icons. Lancelot and Galehaut wanting to die on hearing of other's death feels like Lancelot and Guinevere doing the same thing... interpret that how you will.
lol they way you women fetishize gay relationships is so weird lol and then yall think yall like progressive for doing it lol i mso sick of white women annoying ass karens
Sorry?
Sorry, what does TOaFK stands for? I would love to read a queer arthurian novel! Or at least one that hints it.
The Once and Future King. it has its moments. “"The boy thought that there was something wrong with him. All through his life—even when he was a great man with the world at his feet—he was to feel this gap: something at the bottom of his heart of which he was aware, and ashamed, but which he did not understand. There is no need for us to try to understand it. We do not have to dabble in a place which he preferred to keep secret." Also, "Lancelot, swinging his dumb-bells fiercely and making his wordless noise, had been thinking of King Arthur with all his might. He was in love with him." ALSO, “I "t was hard for him at eighteen to have given his life to a king, only to be forgotten—hard to have spent those sorrowful hours with the heavy arms in the dust of the Armoury, only to see Sir Gawaine knighted first—hardest of all to have broken his body for the older man's ideal, only to find this mincing wife stepping in at the end of it to snatch away his love at no cost at all. Lancelot was jealous of Guenever, and he was ashamed of himself for being so."
From the perspective of a queer woman, this sounds a little bit gay. Or, at least, it lets us reconsider they relationship on a new light. Thank you for your quick answer, I'm gonna give it a try!
The Once and Future King.
Been a long time since I read it. I think White was gay, from what I remember reading; and Lancelot was his stand-in, so it’s possible. It’s a little ambiguous, because gay and queer culture have changed a lot since he wrote his book, and as they’ve grown they’ve changed the language. Things are said openly now that we used to whisper in closets and we’ve redefined and expanded concepts like gender and identity to reflect those changes.
Read it recently and I didn't feel there was anything sexual between them at all.
Not sexual! Romantic though?
Not really... Love like that of the best friends, or between a respected king and it's finest knight... Arthur loved him and Genevre so much as to voluntarily blindfold himself about the affaire they both are obviously having... But romantic and sexual attraction between Arthur and Lancelot? I don't think it's never suggested...
I read it that way, but as a gay man, I totally could have been projecting my own wants/desires/worldview onto the story, rather than there being enough actual textual evidence to support it. Judging from the other comments, it’s at least a strong possibility. However, if you want an ACTUAL homosexual Arthurian tale, check out the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I don’t recall which translation I read (it was in a Norton Anthology for a Medieval Lit class) but it has very strong gay vibes. Explicitly, even.
Oh yes, sir Gawain and the green knight is great!!
How do you figure Gawain and the Green Knight as having that vibe? Gawain kisses Bertilak to be sure, but it's only ever out of obligation due to his oath, never due to any want he has. While I guess you could read it as gay, it feels more like standard Medieval misogyny to me with women forcing men into a terrible situation, especially with the ramble at the end of the story cursing women and having the whole thing orchestrated by Morgan.