© 2009 The Author Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Literature Compass 6 (2009): 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00640.x L I C O 640 Operator: Wu Huizhen Dispatch: 02.04.09 PE: Andrew Davidson Journal Name Manuscript No. Proofreader: Liu HongRong No. of Pages: 12 Copy-editor: Christine Tsai 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Oxford, UK LICO Literature Compass 1741-4113 1741-4113 © 2009 The Author Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 640 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00640.x March 2009 0 1??? 12??? Medieval SHORT TITLE RUNNING HEAD: Old English Literature and Same-Sex Desire AUTHORS RUNNING HEAD: Old English Literature and Same-Sex Desire Old English Literature and Same-Sex Desire: An Overview David Clark* University of Leicester Abstract The study of same-sex desire in the medieval period has been heavily influenced by the work of John Boswell and Michel Foucault, and the debate between essentialism and social constructionism. The year 1990 was a watershed year for queer theory, with the publication of influential work by Sedgwick and Butler. However, work on medieval gender and sexuality has often ignored Old English literature and research in Old English studies has sometimes suffered from an emphasis on the heteronormative. Allen Frantzen’s book, Before the Closet, put same-sex desire in Old English literature on the map, and subsequent and current research draws productively on the insights of gender and queer theory. More work remains to be done in applying more recent queer theoretical writings to an early medieval context, and in researching the representations of female same-sex interactions. Introduction Until relatively recently, the subject of same-sex desire has not seemed a promising one to Anglo-Saxonists, despite the evident fact that relationships between men are central to Old English literature, whether we think of the transcendent devotion unto death of the warriors in The Battle of Maldon and the passionate relationship of Christ and the Cross-turned- retainer in The Dream of the Rood, or of the Wanderer’s nostalgic recall of former times when he ‘embraced and kissed his liege lord, and on his knee laid hands and head’. However, the field has changed much since 1970, when in an article on The Wife’s Lament Bruce Mitchell bemoaned the ‘ingenious desperation of some present-day critics of OE literature’ and awaited ‘with confident horror an overtly homosexual interpretation of this poem’. (234). A more nuanced approach to same-sex interaction and the interpretive potential of sexuality studies prevails, and indeed some of the richest criticism in the field is coming from this area currently. Nevertheless, the seam is still eminently mineable and scholars working in this area in the later medieval period are yet to integrate the implications of Old English material fully into their own work. This overview article