Coming out of my fourth year, I really didn’t expect to develop a fictional crush on the Green Knight from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Green Knight’s Body is hot and huge, and the poet of this anonymous romance wants every reader to know it. The Green Knight bursts into the hall with a body that “from broad neck to buttocks [is] so bulky and thick" and with "loins and...legs so long and so great.” His effictio spans many stanzas, and his size and appearance are remarked between many other lines. The author notes he is “meriest in his muckel that might ever ride.” Translated, he is the most handsome in his “muchness.” I love this idea of "muchness" being his key attribute, and he certainly fills this role with his personality as well. The Green Knight has more appeal to me than any Gawain story ever did (okay maybe Dev Patel in the film adaptation, but the literature is different), much less any Arthurian knight in general.
Just as the imposing Green Knight brings Arthur's court his "muchness" to gaze on and invite, our writers certainly brought their own engaging “muchness” to our “body” issue.
Andi Sink offers an intriguing guide to dressing one's body in, "A Fat Person’s Guide to Building an Eclectic Wardrobe."
In "Going with Your Flow," Sadie Randall interviews PERIOD president Amber Peake about the accessibility to menstrual products across Grounds and within the Charlottesville community. Riya details the trauma that comes with being socialized as a woman growing up in "The Collective Trauma of Womanhood."
Last, but certainly not least, Chloe Lyda weaves us through the process of breathing in stressful times with the poem "Two Breaths, Hold."
