The Defence of Guenevere Analysis

MeterIn "The Defence of Guenevere," William Morris borrows a form called "terza rima" most commonly associated with The Divine Comedy by the Renaissance Italian poet Dante. But don't worry – eve...

Although the first and last words of the poem are spoken by an unnamed, third-person narrator (like you'd find in a novel or a short story), most of the poem is spoken by Guenevere, the wife of the...

The main setting of the poem is a trial, but whether the trial is taking place in a courtroom, a throne room, a palace, or outdoors, is entirely up to our imagination. The narrator never tells us e...

If you closed your eyes and listened to this poem being read aloud, you could almost imagine that it's not a poem at all. The meter and rhyme scheme are very regular (check out the "Form and Meter...

First, we want to point out that "defence" is the British spelling of "defense," but since William Morris was a Brit, you should be careful to spell the word the way he did when you're referring to...

Like most of the Pre-Raphaelite poets and painters, William Morris uses a lot of vivid and colorful detail to describe the experience of all of the senses. Also like the other Pre-Raphaelites, Morr...

The story in this poem can be hard to follow for a few reasons: first of all, because Guenevere, the speaker, seems to want her story to be difficult to follow, so she uses a lot of confusing image...

Once the young William Morris managed to get "The Defence of Guenevere" and other Poems published in 1858, he burned all the handwritten manuscripts of it he could find.  This is a bummer for...

OK, so Guenevere is the hottest woman in the Arthurian world, and she's been accused of knocking boots with her husband's best friend, Launcelot. That sounds pretty steamy, but the sexiest scene i...

Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte D'Arthur. Although never mentioned by name in "The Defence of Guenevere," Malory's 15th-century romance about "the death of Arthur" is where Morris gets a lot of his mat...