Symbol Analysis
Guenevere keeps coming back to her undeniable beauty as her main point of defense. How does that work? Is it like when celebrities get caught breaking the law and their central excuse is, "Whatever, I'm famous! And hot!"? Not really – Guenevere's beauty seems to be doing something a little more complicated in this poem. From a modern reader's point of view, Guenevere comes off as incredibly vain. But back in the day, people conflated truth and beauty.
- Line 56: The narrator sure seems impressed by Guenevere's beauty, even if the knights at the trial are not.
- Line 109: Guenevere seems to be using a metaphor here, perhaps comparing "beauty" to some kind of drug or liquor that makes her "half mad."
- Lines 230-231: Another metaphor here as she says that her "words go up" her beautiful throat "in ripples."
- Line 240: Guenevere is using synecdoche (when a part of something stands in for the whole thing) when she says that her "face" is not lying. Obviously she means that she herself is not lying, but she says that there is "no lie" in her "face" to emphasize that her beauty is part of what makes her innocent.