The Defence of Guenevere - William Morris

This was the title poem of William Morris's most renowned collection, The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems, originally published in 1858. The Arthurian setting permitted Morris to discuss issues of love and sexual desire with a forthrightness uncommon in Victorian literature. Later Morris's poetry would be embraced by the Imagists; for example, in 1929 when William Butler Yeats met with Ezra Pound he read The Defence of Guenevere "with great wonder."\n Accused of adultery, a crime punishable by death, Queen Guenevere presents her defense in The Defence of Guenevere, a dramatic monologue in which Guenevere admits her guilt as well as discusses the difficulties of moral decisions, illustrating moral choice with the metaphor of colored banners:\n "One of these cloths is heaven, and one