The Defence of Guenevere de William Morris : l’éloge de l’illusion et de la séduction à l’époque victorienne
The Defence of Guenevere by William Morris: the Eulogy of Illusion and Seduction in the Victorian Age

Summary/Abstract: “The Defence of Guenevere” was written in 1858 by William Morris and is a typical example of the Arthurian Revival that took place during the 19th century in British literature and art. This poem stages Queen Guenevere, and through her, a desired and desiring female body thwarted by the violence of the puritanical principles of the Victorian era. As a matter of fact, Guenevere has to face a court who accuses her of having an adulterous affair with Lancelot; yet, for the first time in artistic history, this trial offers Guenevere the opportunity to make herself heard, and her voice becomes the one of the sensual body. This noteworthy eulogy of the epidermic surface is coupled with a remarkable eulogy of the rhetorical surface of speech. “The Defence of Guenevere” celebrates the triumph of art leading the reader beyond the question of what is real or good, towards a revolutionary definition of woman’s sexual identity, of passion and of the role of poetry.

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