William Morris was known to be energetic, versatile, and industrious for he accomplished many projects throughout his career. He was a popular and prolific Victorian poet and translator of Northern mythology. As an artist-craftsman he invented and revived lost techniques for printing, and for creating textiles, embroidery and stained glass. By opening his own textile factory, he became a successful entrepreneur in the decorating and manufacturing business. During the last two decades of his life he became an ardent Socialist, giving hundreds of lectures on the topic throughout Britain. Despite various ventures, Morris had a lasting enthusiasm for medievalism and Arthuriana.

Morris's interest in the Arthurian legends first became apparent while he was a student at Oxford, from 1853-1855. At this time Arthuriana had been popularized by Tennyson and Southey's edition of Malory's Morte d'Arthur. One of Morris's favorite poems to read aloud dramatically to Edward Burne-Jones was Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott." By this time Tennyson had also published "Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere," "Morte d'Arthur," and "Sir Galahad." Burne-Jones and Morris expanded their reading circle when, in 1855, they joined a literary brotherhood called the Set. In September of 1855 Morris and Burne-Jones bought a copy of Robert Southey's 1817 version of Malory's Morte d'Arthur. This Southey edition was popular among the Pre-Raphaelites; Rossetti declared in 1857 that the world's two greatest books were The Bible and Morte d'Arthur.

Malory's version of Guinevere

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William Morris was known to be energetic, versatile, and industrious for he accomplished many projects throughout his career. He was a popular and prolific Victorian poet and translator of Northern mythology. As an artist-craftsman he invented and revived lost techniques for printing, and for creating textiles, embroidery and stained glass. By opening his own textile factory, he became a successful entrepreneur in the decorating and manufacturing business. During the last two decades of his life he became an ardent Socialist, giving hundreds of lectures on the topic throughout Britain. Despite various ventures, Morris had a lasting enthusiasm for medievalism and Arthuriana.

Morris's interest in the Arthurian legends first became apparent while he was a student at Oxford, from 1853-1855. At this time Arthuriana had been popularized by Tennyson and Southey's edition of Malory's Morte d'Arthur. One of Morris's favorite poems to read aloud dramatically to Edward Burne-Jones was Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott." By this time Tennyson had also published "Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere," "Morte d'Arthur," and "Sir Galahad." Burne-Jones and Morris expanded their reading circle when, in 1855, they joined a literary brotherhood called the Set. In September of 1855 Morris and Burne-Jones bought a copy of Robert Southey's 1817 version of Malory's Morte d'Arthur. This Southey edition was popular among the Pre-Raphaelites; Rossetti declared in 1857 that the world's two greatest books were The Bible and Morte d'Arthur.

Malory's version of Guinevere heavily influenced Morris's later versions of Arthurian legends. Malory has a more ambivalent Guinevere character than does Tennyson. Although she is guilty, she challenges judgment. During 1855 Morris began writing Arthurian poetry; representative of this period are his unfinished poems "Palomyde's Quest" and "St. Agne's Convent". In 1856 the Set decided to publish a magazine called The Oxford and Cambridge Review which Morris funded and to which he contributed prose tales and the Arthurian poem "The Chapel of Lyoness."

In 1857 Morris met and began working with Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Rossetti hired Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, and a handful of other men to paint mural scenes from the Morte d'Arthur on the walls and ceiling of the Oxford Union. Morris worked on "How Sir Palomydes loved Lady Belle Iseult" for this project. Earlier in the summer, in preparation for the mural, he had made several sketches of Tristram and Iseult; one was jokingly entitled "Sudden Indisposition of Sir Tristram in the Garden of King Mark's Palace, recognisable as collywobbles by the pile of gooseberry skins beside him, remains of unripe gooseberries devoured by him while he was waiting for Yseult." Although Coventry Patmore described the mural project as "so brilliant as to make the walls look like the margin of a highly-illuminated manuscript" this vibrant appearance changed within months. The paintings were soon distorted and eventually destroyed by damp walls and gas lighting. Shortly following the mural fiasco Jane Burden, Morris's soon-to-be wife, modeled for his painting "La Belle Iseult," also known as "Queen Guenevere." (At one time many people mistook the subject of this painting to be Guenevere, but the hound sleeping on the bed identifies her as Iseult.)

In March of 1858 Morris published his volume of Arthurian poetry, The Defence of Guenevere, containing about thirty poems including: "A Good Knight in Prison," "Near Avalon," and "Sir Galahad: A Christmas Mystery." His Arthurian poetry focuses generally on love triangles, moral dilemmas, emotional crises, treachery, violence, and the defeat of love. Morris viewed his poetry as resembling Robert Browning's since many of his poems are dramatic narratives. For example, the "Defence of Guenevere" is a monologue in which Guenevere admits her guilt as well as discusses the difficulties of moral decisions and delays until Lancelot comes to rescue her. She illustrates moral choice with the metaphor of colored banners, "One of these cloths is heaven, and one is hell/ Now choose one cloth for ever, which they be,/ I will not tell you, you must somehow tell." Remaining consistent with the unsettled quality of her speech throughout the poem, the ending is left unresolved. Paired with the "Defence of Guenevere" is "King Arthur's Tomb" in which the dramatic, final meeting between Lancelot and Guenevere occurs. Guenevere, rather than delivering a calm, rational speech about her choice to become a nun becomes mad, "They bite: bite me, Lord God! I shall go mad!/ Or else die kissing him, he is so pale,/ He thinks me mad already, O bad! bad!" In response, Lancelot swoons and Guenevere leaves him.

After mixed reviews of the Defence of Guenevere Morris did not publish poetry for another eight years. One critic from the Saturday Review called the book "all cold, artificial, and angular." Mrs. Gaskell more kindly described the poems as "made for quiet places." Later Morris's poetry would be embraced by the Imagists; for example, Ezra Pound read aloud various poems from the volume to his love Hilda. In 1929 when William Butler Yeats met with Pound he read The Defence of Guenevere "with great wonder." Initially Morris intended to use The Defence of Guenevere as a step towards an epic on King Arthur and the Round Table; he was most likely discouraged by current reception of his poetry and the 1859 edition of Tennyson's Idylls of the King.

In 1859 Jane and he married and began plans for their first home, the Red House. The style of the entire house was medieval and certain designs were Arthurian. A striking example of this is a panel in the drawing room titled "Sir Lancelot Brings Sir Tristram and La Belle Iseult to the Castle of Joyous Gard."

During the 1860's Morris's textile company, "Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co," was commissioned both by churches and the public to create various stained glass windows. In 1862 Morris worked on thirteen panels of glass narrating Malory's version of Tristram and Isoud for the entrance hall of Walter Dunlap's home, Harden Grange. As with his poetry, the theme of the stained glass panels reveals a preoccupation with love triangles. In the last window Morris portrayed himself as King Mark.

From 1891 to 1894 the Firm was working on the Merton Abbey tapestries which represent six stories from the Quest of the San Graal beginning with "The Knights of the Round Table summoned to the Quest by a Strange Damsel" and ending with "The Attainment." Morris planned late in his life to publish his own edition of Malory's Morte d'Arthur with over a hundred illustrations by Burne-Jones, but this version was never produced. His Kelmscott Press had great influence on small presses and fine printing presses both in England and in America.

Biography written by: Anne Zanzucchi
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