There was an interval of slightly more than nine years between the publication of William Morris's
The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems(1858) and
The Life and Death of Jason(1867), his second. The two books contrast greatly. The first is a collection of short and medium length poems, whose subjects are drawn from the Arthurian legends of the Middle Ages and the chronicles of the late medieval writer Jean Froissart. They are heavily influenced by Robert Browning and also the Pre-Raphaelite painters and writers with whom Morris was in close contact at this time. The best of the poems in the earlier volume function like miniatures in a medieval manuscript: they are short and vivid. But with
The Life and Death of Jason, Morris turns away from the Middle Ages, preferring to render the…
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Citation: Boenig, Robert. "The Life and Death of Jason". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 July 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=361, accessed 22 November 2024.]
