ABSTRACT
The answer is not that these Pre-Raphaelites were more liberal and liberated than most Victorian men, for, in the mid1850's, when they first encountered Guinevere and her sisters, they fully shared the social and sexual mores of their culture. M orris and Burne-Jones had contem plated H igh Church priesthood and were exploring the form ation of a m onastic brotherhood with Sir Galahad as its moral model. Rossetti was im m ersed in Dante and his ideal of spiritual love and not uninterested in Roman Catholic practice. Even Swinburne, still in adolescence, was more conventional than he would later be.
