William Morris
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If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
—From a lecture entitled “The Beauty of Life” (1882).
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William Morris (1834-1896) was an English designer, artist, writer and socialist.
He is perhaps best known today for his design work: he was a major contributor the revival of traditional textile arts and a major influence on the Arts and Crafts movement.
Horrified by the ugliness and soullessness of nineteenth-century industrial capitalism, Morris became a committed socialist. He was a leading figure in the Socialist League (along with Karl Marx’s daughter Eleanor), and he believed his art, which valued beauty, craftsmanship and nature over mass-production and consumerism, to be an extension of this.
A prolific poet and prose author, his best know written work is News from Nowhere (1890), a utopian novel depicting the idyllic agrarian society he hoped would be created following a socialist revolution. His pseudo-medieval fantasies, such as The Wood Beyond the World (1894) and The Well at the World’s End (1896) were a key influence on both JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis.
Oh, and he also set up a printing press, translated several Icelandic sagas and founded the movement to protect historic buildings in Britain.
He is, however, not to be confused with the talent agency of the same name.
- Arcadia: In News from Nowhere, this is his vision of a future following a socialist revolution. Often feature in his medievalist romances too.
- Author Appeal: The Middle Ages, Northern Sagas and nature motifs feature frequently in his work.
- Author Avatar: The narrator of News from Nowhere is clearly this.
- Author Tract: News from Nowhere is really just a means for Morris to describe his vision of a socialist utopia.
- The Dung Ages: Averted hard. Morris adored the Middle Ages, or rather a romanticised version, which he contrasted with the dirty, ugly cities of Victorian England.
- Fish Out of Temporal Water: The narrator of News from Nowhere.
- Hero's Journey: The plot of The Wood Beyond the World.
- The Lost Woods: The Wood Beyond the World, of course.
- Romanticism Versus Enlightenment: Romanticism. Oh so very much.
- Take That: News from Nowhere was written as a riposte to Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, a similarly structured Author Tract about a possible socialist future, but one which Morris hated for its utilitarian drabness.
- Time Travel: The framing device used in News from Nowhere, as the narrator falls asleep and wakes up in a utopian socialist future. The Dream of John Ball involves time travel to the peasant’s revolt of 1381.
- World Building: As noted above, his medieval romances were a model for both JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis.
- Ye Goode Olde Days: Morris liked to paint an idealized image of the Middle Ages.
- Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Morris was fond of using pseudo-medieval English, which can make some of his works a little difficult for modern readers.