Description
In his short life, William Morris (1834-96) combined the roles of poet, author, painter, designer, translator, lecturer, political activist, journalist, weaver, bookmaker, and businessman. This volume draws together influential voices from different disciplines who have participated in the recent critical, political, and curatorial revival of his work, with essays exploring the contemporary resonance of his exceptional legacy. As a critic of capitalism, his thinking has thrived in these years of financial crisis; as a theorist of work and craftsmanship, his legacy interacts with a more recent ethics of making that questions the values of 'off-shored' production; and as a protector of landscape and buildings Morris's concern with what is precious strikes a chord in our age of environmental crisis. At the same time, a careful and scholarly approach observes the particularity of Morris's context, in a way that confounds the 'false friends' of hasty historical reception and reveals unexpected connections.
Table of Contents
Part I. Senses of Place: Introduction Marcus Waithe; 1. Oxford Tony Pinkney; 2. Red House Tessa Wild; 3. The Thames Basin Clive Wilmer; Part II. Authorship: 5. Experimental medievalism: The Defence of Guenevere and other Poems (1858) Martin Dubois; 6. Troubling the heroic ideal: Morris's midlife poetry Florence Boos; 7. Skaldic Morris: Translations from Old Norse Heather O'Donoghue; 8. '[T]he whole man': Morris's public lectures Simon Grimble; 9. Northern epic: Sigurd the Volsung (1876) Herbert Tucker; 10. Utopian fiction: News from Nowhere (1890; 1891) Matthew Beaumont; 11. Morris's prose romances and the origins of fantasy Anna Vaninskaya; Part III. The Practical Arts: 12. Morris & Company: The poet as decorator Elizabeth Helsinger; 13. Pattern: Textiles and wallpaper Caroline Arscott; 14. Technologies of the book: Revisiting the Kelmscott Press Marcus Waithe; Part IV. Movements and Causes: 15. Practical socialism: Newspaper and propaganda work Ingrid Hanson; 16. Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement Mary Greensted; 17. Female fellowship: Morris, feminism and the New Woman Zoë Thomas; 18. Landscape and environment Elizabeth Carolyn Miller; Part V. Influences and Legacies: 19. Morris and John Ruskin Stuart Eagles; 20. Morris and Marxism Ruth Levitas; 21. William Morris's 'Medieval Modern' afterlives Michael T. Saler; 22. Morris in the twenty-first century Sara Atwood.
