William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary

To chronicle the life of William Morris, his biographer, E.P. Thompson, purposely reminds the reader that the English Romantic period in literature strongly influenced Morris, from his childhood on. Tracing the steps of Morris' formal education, he documents how Morris was deeply affected by his studies of medieval art and literature and deeply influenced by the writings of both Carlyle and Ruskin, influences that had repercussions for the direction of Morris's artistic and political life. Thompson worked from a treasure trove of material: letters, public documents, articles about William Morris, and, of course, the vast collection of literary works and political articles and speeches that Morris published. He shows Morris as being at odds with Victorian sensibilities, both as an artist and political reformer, all tempered to some degree, by his illusory yearning for an ideal love, a yearning that doomed any hope of true happiness in his marriage to Jane Burden but made him an ardent reformer striving to bring about more equality for his fellow man. Thompson chronicles specific incidents, such as Morris infamous arrest under false charges, with reams of details and viewpoints. This technique, while thorough, does not make for easy or quick reading. This biography is heavily weighted toward Morris's activities as a socialist reformer, and at times Thompson's commentary on Morris's literary output seems unduly colored by these socialist beliefs. This argument may be valid, as Thompson notes about Morris: "He looked upon the history of arts, not---as did many of his contemporaries---as the record of individual geniuses, each "inspired" and each influencing each other, but as part of wider social processes." Likewise, he quotes Morris as saying "I never set up for a critic," by which me means that art is a "solace," an expression of "pleasure," thus, in some measure, confirming that Morris trivialized both the creative process and the role of art in society. There is, in my view, not enough balanced information on the myriad contributions Morris made to literature---especially The Wood beyond the World, The Well at the World's End, and The Water of the Wondrous Isles---and other novels he wrote during the final decade of his life. Those works are worth more scrutiny, if for no other reason, because they clearly and firmly are the seminal works in what is now the genre of fantasy, in which Tolkien, deservedly so, reigns supreme. Yet without Morris, who was the first to combine elements from classical epic and medieval romance with conventions of the novel, this genre may not have taken form until much later. I would also have expected more about the magnificent work from the Kelmscott Press, especially the much-revered Kelmscott Chaucer (if you are a book-lover, you owe it to yourself to see if a library near you has a facsimile) instead of a detailed footnote citing the various works of other experts. More could have been done with the vast