The Cambridge companion to William Morris / edited by Marcus Waithe.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Waithe, Marcus, editor.

Series:

Cambridge companions to literature.

Cambridge companions to authors

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Morris, William, 1834-1896.

Morris, William.

Morris, William, 1834-1896--Criticism and interpretation.

Morris, William, 1834-1896--Political and social views.

Morris, William, 1834-1896--Homes and haunts.

Art and literature--England.

Art and literature.

Arts and crafts movement.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxvii, 323 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom : Cambridge University Press, 2024.

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Introduction / Marcus Waithe

Part I. Senses of place. Oxford / Tony Pinkney

Red House / Tessa Wild

Kelmscott Manor / Julia Griffin

The Thames Basin / Clive Wilmer

Part II. Authorship. Experimental medievalism : the defence of Guenevere and other poems (1858) / Martin Dubois

Troubling the heroic ideal : Morris's midlife poetry / Florence Boos

Skaldic Morris : translations from Old Norse / Heather O'Donoghue

'[T]he whole man' : Morris's public lectures / Simon Grimble

Northern epic : Sigurd the Volsung (1876) / Herbert Tucker

Utopian fiction : News from nowhere (1890; 1891) / Matthew Beaumont

Morris's prose romances and the origins of fantasy / Anna Vaninskaya

Part III. The practical arts. Morris & Company : the poet as decorator / Elizabeth Helsinger

Pattern : textiles and wallpaper / Caroline Arscott

Technologies of the book : revisiting the Kelmscott Press / Marcus Waithe

Part IV. Movements and causes. Practical socialism : newspaper and propaganda work / Ingrid Hanson

Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement / Mary Greensted

Female fellowship : Morris, feminism and the new woman / Zoë Thomas

Landscape and environment / Elizabeth Carolyn Miller

Part V. Influences and legacies. Morris and John Ruskin / Stuart Eagles

Morris and Marxism / Ruth Levitas

William Morris's 'medieval modern' afterlives / Michael T. Saler

Morris in the twenty-first century / Sara Atwood.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 03 May 2024).

ISBN:

9781108944694

1108944698

9781108945455

1108945457

9781108939942

1108939945