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MORRIS, WILLIAM (1834-1896)
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See also:MORRIS, See also: In See also:June 1852 he matriculated at See also:Exeter See also:College, See also:Oxford, but, as the college was full, he did not go into See also:residence till See also:January 1853. He at once made See also:friends, who stood him in good See also:stead all his life, foremost among whom were See also:Edward Burne-See also: In the summer of 1856 Street removed to London, and Morris accompanied him, working very hard both in and out of office See also:hours at architecture and See also:painting. But Rossetti persuaded him that he was better suited for a painter, and after a while he devoted himself exclusively to that See also:branch of art. It was in the summer that the two friends visited Oxford, and finding the new See also:Union debating-hall in course of construction, offered to paint the bays. Seven artists volunteered help, and the work was hastily begun. Morris worked with feverish See also:energy, and on See also:finishing the portion assigned to him proceeded to decorate the roof. The work was done too soon and too fast, the See also:colours began to fade at once, and are now barely decipherable; but the broken designs, so long as any vestige remains, will always be interesting as a relic of an important aesthetic movement and as the first attempt on Morris's See also:part towards decorative art (see RossETT1). Early in 1858 Morris published The See also:Defence of See also:Guenevere, which was almost unnoticed by contemporary See also:criticism, but is now recognized as one of the pearls of Victorian poetry. On 26th See also:April 1859 Morris married Jane See also:Burden, a beautiful Oxford girl, who had sat to him as a See also:model, and settled temporarily at 41 See also:Great See also:Ormond Street, London. Meanwhile he set about See also:building for himself at Upton a house which was to be the embodiment of all his principles of decorative art. See also:Furniture, decorations, See also:household utensils and every See also:article of daily use were specially designed, and in the summer of r86o the house was ready for occupation. The furnishing of it had suggested a fresh activity; Morris now determined to embark upon decoration as a career. A small See also:company was formed, consisting of D. G. Rossetti, See also: Morris now became See also:sole manager and proprietor, although the other members of the old firm continued, in varying degrees, to give him the See also:advantage of their assistance and See also:advice. Meanwhile the epic See also:mood had possessed Morris very strongly, and, in addition to his work upon the sagas, he had actually finished and (in 1875) published a See also:verse See also:translation of the Aeneid, which is interesting rather for its individuality than for any fidelity to the spirit of the See also:original. In the following year appeared See also:Sigurd the Volsung, a version iu11 of heroic vigour,movement and vitality, but somewhat too lengthy and incoherent in See also:design to preserve the epic See also:interest intact to the See also:British taste. This splendid burst of poetic activity, however, had raised him to a See also:place among the first poets of his time; and in 1877 an attempt was made to induce him to accept the See also:professor-See also:ship of poetry at Oxford. But he felt himself lacking in the See also:academic spirit, and wisely declined. At this time a fresh outlet for his energy was furnished by his See also:foundation in 1877 of the Society for the See also:Protection of See also:Ancient Buildings, which sprang into being as a See also:practical protest against a See also:scheme for restoring and reviving See also:Tewkesbury See also:Abbey. He began, too, to take an active interest in politics over the Eastern Question, but his enthusiasm was at the moment a flash in the See also:pan. Finding that events were going against his See also:judgment, Morris, as was so often the See also:case with him, shrugged his shoulders and See also:broke See also:free from the movement. Still, although he found it hard to sit close to a definite party, Morris continued to be spasmodically interested in See also:political movements. During the next few years, indeed, the interest gained ground with him steadily. He became treasurer of the See also:National Liberal See also:League in 1879, but after the Irish coercive See also:measures of 1881 he finally abandoned the Liberal party, and drifted further and further into See also:Socialism. For ten or twelve years this movement had been gaining ground in See also:England, and the Social Democratic Federation was formed in 1881. In January 1883, within a See also:week of his See also:election to an honorary fellowship at Exeter, Morris was enrolled among its members. Thenceforward for two years his advocacy of the cause of Social-ism absorbed not only his spare time, but the thought and energy of all his working hours. For it he even neglected literature and art. In March 1883 he gave an address at See also:Manchester on " Art, See also:Wealth and Riches "; in May he was elected upon the executive of the federation. In See also:September he wrote the first of his Chants for Socialists. About the same time he shocked the authorities by See also:pleading in University Hall for the wholesale support of Socialism among the undergraduates at Oxford. Nevertheless, the federation began to weaken. At the See also:franchise See also:meeting in See also:Hyde See also:Park in 1884 it was unable to get a See also:hearing. Morris, however, had not yet lost See also:heart. See also:Internal dissensions in 1884 led to the foundation of the Socialist League, and in See also:February 1885 a new See also:organ, Commonweal, began to See also:print Morris's splendid rallying-songs. Still, See also:differences of See also:opinion and degree prevented concerted See also:action; and when, after the See also:Trafalgar Square riots in February 1886, Morris remonstrated with the anarchic See also:section he was denounced by the advanced party and ever afterwards was regarded with suspicion. In 1889 he was deposed from the management of Commonweal, and gradually lost all confidence in the movement as an active force. Long before that time, however, Morris had returned to the See also:paramount interests of his life—to art and literature. When his business was enlarged in 1881 by the See also:establishment of a See also:tapestry See also:industry at Merton, in See also:Surrey, Morris found yet another means for expressing the medievalism that inspired all his work, whether on paper or at the See also:loom. In 1887 he published his translation of the Odyssey, which had many of the qualities and defects of his Aeneid, and is much more interesting as an experiment than valuable as a " Homeric See also:echo." In the Commonweal appeared See also:News from Nowhere, published in See also:book See also:form in 1891, describing an England in which the principles of See also:communism have been realized. He then added another to his many activities; he assumed a See also:direct interest in See also:typography. In the early seventies he had devoted much See also:attention to the arts of See also:illumination and calligraphy. He himself wrote several See also:manuscripts, with illuminations of his own devising. From this to attempts to beautify the art of See also:modern See also:printing was but a short step. The House of the Wolfings, printed in 1889 at the See also:Chiswick See also:Press, was the first See also:essay in this direction; and in the same year, in The Roots of the Mountains, he carried his theory a step further. Some fifteen months later he added a private printing-press to his multifarious occupations, and started upon the first See also:volume issued from the Kelmscott Press, his own Glittering See also:Plain. For the last few years of his life this new interest remained the absorbing one. A See also:series of exquisite books, which gain in value every year, witnesses to the thorough and whole-hearted See also:fashion in which he invariably threw himself into the exigencies of his life-work. The last years of his life were peacefully occupied. He was sounded as to whether he would accept the laureateship upon the death of Tennyson, but declined, feeling that his tastes and his See also:record were too remote from the requirements of a See also:court See also:appointment. His last piece of work, the crowning See also:glory of his printing-press, was the Kelmscott See also:Chaucer, which had taken nearly two years to print, and fully five to See also:plan and mature. It was finished in June 1896, and before it was in his hands he already . knew that his working day was over. His vigour had been slowly declining for some time, and he sank gradually during the autumn, dying on the 3rd of See also:October 1896. He was buried in Kelmscott See also:churchyard, followed to the See also:grave by the workmen whom he had inspired, the members of the league which he had supported, the students of the art gild he had founded, and the villagers who had learnt to love him. Essentially the child of the See also:Gothic revival, he had put an ineffaceable See also:stamp on Victorian See also:ornament and design, his place being that of a follower of Ruskin and See also:Pugin, but with a greater practical See also:influence than either. In house decoration of all kinds —furniture, See also:wall-papers and hangings (which he preferred to paper), See also:carpet-See also:weaving, and the painting of glass and tiles, See also:needlework, tapestry—he formed a school which was dominated by his protest against commercialism and his assertion of the See also:necessity for natural decoration and pure See also:colour, produced by See also:hand work and inspired by a See also:passion for beauty irrespective of cheapness or quickness of manufacture (see ARTS AND CRAFTS). The truest criticism of William Morris is that attributed to his friend, the poet See also:Swinburne, who said that he was always more truly inspired by literature than by life. His Socialism, though it made a brave show at times, was at heart a passionate enthusiasm for an inaccessible See also:artistic ideal. Morris, indeed, was not primarily interested in men at all, but in See also:objects. His poetry deals, it is true, with the human passions, but the emotion is always seen as in a picture; he is more concerned with the attitude of the group than with the realization of a See also:character. He had very little adaptability in dealing with his See also:fellows; the See also:crowd, as a crowd, fired his enthusiasm, but he was unable to See also:cope with the individuals that composed it. Many of his colleagues See also:bear See also:witness to his generosity and magnanimity, but as a See also:general principle he certainly lacked the wider humanity. This is the one failing of his art: it is also the shortcoming of his poetry. Granted this, there is See also:left an immense amount that will always command admiration. The spirit of beauty breathes in every See also:line; a sense of See also:music and of colour is everywhere abundant; the reader moves, as it were, under a See also:canopy of See also:apple-blossom, over a See also:flower-starred See also:turf, to the faint See also:harmony of virginals. Nor does the poet lack See also:power and vigour when an adventurous See also:story is to be told. The clash of arms breaks upon his See also:pagan paradise with no uncertain sound; he is See also:swift in narrative, breathless in escapade. And over all hangs the faint See also:atmosphere of medieval-ism, of an England of See also:green gardens and See also:grey towers, of a London " small and See also: An article on " William Morris and his Decorative Art," by See also:Lewis F. Day, appeared in the Contemporary See also:Review for June 1903. (A. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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