School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 1 of 1
-
ItemWilliam Morris: illuminating a life( 2016)Drawing on biographical, literary and other sources pertaining to the life and work of nineteenth-century English writer and artist William Morris, this thesis examines and re-evaluates the importance of Morris's love for Georgiana Burne-Jones. Arguing the significance of this relationship for Morris’s personal, literary, artistic and political life, it underlines how a century of Morris biography and scholarship has misread – or failed to read – Morris’s deep romantic connection to Georgiana – the wife of his best friend – and hence the true nature of the deep personal sorrow evident in much of his life and work. In making this case, this thesis challenges in particular the lengthy scholarship that has focused on the relationship between Morris’s wife, Jane Morris, and the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Much confusion has arisen, I argue, because so many have attributed Morris’s deep sorrow to his wife’s love for another – rather than his own, largely unreciprocated, love, for the wife of his own best friend. I propose that Morris loved Georgiana Burne-Jones before either was married, and that she remained the principal love of his life. I find evidence of this in Morris’s poetry and personal correspondence and argue that, after their marriages, when their respective partners found love elsewhere, Morris turned to Georgiana to seek a return of his love for her. Georgiana became the focus of his poetry and the recipient of many tokens of love – including handcrafted gifts that should be read as ‘labours of love’. But this thesis extends its analysis beyond Morris’s personal writings and intimate relationships. I demonstrate that the social conditions and moral expectations that hindered free love between such people became the focus of Morris’s hatred, and awakened him to the status of women in society. Focusing in particular on the fragment of an unfinished novel never published in Morris’s lifetime, I draw connections between Morris’s personal sorrow and his attraction to social causes. Morris was drawn to socialism and alternative societies in the 1870s and 1880s, and the hope that future generations would not have their lives blighted by impersonal powers such as church and state. Thus I propose a radically different biographical interpretation of Morris’s inner life and motivation. Further, I highlight what I believe to be a gross misconception about Morris, based on inadequate understandings that have arisen in twentieth-century biographies. These studies assert that Morris had difficulty relating to women, and that this contributed to the failure of his marriage, and his inability or unwillingness to deal with the affair between his wife and Rossetti. On this basis, some assume that the relationship between Morris and Georgiana was close, but compensatory and chivalrous. I challenge this interpretation and demonstrate that, to the contrary, Morris was decisive in his dealings with his wife and Rossetti, and serious in his quest to win the love of Georgiana. Thus this thesis draws out a new and challenging autobiographical narrative of Morris’s life and love. To quote Morris, ‘love is enough’ to explain many key aspects of his life’s trajectory – but we have to illuminate that love and understand it afresh.