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The Prose Romances of William Morris

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The Prose Romances of William Morris View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Sydney eScholarship INVENTING FANTASY: The Prose Romances of William Morris Lilla Julia Smee A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English University of Sydney 2007 Abstract This thesis sheds light on Morris’s thematic concerns and narrative strategies in five of his little-studied prose romances: The Story of the Glittering Plain, The Wood Beyond the World, The Well at the World’s End, The Water of the Wondrous Isles and The Sundering Flood. The thesis argues that these romances can be read as significant texts in the development of the modern fantasy genre. The thesis aims to re-orient scholarly discussion of the prose romances in the context of fantasy literature. Chapter 1, ‘Inventing Fantasy’, locates the prose romances within the social and cultural context of their production. It discusses the nature of the contemporary reception of the prose romances, and analyses how modern criticism has begun to re-value the prose romances as significant works within the modern fantasy genre. The chapter then identifies the main critical issues in fantasy scholarship. Finally, the chapter sets out the critical methodology for the rest of the thesis. Chapter 2, ‘Inventing Place’, investigates the way Morris constructed his invented worlds. It identifies two points of reference for Morris’s ‘landscape of the mind’: one, his experience of real landscapes, particularly those of England and Iceland; and two, his Romantic imagination and desire to re-birth the romantic landscapes of medieval literature. The chapter utilises pastoral discourse, and its attendant i rhetoric, in its close reading of the texts. It develops a critical foundation for the rest of the thesis by indicating the essential connection between the construction of place and the way in which the hero operates as part of the invented world. Chapter 3, ‘Inventing the Quest-Hero’, investigates the construction of the male hero and the quest within the invented world. It uses as its point of departure the conventional hero-myth pattern as established by Joseph Campbell and other structuralists. The chapter demonstrates how Morris departs from the conventional male-heroic paradigm in two key ways: first, through the creation of strong female characters and second, through the type of conclusion he gives to the heroes’ quests. The chapter demonstrates the way the quests are related to the hero’s separation from the world of the familiar, to the hero’s interaction with the forces of nature, and to the hero’s relationship with women. The chapter pays particular attention to the role of the Maid in Walter’s quest in The Wood Beyond the World, and argues that Morris was working towards the creation of a new type of female hero. Chapter 4, ‘Inventing the Female Quest-Hero,’ examines the construction of Birdalone in The Water of the Wondrous Isles as Morris’s unique female hero, reading her narrative through a feminist revisioning of the male hero-myth, and with reference to the established discourses of the pastoral. Chapter 5, ‘Conclusion’, summarises the main points of the thesis, and suggests some ways forward for critical scholarship of the prose romances. ii Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the contribution of a few special people who have seen me through this entire endeavour. First, my supervisor Dr. Diane Speed for her unwavering confidence in me, for her wise words in times of crisis, and for always going above and beyond the call. Second, my associate supervisor Alex Jones, for his enthusiasm for all things Morris. Third, my amazing friend Dr. Kim Selling, for her inspiration and friendship. Last, but by no means least, my parents, for always being there for me. iii Contents Abstract i Acknowledgements iii Chapter 1: Inventing Fantasy 1 The Prose Romances 4 Reception: The Prose Romances Diminished 11 Re-evaluation: The Prose Romances Recovered 18 Critical Issues 27 The Way Forward 38 Chapter 2: Inventing Place 45 Critical Issues 46 Iceland and England 53 Nature 60 The City 69 Mapping The Sundering Flood 75 The Rejection of Arcadia 85 Conclusion 88 Chapter 3: Inventing the Quest-Hero 90 The Morrisian Hero 96 Critical Issues 100 The Quest-Heroes 113 Crossing the Threshold 121 The Liminal Hero 128 Incorporation 147 Conclusion 159 Chapter 4: Inventing the Female Quest-Hero 163 Morris’s ‘New Woman’ and the Fantasy Tradition 168 Critical Issues 177 Birdalone in the Green World 192 Enclosure in the Patriarchy 206 Return to the Green World 224 Incorporation 229 Conclusion 232 Chapter 5: Conclusion 235 Bibliography 239 Works by William Morris 239 Other Sources 241 iv Chapter 1 Inventing Fantasy This thesis will investigate the work of William Morris: the inventor of fantasy. The title of this thesis, and of this section – ‘Inventing Fantasy’ – draws deliberately upon the medieval rhetorical meaning of ‘invention’. In medieval rhetoric inventio referred to the system for justifying and ordering an idea. It relates to the manner in which a writer ‘discovers’ or ‘finds’ new ideas, or subject matter, or develops different ways of expressing these. The word ‘inventing’ underlines the achievement of William Morris in creating a new literary genre through original assimilation and synthesis of a number of pre-existing literary, historical and social paradigms and the construction of entirely imagined realms of fantasy.1 At the time of titling this thesis, I was unaware of the importance of invention to J. R. R. Tolkien’s theory of fantasy, as expressed in his well-known essay ‘On Fairy-Stories’. Tolkien identifies three factors that help to identify the ‘origin’ of a story: invention, inheritance, and diffusion. Of these, Tolkien asserts that invention is ‘the most important and fundamental.’2 It seemed to me even more appropriate then, in light of this, to call the thesis ‘Inventing Fantasy’. 1 Jane Chance has used the same concept to describe the achievement of J. R. R. Tolkien in her ‘Introduction’ in Jane Chance, ed., Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2004, 4. 2 J. R. R. Tolkien, ‘On Fairy-Stories’ in Tree and Leaf. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1964: 11-70 (24). I will return to Tolkien’s concept of invention later in the chapter, in the section entitled ‘Critical Issues.’ 1 This chapter will introduce the texts under consideration, beginning with an examination of their cultural context and their production. The chapter will then move to consider the contemporary critical reception of the prose romances, noting the critical neglect of these works. A review of modern criticism follows. In the final sections, the chapter will identify some possible reasons for the marginalisation of Morris’s prose romances to date, and suggests a new way forward in terms of critical re-orientation of the works. The development of the modern fantasy genre – with its particular conception of a secondary world, offers the key this critical re- orientation, as the thesis will demonstrate. Out of longing for a simpler time in an age of technological and industrial advancement, and with fantastic vision and a passion for the past, William Morris (1834-1896), author, poet, designer, socialist, wrote a series of prose romances at the end of his life that can be read as a commentary on Victorian medievalism. With these romances, Morris also incidentally laid the foundations for the modern genre of fantasy, thus carrying the reach of Victorian medievalism into new centuries. The prose romances – The Story of the Glittering Plain, The Wood Beyond the World, The Well at the World’s End, The Water of the Wondrous Isles and The Sundering Flood – are the least explored yet the most fascinating of Morris’s extended prose fictions. Morris’ prose romances were the first modern stories to be set in wholly invented lands (a criterion which is one of the defining aspects of modern fantasy literature). Morris deliberately reinterpreted many aspects of Middle Ages in order to present an image of society that would engage readers on a level of wonder, and, 2 perhaps inadvertently, would also transmit some of Morris’ fundamental concerns and hopes for society. The choices he made in creating his quasi-medieval otherworlds occasionally reflected the more idealised images of the Middle Ages rather than the reality of them, but they were utilized to create a sense of otherness, to endow his imaginary worlds with recognizable yet alienating images. Guided by the structure and style of medieval romance, and informed by knowledge of medieval history, literature and a particular interest in the Norse sagas, Morris wrote tales of young heroes questing through strange and magical lands, searching for love and happiness. Even in his early days, this love of fairytale days-gone-by was in evidence: as a young boy, he would dress up in his child-size armour and ride his pony through Epping Forest, near his home.3 As he grew older, he continued to foster this fascination for the past, and it defined many aspects of his life. One of the main structuring forces behind the prose romances originates from Morris’ concerns about the rise of industrial capitalism in his own time, which prompted him to envision a pre-technological world inspired by the Middle Ages. Morris’s medievalist aestheticism valued the art, literature and society of the Middle Ages, and stood as the antithesis of the Industrial Revolution. The romances stand as an expression of Romantic pastoral medievalism, exploring the desires to reconnect with nature, the past, and a simpler mode of being following the ordered social structures evidenced in earlier ages.
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