William Morris: Illuminating a Life Susan Jennifer Mooney (Student Number 2594454) Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2016 School of Historical and Philosophical Studies University of Melbourne Produced on archival quality paper Abstract 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. Declaration This thesis comprises my own work, and due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used. The thesis is fewer than 100,000 words in length, exclusive of text accompanying tables and illustrations and the bibliography. Statement of Previous Work The material presented in this thesis comprises original writing that has not been submitted towards another degree or for publication elsewhere. Nevertheless, some research and my thinking on this topic was conducted in the course of undertaking the following earlier research and writing projects, some of which have been published: Mooney, Susan. ‘“Her Lips were Parted Longingly”: William Morris’s Defence of the Passionate Woman’. Unpublished Honours thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree BA (Hons), Department of English, University of Melbourne, 2006. Mooney, Susan. ‘Biographical Gleanings, 1865-1875’, The Journal of the William Morris Society, vol. 8, no. 3, Autumn 1989, pp. 2–12. Mooney, Sue. ‘Self-Revelation in Morris's Unfinished Novel’, The Journal of the William Morris Society, vol. 10, no. 2, Spring 1993, pp. 2–9. Mooney, Susan. ‘“She and He”: Morris or Cockerell?’, The Journal of the William Morris Society, vol. 13, no. 2, Spring 1999, pp. 64–68. Mooney, Susan. ‘“Not only a genius, he was a man”: William Morris and Manliness’, Eras, no. 15, March 2014; available online at http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/eras/ Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii List of Illustrations iii Introduction: William Morris: Illuminating a Life 1 Chapter 1 Sacred Brotherhood and Sacred Love: Oxford and ‘The Set’ 17 Chapter 2 Gueneveres and Magdalens: Young Artists and Young Women 47 Chapter 3 Three Marriages 74 Chapter 4 Go to Her Poor Rhymes and Speak the Words I Cannot Say 101 Chapter 5 Love is Enough: the Illuminated Heart 127 Chapter 6 From Knowledge and Vivid Recollection: Autobiography in The Novel on Blue Paper 151 Chapter 7 All is Gained When All is Lost: the Great Story of the North 173 Chapter 8 Looking Forward: News from Nowhere 195 Chapter 9 Deliberate Happiness: Prose Romances and The Sundering Flood 208 Conclusion 223 Bibliography 230 i Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors, Associate Professor Sara Wills and and Dr Grace Moore of the University of Melbourne, for their advice, knowledge, assistance, patience and encouragement. I would also like to acknowledge the work of the many Morris scholars and biographers whose diligence and scholarship has provided the material that helped make this work possible. ii List of Illustrations Fig. 1 Photograph of William Morris (1857) 4 William Morris Gallery, London, Borough of Waltham Forest Fig. 2 Photograph of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1853) 4 By Henry Mark Anthony Fig. 3 Dyfrig Morris as William Morris (2009) 4 From BBC Television Drama, Desperate Romantics Fig. 4 Aiden Turner as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (2009) 4 BBC Television Drama, Desperate Romantics Fig. 5 Frontispiece to A Book of Verse (1870) 12 By William Morris; © Victoria and Albert Museum, London Fig. 6 Extract from A Book of Verse (1870) 12 By William Morris; © Victoria and Albert Museum, London Fig. 7 Photograph of Georgiana Macdonald (1856) 34 From Ina Taylor, Victorian Sisters (1987) Fig. 8 April Love (1856) 35 By Arthur Hughes, Tait Britain, London Fig. 9 Page from Golden Guendolen (1856) 37 By William Morris, Sotheby Catalogue (1993) Fig. 10 Sketch for panel in the Oxford Union Debating Hall (1857) 53 By William Morris; from Ann Dean, Burne-Jones and William Morris in Oxford (1991) Fig. 11 ‘Morris Presenting Miss Burden with a Ring’ (1857) 84 By Dante Gabriel Rossetti; Birmingham Art Gallery and Museum, Birmingham Fig. 12 ‘Dante Gabriel Rossetti bringing cushions to Jane Morris’ (1868-70) 91 By Edward Burne-Jones; Birmingham City Art Gallery and Museum, Birmingham Fig. 13 ‘The M’s at Ems’ (1869) 97 By Dante Gabriel Rossetti; British Museum Collection, London Fig. 14 Georgiana Burne-Jones (1870) 116 By Edward Poynter Fig. 15 Photograph of Jane Morris (1865) 116 By John R. Parsons with Dante Gabriel Rossetti; National Portrait Gallery, London Fig. 16 Pages from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1872) 131 By William Morris; © The British Library Board, London, add. 37832, f.llv-12 Fig. 17 Pages from A Book of Verse (1870) 132 By William Morris; © Victoria and Albert Museum, London iii Fig. 18 Drawing of Georgiana Burne-Jones (1860) 154 By Dante Gabriel Rossetti Fig. 19 Morris reading to Edward Burne-Jones (1856) 156 By Edward Burne-Jones; © Victoria and Albert Museum, London Fig. 20 Edward looking at Georgie in a chair (1856) 157 By Edward Burne-Jones; from Ina Taylor Victorian Sisters (1987) Fig. 21 Past and Present (1858) 165 By Augustus Egg; Tait Britain, London Fig. 22 Doodles drawn at a Socialist League meeting (1886) 194 By William Morris; from William S. Peterson, The Kelmscott Press (1991) iv v Introduction William Morris: Illuminating a Life Stop, though! are you sure that she loves you as you love her? Nay, do not be indignant – find out without blinding yourself how the matter goes; and if you find she does not – then – why then, still strive with all your might to get her, to be with her – if not for many years, yet for a year; if not for a year, for a month; if not for a month, for a week – for a day, for an hour, a minute – do anything, stoop to any humiliation, tell any lie, commit any treachery – but do not die, as – as some people must, with your love barren and unsatisfied, when you can make it otherwise. Do not hesitate on the score of her happiness. If you feel real love, you must know that you really think the whole world exists only to minister to your passion. O, think of the happiness, if you can feel this and be satisfied. Yes! even without any return, it is happiness. It is worth passing through all the pain that clings about it – and if you do not feel this, you are not in love, and the desire you have will pass away into something else – into friendship, or into disgust, or hatred – how should I know or care which? What does it matter? All is either love or not love.