A STUDY OF THE MAJOR PROSE ROMANCES OF WILLIAM MORRIS by Thomas David Drescher B.A., University of Wisconsin, 1969 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of English @ THOMAS DAVID DRESCHER SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY July 1972 APPROVAL Name: Thomas Drescher Degree: Master of Arts Title of Thesis: William Morris' Major Prose Romances Examining Committee: Chairman : Dr. S .A. Black I - Edgar F . Harden Senior Supervisor Robin Blaser Rob ert Dunham -f I Charles Hamilton Associate Professor Department of History Simon Fraser University ABSTRACT William Morris ' late prose romances can be regarded as the culminative development of themes and narrative structures apparent in his early prose tales. Of these early works, the "Hollow Land" is the most complex. It is a dream-vision narrated both by the dreamer and the major character of his dream. The hero-narrator passes through a purgatorial dream- realm in order to free himself from the burden of guilt gathered in worldly conflicts. After this purgative experience, he is united with his mystical Love and enters the realm of eternal peace. The narrator's concern is that this dream be realized in life so that men may live in harmony with one another. The dream is secondary to its relationship to human society. A similar emphasis on social action is found in "A Dream" and "Li ndenborg Pool ,'I both of which are dream-narrati ves. "Gertha's Lovers," wri tten from a detached narrative perspective, urges above all else heroic social action for the benefit of the Folk. The House --of the Wolfings and -The Roots --of the Mountains are transitional works. Each concerns a Folk threatened by a foe whose evil assumes metaphysical dimensions while the hero and heroine assume god-1 i ke statures. The major developments in these works are the appearance of a hero in a war-god aspect and his necessary unity with the beauty of the earth. Once ii i the hero is united with the beauty of the earth, those powers of materialism which would thwart Nature can be destroyed, and with their apocalyptic destruction the fertility of the Folk is er,s~i-2". This structure is intimately related to Morris' aesthetic, which, taking Nature as its standard, equates beauty with harmony and ugliness with disharmony. Morris called for the destruction of luxury and tyranny so that Art might return to humanity as "popular art," an art "made by the people for the people as a joy for the maker and the user." He stressed that the state of society depends upon the state of the imagination, which can become fertile only if ugliness is destroyed. He believed that ugliness arose from those forces of nineteenth- century commerci a1 ism which sacrificed natural beauty and individual creativi ty to the efficiency of the machine. The fullest expression of this aesthetic appears in -The Story --of the Glittering Plain, and especi a1 ly in --The Wood beyond the World, ----The Well at the World's End, and The Water --of the Wondrous Isles. The three latter works contain the pattern of Witch, Maid, and Wise-woman, while The Glittering Plain expresses the same themes but does not partake fully of this pattern. Within the Witch, Maid, and Wise-woman complex, the Witch corresponds to forces out of harmony with Nature which enthrall beauty; the Maid corresponds to the beauty of earth, or art, forshe is the inspirer of the creative imagination; the Wise-woman corresponds to forces in harmony with ati ire that liberate beauty. The hero's quest leads him through dream- like realrns beyond the Norld to unity with beauty, so that his becomes the creative imagination. The hero--a god-1 i ke warrior-- becomes a unity of the passive and active principles of creative vision and the strength to make that vision manifest. Hence, the hero becomes the artist-warrior whose service to humanity destroys all forces seeking to enslave beauty. In effect, Morris ' arti st-warrior a1 lows the free expression of beauty in the world, thus fulfilling Morrist dream of the re- birth of popular art. DedicaXed Xo my wide Lynn ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the inestimable help and support given me by Dr. Edgar F. Harden in the formation of this thesis. I would also like to acknowledge my inspirational debt to Dr. Barton Friedman of the University of Wisconsin. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page INTRODUCTION ...................... 1 I. THE LATE ROMANCES ................ 8 11. THE EARLY PROSE. ................ 47 111. THE TRANSITIONAL WORKS ............. 85 IV. THE STORY --OF THE GLITTERING PLAIN ........ V. --THE WOOD BEYOND THE WORLD ............ 148 VI. ----THE WELL AT THE WORLD'S END ........... 174 POSTSCRIPT. ................ LISTOF WORKS CONSULTED ................ 242 viii INTRODUCTION The reader of this study of William Morris' prose romances will find it rather limited in its orientation. He might even regard its creator as one whose nose was so caught between the pages of his subject matter, that he found himself unable to look around, behind, or ahead at anything save that which was before his very eyes. I must confess that such an impression of myself would be a fairly accurate one. However, this confession is intended not to be an admission of guilt but of necessity. I will try to explain myself. i i ! My discussion concerns itself almost entirely with the I i prose romances as they stand by themselves, that is, in their ! own self-defined context. There emerges from out of this context a basic pattern of character relationships and narrative struc- ture of which each individual work partakes in varying degrees. Central to this pattern is the relationship of Witch, Maiden, and Wise-woman, and the journey of the hero and heroine through realms of the Imagination. It has been my method to establish the correspondences of Witch, Maiden, and Wise-woman as they are expressed within the romances themselves. Thus, it can be said, for instance, that the Witch attempts always to thwart and corrupt the Maiden, that the Maiden always wears green and is beautiful, and that the Wise-woman always frees the Maiden from her servitude to the Witch. Once these general chiracter- 2 istics are discovered, they can be equated with dominant prin- ciples of Morris' aesthetic as expressed in his lectures on art. When it is known that Morris regards that which is out of harmony with and attempts to thwart Nature as ugly, and that which is harmonious with Nature as beautiful, it becomes plausible to say that the Witch corresponds to a type of destructive power, the Maiden to beauty, and the Wise-woman to a creative power. Hopefully, the advantage of such an approach begins to make itself apparent. Morris ' 1 ectures were enti rely re1 ated to contemporary affairs, to revolution within the arts and the existing social system, for he felt strongly that the state of society was greatly dependent upon the state of man's imagina- tion, influenced as it is by the type of art surrounding it. The connection between Morris ' theories on art an society on the one hand, and the general pattern of his prose romances on the other, makes it possible to view the latter as an expression of something far other than escapist fantasies. This brings me to the reason behind the inward orien- tation of my discussion. Much of my time has been spent in establishing the existence of certain patterns in the prose romances and their connection with. Morris ' aesthetic. I believe, however, that such labor was entirely necessary for what I will presume to call a better understanding of the prose romances, for these works have traditionally been dealt with in an incredibly careless fashion. One critic dismisses them in contemptuous tones for their lack of contemporary ! 3 relevance,' another writes: "Morris could not have arrived at his opinions or at his dreatrls without the corpus of communist theory on which he worked. The opinions he expresses about life through the medium of his romances are those which he worked out in the course of his apprenticeship to socialism and ~arxism;"' and a third assumes a Jungian stance3 which in its subjectivity fails to ascertain the social relevance of the romances. The result of such criticisms has been either the utter dismissal of the romances or the attempt to impose upon them preconceived systems of thought to which they simply do not conform. This is like putting a sane man in a strait- jacket: it completely misrepresents Morris and his works. A discussion of the tales contributed by Morris to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine some thirty years before News from Nowhere was published demonstrates the fallacy of the belief that his concern with the state of society can be dated from the time of his acquaintance with Marxism. At the same time, a knowledge of the later romances makes one wary of seeking mysticism in the early tales. Morris' later heroes develop into artist-warrior figures who fulfil 1 themselves i n service to their fellow men, and they become artist-warriors largely as the result of their journeys through realms of the Imagination. Yet, even in the early work, "The Hollow Land," the narrator relates a dream-experience which he associates with the need for an end to foolish conflicts among men, originating as they do in pridefulness. One might also note that as a dream- 4 narrative, the tale employs the same form as that of the more "relevant" works: -A Dream ---of John Ball and --News from Nowhere, The relationship between Morris' prose and his aesthetic defines itself more and more in The House --of the Wolfings and -The Roots --of the Mountains.