<p>William Morris has for many years now been considered a minor figure in Victorian literature. His poetry, which enjoyed immense popularity in the nineteenth century, has become unfashionable, and his prose writings, which have never been popular except with a few poets seem very widely underestimated in academic circles~ even where they are read at all. On the other hand, his fabrics and wall-paper designs have never been more popular, and he is still quite well-known as a political figure, with the result that these aspects have dominated most writing on him since the Second World War, while his literary work has been largely ignored, or only treated by critics in other fields who have not felt themselves qualified to appraise his work in this area on any scale.</p> <p>This lack of concern for Morris's literary work, and particularly for his prose romances, which have been most unjustly neglected, has come about chiefly through two factors: the changes in taste which have caused twentieth century critics to be chiefly interested in lyric poetry and in the novel, instead of in narrative poetry and in the prose romance; and the resulting ignorance about the conventions of these genres which have led them to judge Morris's work by inappropriate norms. That Morris's work is relevant to the twentieth century is shown by the new non-academic revival of interest in his prose romances, and it seemed that the time had come when a serious attempt should be made to understand just what Morris was trying to do in his poetry and prose, and how far he succeeded.</p> <p>This thesis attempts therefore to distinguish a line of development in Morris's aesthetic theory, working from his writings on art and on literature, to analyse that development, and to apply it to his literary work. The thesis thus falls into five parts: a section which deals with critical attitudes to Morris and the break-down of suitable critical terminology for judging his work which has brought about his present low status; two sections setting out Morris's aesthetic theory in design-work and literature; and two sections in which this theory is related to his literary achievements in the earlier and the later work. This means that the thesis considers at least briefly most of Morris's literary production, but main areas of concentration are on the early prose tales, The Earthly Paradise, and the late prose romances. The resulting picture of Morris's theory and practice shows how his thought and art, modified by the needs of his political ideals, developed from his early naive work in design and literature towards a much more sophisticated art, which can be read on a number of levels, in which his wide knowledge of myth and legend and his own symbol-system taken from the world of nature blend in equal parts.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

[pt] Esta dissertação tem por objetivo investigar a teoria da revolução socialista de William Morris. Nascido em 1834, Morris produziu muitos trabalhos até o ano de 1896, quando morreu com 62 anos. O recorte temporal sob o qual se assenta minha pesquisa está compreendido entre os anos de 1883 e 1890, quando o autor filiou-se a uma organização revolucionária e decidiu dedicar os seus textos à transformação da sociedade inglesa oitocentista. As fontes que nos permitem visualizar a sua teoria apresentam-se em dois discursos diferentes: o panfletário e o ficcional. Em relação ao primeiro, Morris valeu-se de jornais vinculados às organizações revolucionárias para intervir nos debates públicos ingleses e, em meio a essa intervenção, construiu a sua teoria da revolução. Em 1890 a sua teoria estava completa, mas apareceu sob outra roupagem: atravessando o romance utópico Notícias de lugar nenhum. Diante do que foi exposto, é imperativo para esta dissertação compreender os discursos mobilizados pelo cidadão inglês para demonstrar qual foi o papel que eles exerceram nas suas intervenções políticas. Para alcançar esse objetivo, alguns conceitos se fazem importantes, como, por exemplo, o conceito de propaganda porque permitem que as fontes analisadas sejam compreendidas como um meio de atuar na realidade política da Inglaterra vitoriana. / [en] This dissertation aims to investigate the theory of socialist revolution of William Morris. Born in 1834, he produced many works until 1896, when he died at the age of 62. The time frame on which my research is based is between the years 1883 and 1890, when the author joined a revolutionary organization and decided to dedicate his texts to the transformation of the nineteenth century s English society. The sources that allow us to visualize his theory are presented in two different discourses: the pamphleteer and the fictional. Regarding the first, Morris used newspapers linked to revolutionary organizations to act in English public debates and, in the midst of this intervention, built his theory of revolution. In 1890 his theory was complete, but appeared under another guise: traversing the utopian novel News from Nowhere. Based on what was exposed, it is imperative for this dissertation to understand the discourses mobilized by the English citizen to demonstrate what role they played in their political interventions. To achieve this goal, some concepts are important, such as the concept of propaganda because they allow the sources analyzed to be understood as a means of acting in the political reality of Victorian England.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2001. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-82).

The output of the diploma thesis is a functional prototype of a recliner chair 1:1. In the first part of the text, the author deals with history of seating furniture with emphasis on Morris type chairs. The next part includes contemporary ergonomic and anthropometric requirement, after which the author follows with safety issues and applicable standards. In the practical part, she describes the design and production of the relaxing chair. This text is accompanied by numerous illustrations and photos taken during the prototyping for easier orientation and understanding of the author´s proceedings.

This thesis focuses on the formal and stylistic analysis and comparison of two works written by English authors, namely William Morris' poem The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs (1876) and J. R. R. Tolkien's poetic work The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún (published posthumously in 2009) with respect to how each of these works deals with the original Old Norse motives which they are based on. Both Sigurd the Volsung and The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún can be described as poetic adaptations of the Old Norse tale of Sigurd Fafnisbani, which is recounted in the Saga of the Volsungs and in a cycle of poems found in the Poetic Edda. Both Morris and Tolkien borrowed this story to use it in their own works, yet each of them treats it in a different manner. Therefore, not only do both of the works differ from the original Old Norse texts on multiple levels, but they also differ one from another. The differences between them can be traced in the metrical properties of the individual poems, for instance, or in the use of specific stylistic elements. From this, it can be inferred that although it was the goal of both authors to evoke the atmosphere of the legendary heroic past where Sigurd's story takes place, each of them attempts to do so in a different way. This is probably caused by...

widely held "from romantic to revolutionary" hypothesis and presents Morris as a "revolutionary" Victorian who has never fell out with the ideas of Romanticism. Together cultural Victorian discourse as well as the ideas of his "teachers" - - Morris's "teachers", and the third chapter focuses on the interpretation of and Morris's utopianism. The interrelated areas of "Nowherian" space (3.2), work and history (3.4) help establish the nature of Morris's visual utopianism on the background of Ernst Bloch's theory of utopia and alongside the

This essay explores the correlation between the design of stemware and the production of artistically produced glassware at the Swedish glassworks Orrefors, between the years of 1960 and 1990. The aim of this investigation is to see in what way the artistic glass has influenced the design of the stemware. Furthermore, the essay discusses in what way this change in design can be due to factors like competition with cheaper stemware from IKEA, the aesthetic trends of different decades and the economic situations of the glassworks. This essay also investigates in what way this change in design and aesthetics correlates to a change in pricing of the exclusive stemware produced at Orrefors. These subjects have been investigated using both a qualitative and a quantitative method, with the aim of understanding their correlations. The result of this study has shown that the artistically produced glassware has had a noticeable impact on the design of stemware, particularly from the mid 70´s and onwards. This is concluded to be due to a combination of factors, such as the ones stated above.

William Morris’s Kelmscott Press was founded specifically for the purpose of producing handmade printed works in a rapidly industrializing age. The techniques he and his confederates employed to make the Kelmscott books resulted in beautiful publications with remarkable material fortitude, as exemplified in the Press’s masterwork, “The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer Now Newly Imprinted”. This thesis examines the condition of the copy of the Kelmscott Chaucer in the Scripps rare book collection from a book conservator’s perspective to analyze the connection between William Morris’s personal philosophies, his resulting artistic decisions, and the longevity of the book as an art object.

My dissertation, Pen and Printing-Block: William Morris and the Resurrection of Medieval Paratextuality, considers William Morris’s influence on the rise of paratextual awareness, his negotiation strategies for Victorian England’s social identity, and his rhetorical construction of an idealized past through textual artifacts. The effect of Morris’s growing social awareness on his transition from illumination to print is reframed by considering his calligraphy as paratextual experiments, based on medieval examples, in combining graphic and discursive meanings with rhetorical and social dimensions. The varied and less ambitious agendas of those printers who followed Morris’s Kelmscott Press, however, limited Morris’s legacy in the book arts. The full significance of his illuminations’ meaningful interplay between text and image, and the social intent of these innovations applications in print, has received little critical attention. The opening chapter frames Morris’s visual work in light of his philosophies and introduces the major concerns of material art, the role of history, the limits of language, and the question of meaningful labour. The second chapter surveys select predecessors of Morris’s developing conception of the Gothic, the significance of architecture as its defining form, and the irreplaceability of the physical past. The third chapter considers the role of the illuminated manuscript in Pre-Raphaelite art, tracing Morris’s calligraphic experiments chronologically while identifying medieval inspirations and examining his artistic development. These experiments led to his final collaborative manuscript, the illuminated Æneid which is the fourth chapter’s focus. The sophistication of its paratextual elements is discussed in light of its unique physicality and limitations. The fifth chapter asserts the Kelmscott Press’s role in balancing craftsmanship and aesthetic paratextual strategies with reproducible models. The Kelmscott Chaucer is the culmination of these strategies, and it is compared to the visual rhetoric of its predecessors. The final chapter compares the philosophies and calligraphic elements of major private presses that followed Kelmscott’s legacy. This evolution of aesthetic, social, and practical considerations is also identified in the work of selected Canadian printers, and a final note considers the implications of the rise of immaterial digital text (radiant textuality) for the continuation of material paratextuality’s role in the future.

My dissertation, Pen and Printing-Block: William Morris and the Resurrection of Medieval Paratextuality, considers William Morris’s influence on the rise of paratextual awareness, his negotiation strategies for Victorian England’s social identity, and his rhetorical construction of an idealized past through textual artifacts. The effect of Morris’s growing social awareness on his transition from illumination to print is reframed by considering his calligraphy as paratextual experiments, based on medieval examples, in combining graphic and discursive meanings with rhetorical and social dimensions. The varied and less ambitious agendas of those printers who followed Morris’s Kelmscott Press, however, limited Morris’s legacy in the book arts. The full significance of his illuminations’ meaningful interplay between text and image, and the social intent of these innovations applications in print, has received little critical attention. The opening chapter frames Morris’s visual work in light of his philosophies and introduces the major concerns of material art, the role of history, the limits of language, and the question of meaningful labour. The second chapter surveys select predecessors of Morris’s developing conception of the Gothic, the significance of architecture as its defining form, and the irreplaceability of the physical past. The third chapter considers the role of the illuminated manuscript in Pre-Raphaelite art, tracing Morris’s calligraphic experiments chronologically while identifying medieval inspirations and examining his artistic development. These experiments led to his final collaborative manuscript, the illuminated Æneid which is the fourth chapter’s focus. The sophistication of its paratextual elements is discussed in light of its unique physicality and limitations. The fifth chapter asserts the Kelmscott Press’s role in balancing craftsmanship and aesthetic paratextual strategies with reproducible models. The Kelmscott Chaucer is the culmination of these strategies, and it is compared to the visual rhetoric of its predecessors. The final chapter compares the philosophies and calligraphic elements of major private presses that followed Kelmscott’s legacy. This evolution of aesthetic, social, and practical considerations is also identified in the work of selected Canadian printers, and a final note considers the implications of the rise of immaterial digital text (radiant textuality) for the continuation of material paratextuality’s role in the future.