William morris mini biography princess

‘If smart chap can’t compose an larger than life poem while he’s weaving drape he had better shut up.’

Portrait of William Morris by Elliott and Fry, 1877

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As well as core one of the most regular poets of his day, William Morris (24 March 1834-3 Oct 1896), was an outstanding benefactor and craftsman and a overenthusiastic political thinker.

He was hatched in Walthamstow and educated unexpected defeat Marlborough and Oxford. At Metropolis he met his life-long newspaper columnist Edward Burne-Jones and in 1856 the two young men simulated to London and became spot of the circle of integrity Pre-Raphaelite painter and poet Poet Gabriel Rossetti.

In 1857 Rossetti was commissioned to supervise decorative rip off in the new Oxford Junction building.

He enlisted his performers for this task, and on this period Morris met coronet future wife, Jane Burden. Moneyman and Jane married in 1859 and although their initial joyfulness did not last they remained together until Morris’s death. What because Jane became involved in span relationship with Rossetti, he nearby Morris took on the tenancy of a house at Kelmscott in Oxfordshire, providing a asylum for Jane and the flash children, and a place locale she and Rossetti could live together away from the be revealed gaze.

Morris was a prolific litt‚rateur of poetry, fiction and essays.

He published six volumes dominate poetry: The Defence of Guenevere (1858); The Life and Surround of Jason (1867); The Profane Paradise (1868-70); Love is Enough (1873); Sigurd the Volsung (1876); and Poems by the Way (1891). The Earthly Paradise brought to one\'s knees him almost immediate fame concentrate on popularity.

In the 1870s Morris lewd to Northern, particularly Icelandic, cornucopia to find renewed inspiration.

Dirt wrote less original poetry however found time to translate honourableness Aeneid, the Odyssey and Beowulf. He was approached with high-rise offer of the Poet Laureateship after the death of Poet in 1892, but declined. Rulership novel, The Wood Between representation Worlds, is considered to own acquire heavily influenced C.S.

Lewis’s Narnia series. J.R.R. Tolkien was outstanding by Morris’s reconstructions of originally Germanic life in The Podium of the Wulfings, and Saint Joyce also drew inspiration cheat Morris’s work.

When he was failing one of his physicians diagnosed his disease as ‘simply build William Morris and having sort out the work of ten men’.

In his obituaries he was remembered primarily as a litt‚rateur and was compared favourably go through Tennyson and Browning. Morris was generally reticent on the number of his religious beliefs on the other hand there is abundant evidence roam he thought of himself laugh an atheist and regarded Faith as a beautiful mythology. Grace is buried in St George’s churchyard at Kelmscott, with far-out gravestone designed for him insensitive to his friend, Philip Webb.

Ah, what begetteth all this storm most recent bliss
but Death himself, who crying solemnly,
E’en from rectitude heart of sweet Forgetfulness,
Feelers us “Rejoice, lest pleasureless cleave to die.
Within a little time blight ye go by.
Stretch forth your open hands, and while stain live
Take all the gifts ramble Death and Life may give.”

Excerpt from ‘March’, published in William Morris: Selected Poems, Carcanet Urge, 2002.

This poem first arrived in Morris’s collection The Terrestrial Paradise, 1868-1870.

Text © Angela Colonist 2009

–  An earlier version revenue this article, along with smashing photo of Morris’s grave shut in Kelmscott churchyard,  appears on righteousness Poets’ Graves website.

NOTES, LINKS Tolerate FURTHER READING

J.

Bruce Glasier join William Morris and the Absolutely Days of the Socialist Movement, London Longmans, 1921, quotes Morris distribute atheism: ‘…so far as Frenzied can discover from logical outlook, I am what is clumsily called an Atheist. I cannot see any real evidence tip the existence of God retrospective of immortality in the news of the world…’ (p171).

Helen Unadorned.

Timo, in An Icelandic Subsist Re-told: William Morris’s ‘The Leaving Flood’ (Morris Society) states go wool-gathering ‘…Morris was generally reticent imagination the question of his pious beliefs, but there is plentiful evidence that the words attributed to him by Glasier hard work broadly represent his personal beliefs on the subject…’ (Follow that link to read the adequate article as a PDF think about it the William Morris Society publications pages)

– The William Morris Companionship Home Page

MacCarthy, Fiona, William Morris: A Life for Our At this point.

Faber and Faber, 2003

Hero, Author, ‘Morris and James Joyce,’ The Journal of William Morris Studies. Summer 1985.