Abstract

The purpose of the thesis is to determine the aesthetic theory of William Morris as a philosophical ideal embodied in literary form. The specific area of concentration for the study is his utopian novel News from Nowhere published in 1890. The aim is to demonstrate that this novel falls well within the tradition of utopian tracts and novels that consciously reflect a definite philosophical framework. The major premise underlying the thesis is that literature does provide a compatible vehicle for the exhibition and elaboration of a philosophical position even though the given author may not pronounce himself to be a philosopher proper. ;The archetypal case for the thesis is Plato's Republic with corroborating texts drawn from other standard utopian models created throughout Western culture. The main contention of the dissertation is to demonstrate that Morris has a great affinity to Plato's theory of art in general, both philosophically and thematically. This is substantiated by critical analysis of News from Nowhere in conjunction with Plato's Republic, Phaedrus, and Symposium. ;Traditionally, the two dominant views regarding News from Nowhere are that it is either a literary escapist-dream fantasy or a Marxist-utopian polemic. The essay refutes these two traditional characterizations as representing inadequate and fundamentally superficial critiques of what truly is an unique piece of late Victorian fiction. These two conventional views of Morris and his use of the novel as a literary form are partisan at best and, ultimately, fail to do justice to Morris, the man, and to his obvious talent in the broad field of aesthetics. These views also fail to offer a balanced and adequate account of Morris' lifelong aesthetic concerns and the uniquely personal perspective out of which News from Nowhere arose. ;A central notion which has been overlooked in Morris studies is that of his use of art, in all its forms, to overcome man's sense of alienation from his fellow man and society in general. Morris' novel illustrates the Hegelian self-consciousness of sublation of the historical past in addition to the very important notion of the "real being rational". The novel describes this ideal but does not project, in the negative sense of prophecy or unrealizable ideology. Morris is providing a positive picture of a society functioning as an organic whole through the description of people's activities in terms of art and craft in the broadest sense that of a total life involvement. This picture also implicitly acts as and provides both a critique and an analysis of the present society's evils