William Morris and the Aesthetic Constitution of Politics

Book excerpt: In this book, Bradley Macdonald offers a brilliant reappraisal of one of the most influential and revered British intellectuals of the Victorian age. William Morris was, by turns, an artist, writer, social critic, and political radical. Here, Macdonald focuses on the interplay between Morris' aesthetic vision and his socialist ideology. He argues compellingly that, because these two sides of Morris' personality have generally been examined by art or literary historians and social theorists respectively, their integral relationship has often been lost sight of.