William Morris

Poet, pattern-designer, environmentalist and maker of fine books, William Morris (1834-96) was also a committed socialist and visionary writer, obsessively concerned with the struggle to achieve a perfect society on earth. News From Nowhere, one of the most significant English works on the theme of utopia, is the tale of William Guest, a Victorian who wakes one morning to find himself in the year 2102 and discovers a society that has changed beyond recognition into a pastoral paradise, in which all people live in blissful equality and contentment. A socialist masterpiece, News From Nowhere is a vision of a future free from capitalism, isolation and industrialisation. This volume also contains a wide selection of Morris's writings, lectures, journalism and letters, which expand upon the key themes of News From Nowhere.

News from Nowhere and Other Writings

Bart Veldhuijsen 

It was now about middle of the afternoon, warm rather than hot, and quite windless; the clouds high up and light, pearly white, and gleaming, softened sun’s burning, but did not hide the pale blue in most places, though they seemed to give it height and consistency; the sky in short, looked really like a vault, as poets have sometimes called it, and not like mere limitless air, but a vault so vast and full of light that it did not opress the spirits.

Ik hoop dat iemand dit leest want quoten duurde eeuwig

‘It is clear from all that we have hear and read, that in the last age of civilization men had got into a vicious circle in the matter of production of wares. They have reached a wonderful facility they had gradually created a most elaborate system of buying and celling, which has been calle the world market; and that world market, once set a-going, forced them to go on making more and more of these wares, whether they needed them or not. So that while they could not free themselves from toil of making real necessaries, they created in a never-ending series sham or artificial necessaires, which became, under the iron rule of the aforesaid world-market, of equal importance to them with real necessaries which supported life. By all this they burdened themselves with a prodigious mass of work merely for the sake of keeping their wretched system going.’

The earth is a paradise, though marred by tears and death.

‘You can lose a man like that by your own death,’ wrote Bernard Shaw, ‘but not by his.’

‘If others can see it as I have seen it, then it may be called a vision rather than a dream.’ Zo eindigt news from nowhere. Een interessant verhaal over een utopia geschreven door iemand uit de 19de eeuw. Het was heel vet om te lezen hoe deze wereld van Morris in elkaar zit en tot stand is gekomen. Ookal mist de vooruitgang van technologie die je zou verwachten bij een verhaal dat zich afspeelt in 2102. Maar dat is duidelijk niet het doel van het verhaal. Na news from nowhere bevat het boek ook lectures van Morris, waarin zijn ideeën uitgelegd worden. Soms lijkt het hierdoor dat je dubbel leest aangezien News from nowhere vol zit mijn zijn opvattingen. Maar dat maakt ze niet minder interessant om te lezen. Het boek zit vol met teksten en verhalen uit de 19de eeuw die nog verassend toepasselijk zijn tegenwoordig.

News from Nowhere and Other Writings

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Highlights