The art of socialism: William Morris and the Kelmscott Chaucer

The history of the Kelmscott Press and the Kelmscott Chaucer is discussed with reference to the copy at the Queen's University, W. D. Jordan Special Collections Library. The Chaucer was important to Morris on many levels and it is uniquely representative of the Arts and Crafts Movement ideology. It reflects movement in its form as a physical artefact, historically through its provenance, philosophically through its content and ideologically through its production, design and the beliefs of its creator. The Kelmscott Press afforded Morris the highest realization of his aesthetic ideals, while serving as an archetype of the enlightened workplace, and a source of revenue for his political activism. While emphasis has been placed on Morris as an individual, it is important to realize that he identified himself with groups. While neither the Arts and Craft Movement nor Morris made a total break with the mainstream culture they felt the mainstream was deeply flawed and exploitive. By reviving crafts and advocating beauty for all they hoped to ease the lives of the poor. Redefining the Arts and Craft Movement as a counterculture provides a new vantage point from which to dissect its impact as more than just a political or aesthetic movement. The clarification and use of Thomas Kuhn's concept of paradigm shows that even if the Arts and Crafts did not have a lasting aesthetic effect it altered the functioning of society and broke ground for countercultures that followed. The Kelmscott Chaucer is beautifully emblematic---it is medieval in quality and inspiration, egalitarian and painstaking in its production, romantic, utilitarian and socialist in the rationale for its creation, an iconic example of the unrecognised force and subversion of the Arts and Crafts Movement.