A Pictorial Utopia: The Kelmscott Chaucer

Abstract

William Morris (1834-1896) was not only a prolic writer and artist of the Victorian Age, but also the embodiment of Neo-medievalism, which dominated the age, with his interest in medieval manuscripts, sagas, romances and the gothic tradition as reected in his professional life. Trying to avoid the inuences of the Industrial Revolution on individuals, Morris turned to medieval ideals and materialised them in his paintings and drawings as a Victorian medievalist. Yet, it was the foundation of the Kelmscott Press that endowed Morris with the best means to display his interest in medieval arts and literature. The Kelmscott Chaucer (1896) can be regarded as the product both of Morris's idealisation of Chaucer as a medieval poet, and of what Karen Barad denes as the “intra-action” of matter and discourse. Accordingly, through an analysis of the illustrated pages of The Canterbury Tales section of the Kelmscott Chaucer, the aim of this article is to analyse this book as a pictorial utopia and argue that Morris displays the intra-action of matter and discourse through his search for medieval printing techniques.

Keywords

• William Morris
• Neo-medievalism
• Chauce
• The Kelmscott Chaucer
• Pictorial Utopia