William Morris (24 March 1834 –3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, decorated artist, utopian writer, and socialist-political activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. Morris is one of the best-known and most prolific Victorian authors. He is a passionate social reformer, an early environmentalist, an educationalist, and a would-be feminist. His literary contributions helped to establish the modern utopian genre, while he won an acceptance of socialism at the end of the century in Great Britain. His socialist beliefs make sense in that his treatment of women points towards equality, freeing women from capitalist restraints. This proposal tries to demonstrate how women are forced into confined and unequal social positions, under the influence of life experiences and contemporary socialist debates on marriage, his later writings manifest an increased appreciation of women as autonomous sexual beings and political agents. This project aims to demonstrate how Morris’s treatment of women has been mirrored in the fantasy novels, including The Wood Beyond the World (1894), The Well at the World’s End (1896), and The Water of the Wondrous Isles (1897), News from Nowhere (1890), and The Defence of Guenevere (1858). The comparative discussion of these narratives depicts how Morris liberates women from stereotypical constructs of femininity represented by the tradition of chivalric romances and nineteenth-century Victorian sensibility. The Lady and The Maid in The Wood Beyond the World; and Birdalone in The Water of the Wondrous Isles).

Authors:
Md. Amir Hossain, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh

About the Presenter(s)
Mr. Md. Amir Hossain is currently a PhD Research Scholar in English at Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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