"Travail utile, fatigue inutile" est un texte fondamental. À l'heure des bullshit jobs, ce texte prémonitoire fait figure de manifeste, de bréviaire, alors que le modèle économique dévastateur mis en place depuis un demi-siècle semble parvenu en bout de course. La révolution industrielle, la démesure de la production dans le capitalisme émergent, nourri de la pensée libérale utilitariste, ont consacré l'idée d'un travail de plus en plus aliénant, qui a rompu avec le réel, le monde et la nature.
Poète, écrivain, décorateur et pionnier du socialisme britannique, William Morris (1834-1896) exècre la société de son temps. Il s'insurge contre les effets dévastateurs de la mécanisation et de la recherche du profit sur les conditions de travail et la vie des ouvriers. La richesse produite par le système économique non seulement engendre de la laideur, mais se résume aussi à une forme de domination car injustement partagée ; elle s'oppose à la prospérité, ce bien-être matériel et moral de tous les individus auquel contribue l'art.
En 1857, dans une Angleterre victorienne patriarcale, William Morris, poète de 23 ans proche du mouvement préraphaélite, s'empare de la légende arthurienne qui connaît alors une popularité croissante. Mais, au lieu de célébrer les exploits des chevaliers, l'auteur décide de donner pour la première fois la parole à la reine Guenièvre. Reprenant l'un des épisodes les plus célèbres du mythe du Camelot durant lequel la souveraine est accusée d'adultère avec Lancelot, William Morris place Guenièvre au centre de son récit et lui laisse le champ libre pour qu'elle présente seule sa défense devant un parterre de juges : tous des chevaliers, tous des hommes. La reine développe alors ses arguments, défend son amour et montre qu'elle a aussi été contrainte dans une condition qu'elle n'a pas voulue.
William Morris (1834-1896), poète, romancier, imprimeur, penseur libertaire, est l'auteur des Nouvelles de nulle part (nouvelle édition à paraître chez Libertalia en 2022). Il est considéré comme l'un des précurseurs de la pensée écologique radicale.
Il n'y a probablement aucune série de phénomènes sur laquelle les travaux de l'esprit scientifique moderne aient répandu moins de lumière que sur les procédés des beaux-arts. Ce fait ressort clairement des idées que nous associons encore avec le terme esthétique. Appeler un sujet esthétique, c'est demander qu'il soit exempt d'une investigation claire et profonde. La cause de cette opinion régnante se trouve sans doute dans la nature des spéculations présentées jusqu'ici comme des contributions à une théorie des arts. Ces spéculations semblent pouvoir être rangées parmi les preuves les plus frappantes de la stérilité de la méthode métaphysique... Cependant cette domination de la pensée métaphysique dans le domaine de l'art ne rend pas entièrement raison de l'absence de toute conception scientifique de l'esthétique... La psychologie peut enseigner à l'artiste les conditions de ses effets ; elle peut lui indiquer une raison pour laquelle il doit rechercher une certaine disposition dans les couleurs ou une certaine unité d'émotions, si son oeuvre doit plaire... La psychologie peut jouer un double rôle dans les problèmes esthétiques. En premier lieu elle peut fournir, dans de certaines limites, une base scientifique distincte pour la solution de ces problèmes. Elle nous offre une certaine quantité de principes objectifs solides, pour établir une théorie de l'art. En second lieu elle peut déterminer les cas où les problèmes sont insolubles et indiquer les raisons pourquoi ils ne peuvent être résolus.
Texte intégral révisé suivi d'une biographie de William Morris. Peintre, écrivain et décorateur anglais, William Morris (1834-1896) étudie la théologie puis la peinture et l'architecture, fortement influencé par John Ruskin et Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. Il se distingue de ses amis préraphaélites par un plus grand engagement social et un retour à l'art gothique motivé par des raisons politiques de tendance libertaire et marxiste. Il rend l'industrie responsable des conditions inhumaines de la vie des ouvriers et clame son aversion pour la machine. Il oppose la créativité de l'individu à une production de masse indifférente à la valeur esthétique. Il importe, selon lui, de retrouver les coutumes et le système de production artisanale de l'époque médiévale où l'artisan le plus humble était un artiste et le plus grand artiste un artisan. Estimant qu'il faut rehausser les arts décoratifs au niveau des arts majeurs, il fonde une société qui produit et vend tableaux, sculptures, meubles, tapisseries, tissus décoratifs et vitraux. On le traite d'utopiste mais aussi de visionnaire. Le groupe des préraphaélites le suit dans cette entreprise et collabore avec lui dans son atelier artisanal d'art appliqué, baptisé Arts and Crafts, qui diffuse bientôt ses inventions décoratives où domine l'arabesque florale, annonciatrice du futur modern style. Un mouvement artistique du même nom suit, où s'illustreront entre autres des artistes comme Walter Crane, Edward Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown et Dante Gabriel Rossetti. William Morris continue parallèlement de se vouer à la littérature. Il publie des poèmes, des essais politiques et des traductions de Virgile et d'Homère. Politiquement très engagé, il participe à la fondation de la Ligue Socialiste (ancêtre du Parti travailliste anglais) dont il dirige le journal, The Commonweal. Vers la fin de sa vie, il se consacre à l'art typographique et à l'édition d'art, réalisant de éditions enluminées extrêmement raffinées, dont celle des oeuvres complètes de Geoffrey Chaucer.
Please note: This audiobook has been created using AI voice.
The Water of the Wondrous Isles is a landmark in fantasy fiction. First published a year after Morris's death in 1897 by Kelmscott Press-Morris's own printing company-the novel follows Birdalone, a young girl who is stolen as a baby by a witch who takes her to serve in the woods of Evilshaw.
After she encounters a wood fairy that helps her escape the witch's clutches, Birdalone embarks on a series of adventures across the titular Wondrous Isles. These isles are used by Morris both as parables for contemporary Britain and as vehicles for investigating his radical socialist beliefs. As Birdalone travels through the isles she slowly evolves into the embodiment of the Victorian "new woman," embracing hard physical labor, healthy exercise, higher education, socialist values, and financial freedom, while rejecting sexual exploitation, physical abuse of both women and children, and the restrictive sexual mores of the era. This makes her unique in the fantasy fiction of the era as one of the genre's first examples of a strong female hero.
This socialistfeminist allegory is presented in an Arthurianstyle fantasy world complete with magic, witches, fairies, knights both chivalrous and evil, and castles (indeed, anyone doubting the allegorical nature of the work only needs to look at the name of the tale's main redoubt: "The Castle of the Quest"). The language is purposefully archaic, reveling in vocabulary drawn from the language's Anglo roots; and the prose is lent a hypnotic quality by its lack of quotation marks to offset dialog, and its short chapters characterized by a fairytalenarrative voice.
This is a practical manual for diagnostic testing, focusing on the historical and contemporary research on functional disorders in general, and functional visual disorders in particular. Functional Ophthalmic Disorders: Ocular Malingering and Visual Hysteria is a how-to manual that is written for the practicing ophthalmologist and optometrist, complete with color photos that allow the reader to see pictures of select diseases. In addition to the photos, videos are provided online to illustrate the various tests and possible results conducted on a mock patient to assist in the differential diagnosis. Written and edited by leaders in the field, some of the topics covered include history of functional disorders, ophthalmologic examination in malingering and techniques and tests for functional and simulated defects.
It is assumed by most people nowadays that all work is useful, and by most well-to-do people that all work is desirable. Most people, well-to-do or not, believe that, even when a man is doing work which appears to be useless, he is earning his livelihood by it--he is "employed," as the phrase goes; and most of those who are well-to-do cheer on the happy worker with congratulations and praises, if he is only "industrious" enough and deprives himself of all pleasure and holidays in the sacred cause of labour...
Here, you see, are two kinds of work - one good, the other bad; one not far removed from a blessing, a lightening of life; the other a mere curse, a burden to life. What is the difference between them, then? This: one has hope in it, the other has not. It is manly to do the one kind of work, and manly also to refuse to do the other. What is the nature of the hope which, when it is present in work, makes it worth doing? ...
The tale tells that in times long past there was a dwelling of men beside a great wood. Before it lay a plain, not very great, but which was, as it were, an isle in the sea of woodland, since even when you stood on the flat ground, you could see trees everywhere in the offing, though as for hills, you could scarce say that there were any; only swellings-up of the earth here and there, like the upheavings of the water that one sees at whiles going on amidst the eddies of a swift but deep stream.
The tale of the House of the Wolfings in its struggles against the legionaries of Rome then advancing into Northern Germany.
"For surely there is no square mile of earth's inhabitable surface that is not beautiful in its own way, if we men will only abstain from willfully destroying that beauty; and it is this reasonable share in the beauty of the earth that I claim as the right of every man who will earn it by due labour; a decent house with decent surroundings for every honest and industrious family; that is the claim which I make of you in the name of art. Is it such an exorbitant claim to make of civilization? of a civilization that is too apt to boast in after-dinner speeches; too apt to thrust her blessings on far-off peoples at the cannon's mouth before she has improved the quality of those blessings so far that they are worth having at any price, even the smallest"...
I wish to say a few plain words on the subject of art; and since I address myself chiefly to those who are called the working-classes, I know well that the plainer those words are the better, since now for many years, for centuries, the working-classes have scarcely been partakers in art of any kind, and the phraseology of men learned in the fine arts will be strange to you. For centuries this slavery has been added to the rest of the oppression under which you lie, that you have been forbidden to have any share in the intelligent production of beautiful things.
Indeed, I think it will be news to many of you who toil to live that you may live to toil, that there either is or has been or can be any connexion between Art and the People. It may seem to you, I can well imagine, that art is concerned only in making luxurious toys for rich and idle persons, and that all the working-classes have to do with it, is that some of them can earn their poor wages by working at it as machines work, without knowing or caring what they are doing; while now and then on holidays those of them that chance to think of it and who live in London may stray into the National Gallery or the British Museum, and see the carefully hoarded works of past ages, and get from them such good as men can get who look on a book in an antiquated dialect of their language without an interpreter between them and the past.
Art is long and life is short; let us at least do something before we die. We seek perfection, but can find no perfect means to bring it about; let it be enough for us if we can unite with those whose aims are right, and their means honest and feasible. I tell you if we wait for perfection in association in these days of combat we shall die before we can do anything. Help us now, you whom the fortune of your birth has helped to make wise and refined; and as you help us in our work-a-day business toward the success of the cause, instill into us your superior wisdom, your superior refinement, and you in your turn may be helped by the courage and hope of those who are not so completely wise and refined. Remember we have but one weapon against that terrible organization of selfishness which we attack, and that weapon is Union. Yes, and it should be obvious union, which we can be conscious of as we mix with others who are hostile or indifferent to the cause; organized brotherhood is that which must break the spell of anarchical Plutocracy. One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman; two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad; ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real; and why only a hundred thousand? You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question.
I think the following question is an important one: Which shall art belong to, wealth or riches? Whose servant shall she be? or rather, Shall she be the slave of riches, or the friend and helpmate of wealth? Indeed, if I put the question in another form, and ask: Is art to be limited to a narrow class who only care for it in a very languid way, or is it to be the solace and pleasure of the whole people? the question finally comes to this: Are we to have art or the pretence of art? It is like enough that to many or even most of you the question will seem of no practical importance. To most people the present condition of art does seem in the main to be the only condition it could exist in among cultivated people, and they are content with its present aims and tendencies. For myself, I am so discontented with the present conditions of art, and the matter seems to me so serious, that I am forced to try to make other people share my discontent, and am this evening risking the committal of a breach of good manners by standing before you, grievance in hand, on an occasion like this, when everybody present, I feel sure, is full of goodwill both towards the arts and towards the public. My only excuse is my belief in the sincerity of your wish to know any serious views that can be taken of a matter so important. So I will say that the question I have asked, whether art is to be the helpmate of wealth or the slave of riches, is of great practical import, if indeed art is important to the human race, which I suppose no one here will gainsay...
I want you to consider the position of the working-classes generally at the present day: not to dwell on the progress that they may (or may not) have made within the last five hundred or the last fifty years; but to consider what their position is, relatively to the other classes of which our society is composed: and in doing so I wish to guard against any exaggeration as to the advantages of the position of the upper and middle-classes on the one side, and the disadvantages of the working-classes on the other; for in truth there is no need for exaggeration; the contrast between the two positions is sufficiently startling when all admissions have been made that can be made. After all, one need not go further than the simple statement of these few words: `The workers are in an inferior position to that of the non-workers'.
When we come to consider that everyone admits nowadays that labour is the source of wealth - or, to put it in another way, that it is a law of nature for man generally, that he must labour in order to live - we must all of us come to the conclusion that this fact, that the workers' standard of livelihood is lower than that of the non-workers, is a startling fact. But startling as it is, it may perhaps help out the imaginations of some of us - at all events of the well-to-do, if I dwell a little on the details of this disgrace, and say plainly what it means...
What is the condition of Society under which we live? Is it satisfactory, is it quite as we should all like it to be? Does it quite please you who are listening to me, so that there is nothing you want to alter in it?
If that is the case, then none of my hearers are poor, and none have any fear of becoming poor; I am speaking to a crowd of rich men who are quite sure that they will always be rich. Well I see that is not quite the case; some of us are poor, some of us are afraid of becoming poor; some of us have to do very unpleasant work; all of us have to work more than we like; and we know of people who are worse off in all these matters than we are: So we do want to alter things if we could: we are not quite contented: if we say we are, we are not speaking truly but say so because we don't `want to argue, or because we want to get something out of rich people whose interest it is that we should be contented.
Well I should wonder if we were contented; for when we look at the present state of Society we find that the majority of people have every reason to wish to be better off than they are, that in point of fact they are living in misery. Let us look at the various conditions of life and see what portion of the whole people has good reason to be pleased with their share of the wealth, ease, good living, in a word, the happiness of this most highly civilized country...
It is true that if all were going smoothly with art, or at all events so smoothly that there were but a few malcontents in the world, you might listen with some pleasure, and perhaps advantage, to the talk of an old hand in the craft concerning ways of work, the snares that beset success, and the shortest road to it, to a tale of workshop receipts and the like: that would be a pleasant talk surely between friends and fellow-workmen; but it seems to me as if it were not for us as yet; nay, maybe we may live long and find no time fit for such restful talk as the cheerful histories of the hopes and fears of our workshops: anyhow to-night I cannot do it, but must once again call the faithful of art to a battle wider and more distracting than that kindly struggle with nature, to which all true craftsmen are born; which is both the building-up and the wearing-away of their lives...
That the beauty of life is a thing of no moment, I suppose few people would venture to assert, and yet most civilised people act as if it were of none, and in so doing are wronging both themselves and those that are to come after them; for that beauty, which is what is meant by ART, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life, if we are to live as nature meant us to; that is, unless we are content to be less than men.
Now I ask you, as I have been asking myself this long while, what proportion of the population in civilised countries has any share at all in that necessity of life?
I say that the answer which must be made to that question justifies my fear that modern civilisation is on the road to trample out all the beauty of life, and to make us less than men.
Now if there should be any here who will say: It was always so; there always was a mass of rough ignorance that knew and cared nothing about art; I answer first, that if that be the case, then it was always wrong, and we, as soon as we have become conscious of that wrong, are bound to set it right if we can...
Socialists no more than other people believe that persons are naturally equal: there are amongst men all varieties of disposition, and desires, and degrees of capacity; nevertheless these differences are inequalities are very much increased by the circumstances amongst which a man lives and by those that surrounded the lives of his parents: and these circumstances are more or less under the control of society, that is of the ordered arrangement of persons among which we live. So I say first that granted that men are born with certain tendencies those tendencies can be developed for good and evil by the conditions of our lives, and those conditions are in our own hands to deal with, taking us nation by nation as a whole. If we are careful to be prudent and wise for ourselves and just towards other people those inequalities which are natural can be used for making life pleasanter and more varied: but if we act stupidly and unjustly they become a source of misery to many, and of degradation to all.
I have admitted that men are not naturally equal, yet all persons must admit that there are certain things which we all need; in that respect we are equal: we all need food, clothes, and shelter, and clearly if we need these things we need them in sufficiency, and of good quality, or else we have not really got them. Since then these needs are common to all, it follows that if anyone is not able to satisfy his needs in these respects there is something wrong somewhere, either with nature, or the man himself, or with the society of which he forms a part and which therefore dictates to him how he shall live...
Glówny bohater i narrator powie´sci William wraca ze spotkania Ligii Socjalistycznej i zapada w sen. Budzi sie w ´swiecie zrealizowanych postulatów, gdzie porzadek spoleczny jest urzadzony w oparciu o wspólna wlasno´s´c, a ´srodki produkcji sa poddane demokratycznej kontroli. ´Swiat stal sie plaski i równy - zniknely prywatne majatki, duze metropolie, hierarchie klasowe, a nawet wiezienia. Spolecze´nstwo wrócilo do swoich agrarnych korzeni.
William Morris byl entuzjasta socjalizmu. Jego ksiazka jest utopijna wizja ´swiata urzadzonego zgodnie z ta idea, zawiera takze elementy miekkiej fantastyki.
Interesujaca lektura dla milo´sników motywu utopii, jak w powie´sci "Wyspa" Aldousa Huxleya czy w "Podrózach Guliwera" Jonathana Swifta.
William Morris (1834-1896) - brytyjski pisarz, projektant tkanin i socjalista. Zaczynal jako autor fikcji historycznych, ale ´swiat zapamietal go przede wszystkim jako prekursora wspólczesnej fantastyki. Interesowal sie Islandia i wraz z tamtejszym uczonym Eiríkurem Magnússonem przetlumaczyl na jezyk angielski serie islandzkich sag.
A young Viking sets off on a quest to rescue his kidnapped bride and, along the way, discovers an earthly paradise. Somehow he must turn his back on this paradise to complete his quest to find a woman he barely knows.
Stolen as a child and raised in the wood of Evilshaw as servant to a witch, Birdalone ultimately escapes in her captor's magical boat, in which she travels to a succession of strange and wonderful islands.
Discover a new way to read classics with Quick Read.
This Quick Read edition includes both the full text and a summary for each chapter.
- Reading time of the complete text: about 7 hours
- Reading time of the summarized text: 29 minutes
"News from Nowhere" is a novel by William Morris that depicts a future society based on common ownership and democratic control. In this society, there is no private property, no authority, and no class systems. The people find pleasure in nature and their work, which is seen as creative and pleasurable. The book addresses objections to socialism and emphasizes the abolition of divisions between art, life, and work. Women in this society are respected as child bearers and rearers, and domestic work is seen as something for which women are particularly suited. The society practices monogamy but is not bound by contractual marriage. Education is chosen by individuals, and children are encouraged to learn through nature. Morris envisions an ideal society free from the burdens of industrialization, where people live in harmony with the natural world.
In the realm of ancient myth and legend, where the boundaries between worlds blur, a tale unfolds that will captivate your imagination. The Well at the World's End, the fourth installment in William Morris's epic saga, transports you to a realm where the forces of good and evil clash in a timeless struggle. Join Ralph, the young hero, as he embarks on a perilous quest to find the legendary Well, a source of both life and destruction. Along the way, he encounters mythical creatures, faces treacherous trials, and uncovers secrets that will forever alter the fate of his world.
In the realm of fantasy, where magic weaves its enchanting spell, a timeless tale unfolds. Child Christopher, a valiant knight, embarks on a perilous quest to rescue the fair Goldilind from the clutches of the evil sorcerer, Malignus. As he traverses treacherous forests and battles formidable foes, Christopher's unwavering determination and the power of love guide his path. Along the way, he encounters a cast of extraordinary characters, including the wise old wizard, Merlin, and the mischievous sprite, Puck. With each step, the boundaries between reality and imagination blur, leading to a breathtaking climax that will leave readers spellbound.
In a realm of ancient wonders and forgotten lore, The Story of the Glittering Plain unfolds. Join Hallblithe, a young shepherd, as he embarks on an extraordinary quest to find the fabled Glittering Plain, a land of eternal youth and happiness. Along his perilous journey, he encounters enigmatic beings, faces treacherous trials, and uncovers secrets that will forever alter his destiny. Immerse yourself in William Morris's enchanting masterpiece, where the boundaries of reality blur and the power of imagination reigns supreme.
