NEWS FROM NOWHERE: THE UTOPIAN VISION OF WILLIAM MORRIS

The word Utopia was first coined by Sir Thomas More as the title of his 1516 book describing a fictional island society in the New World. It means literally ‘no place’ or ‘good place’ and means any non-existent society when described in considerable detail. Utopian ideas can be traced back to ancient Greece and Rome, and utopian tales have been popular throughout the ages. In all of his lectures and pamphlets on socialism and art, on the nature of work, William Morris had been working to develop his thoughts on the future society. His Utopian novel News from Nowhere, first published in 1890, was the culmination of his thinking over several decades, and it offers his personal view of what a socialist society might look like. In this lecture I will discuss different ways of reading utopias before exploring Morris’s novel in detail and discussing its relevance today. Whilst reading the novel would be useful it is not essential.