{"id":446,"date":"2023-04-15T04:07:29","date_gmt":"2023-04-15T04:07:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/?p=446"},"modified":"2023-04-15T04:07:29","modified_gmt":"2023-04-15T04:07:29","slug":"seeing-the-hope-unseen-socialism-and-william-morris-pomona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/2023\/04\/15\/seeing-the-hope-unseen-socialism-and-william-morris-pomona\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing the “Hope Unseen”: Socialism and William Morris’ “Pomona”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since William Morris saw the production of art as integral to the creation of a socialist society, one can find in much of his writing an argument, implicit or explicit, in favor of socialism. I find a compelling comparison between the book <\/span>Socialism: Its Growth and Outcome <\/span><\/i>by Morris and Ernest Belfort Bax, and William Morris\u2019 own poem \u201cPomona.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The relevant arguments I would like to highlight in <\/span>Socialism: Its Growth and Outcome<\/span><\/i> come from its first two chapters, where Morris and Bax argue that the freedom of prehistoric life gave way to a slavery inherent to life in cities. In the earliest known civilizations, built around mutual protection, \u201cthe land began to be accepted as the source of the wealth of the community, and\u2026was recognised as the definite property of the community\u201d (Morris and Bax). As soon, however, as \u201cthere was an excess of wealth over bare necessity, its distribution began to be unequal, and\u2026 class society began to appear.\u201d (Morris and Bax). The development of the urban world led to \u201cthe change in the ownership of land which now made the citizen a representative and possessor of a portion of the city territory\u2026in the earlier times the land belonged to the group; now the individual belonged to the land.\u201d (Morris and Bax). For the two authors of <\/span>Socialism: Its Growth and Outcome<\/span><\/i>, urbanization severed humanity\u2019s primordial connection to nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

The figure of Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and natural bounty, seems eminently suited to represent that argument against urban life. Pomona stresses her ancientness in the very first two lines of her namesake poem: \u201cI am the ancient Apple-Queen,\/As once I was so am I now\u201d (lines 1-2). She is as prehistoric and unchanging as (according to Morris and Bax) the human desire to live freely in community. Elements of socialist thought then begin to make themselves clear: \u201cFor evermore a hope unseen,\/Betwixt the blossom and the bough\u201d (lines 3-4); hope, a concept with decidedly revolutionary implications in the 19th century, quite literally comes from <\/span>within <\/span><\/i>nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pomona begins the second stanza by asking two locations: first, that of \u201cthe river\u2019s hidden gold,\u201d and second \u201cthe windy grave of Troy\u201d (lines 5-6). While the second reference is obvious, the first may allude to the story of Decebalus, the Dacian king who hid his treasure a river to keep it from the Romans. If this is the correct interpretation, then these lines both seem to refer to signs of ancient social stratification: one to material possessions only accessible to those with wealth, the other to a powerful\u2014and, as we have learned, inherently stratified\u2014city. These questions remain unanswered. While the site of Troy and whereabouts of an ancient treasure hoard are thus unknowable, \u201cyet come I,\u201d Pomona says, \u201cas I came of old,\/From out the heart of Summer\u2019s joy\u201d (lines 7-8). Physical, material signs of political and economic domination have faded, but she, representative of nature, is completely unchanged. The resilience of nature\u2014and the human freedom that comes with it\u2014is the \u201chope unseen\u201d which exists \u201cfor evermore.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/span><\/p>\n

Morris, William, and E. Belfort Bax. <\/span>Socialism: Its Growth and Outcome<\/span><\/i>. 1893, www.marxists.org\/archive\/morris\/works\/1893\/sgo\/index.htm.<\/span><\/p>\n

Morris, William. “Pomona.” <\/span>The Penguin Book of Victorian Verse<\/span><\/i>, Penguin Books, pp. 548-49.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since William Morris saw the production of art as integral to the creation of a socialist society, one can find in much of his writing an argument, implicit or explicit, in favor of socialism. I find a compelling comparison between the book Socialism: Its Growth and Outcome by Morris and Ernest Belfort Bax, and William … Continue reading Seeing the “Hope Unseen”: Socialism and William Morris’ “Pomona”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}