This morning, while pedalling my way to work amidst the inner voices of routine complaint, I was stunned and caused to pause by the love of the morning rising over the south eastern edge of the marshes. By me the Lea became a canal of fire, its water such that, as in dreams, it might cheat the throats of men in hell. Nearby, the ghosts of chivalrous Morris and rakehellish Rosetti pranced about each other in poetically heraldic fisticuffery while Janey creaked to and fro between the trees.
Over in the Archipelago of Truth there is a discussion of Morris's love, his political credibility and the psychological and sexual implications of the ornate thickets he adorned domestic interiors with. Join me and Oliver Reed in the river (here) for a bit of Victotian (great typo - Victorian) frisson.
A less lustful and more studious interpretation of Morris's life can be found here . It is not as iconoclastic an assessment of William Morris - the man, than that made by 'Monty the Visitor'.
(There is also a reference to Belfort Bax - uncle of Arnold Bax)
Having crossed the 'canal of fire' I discovered that the act (a strange mercurial feat) imbued me with the ability to converse with statues. Over lunch, I was able to discuss with Hogarth's pug, Rosetti's derivative application of Hogarth's (his master) use of symbolism and moral purpose. What a day!
(Hogarth, by Jim Mathieson. Photos: Julian Beere)
Field Study's Man in E17 was here
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