A Dream of John Ball/A King's Lesson

Fülszöveg

When Adam delved and Eve span Who then was the gentleman? So sing the revolutionary peasants of Kent and of Essex as they march on London in the England of 1381. Their songs, their slogans, their watchwords have grown out of the teachings of their leader, the poor priest John Ball. Thrice imprisoned, thrice rescued by the peasants he inspires, knowing that the next time caught he will be hung, drawn, quartered and beheaded, John Ball continues to preach:
the matters goeth not well to pass in England, nor shall not do till everything be common, and that there be no villeins nor gentlemen, but that we may be all unied (equal) and that the lords be no greater masters than we be. What have we deserved or why should we be kept thus in serfage? We all come from one father and one mother, Adam and Eve; whereby can they say or show that they be greater lords than we be, saving by that they cause us to win and labour for what they dispend?' A DREAM OF JOHN BALL depicts one day in the... Tovább

Fülszöveg

When Adam delved and Eve span Who then was the gentleman? So sing the revolutionary peasants of Kent and of Essex as they march on London in the England of 1381. Their songs, their slogans, their watchwords have grown out of the teachings of their leader, the poor priest John Ball. Thrice imprisoned, thrice rescued by the peasants he inspires, knowing that the next time caught he will be hung, drawn, quartered and beheaded, John Ball continues to preach:
the matters goeth not well to pass in England, nor shall not do till everything be common, and that there be no villeins nor gentlemen, but that we may be all unied (equal) and that the lords be no greater masters than we be. What have we deserved or why should we be kept thus in serfage? We all come from one father and one mother, Adam and Eve; whereby can they say or show that they be greater lords than we be, saving by that they cause us to win and labour for what they dispend?' A DREAM OF JOHN BALL depicts one day in the life of the priest and his peasants in this early time of England's history. Yetit is notan historical essay. Neither is it a novel, polemic nor biography. It is a fantasy. Its dream quality is the stuff of which poetry is woven. Its theme remains sharply real.
A KING'S LESSON, included in this volume, is an allegory, written with the gentle humour that is the particular gift of William Morris.
The Life of William Morris (1834 to 1896) is an extraordinary record of activity and accomplishment. From earliest childhood, he was bent upon satisfying an eager mind that never stopped its search for knowledge, or its evaluation of experience. In addition to a great intellect, William Morris possessed a staggering variety of talents. A contemporary of the Brownings, Rossetti, Tennyson, Swinburne, Rus-kin, Kingsley, Arnold and Stevenson, and living in a time when Dickens, Thackeray and Carlyle wrote, William Morris was a ranking poet, essayist and critic. He was equally famous as a painter, an architect, and a designer of furniture, textiles, dye-blocks, book-illumination and type. His credo that all things useful must be beautiful revolutionised the minor arts and awakened the man in the street to a new sense of beauty. But art and culture were not the sum of his interests. With the same eagerness for knowledge, the same ability to evaluate experience, the same abundance of talent, he sought an answer for the common man to an England of expanding imperialism. In 1885, he turned his vast store of talent and intellect into account for the working class, as teacher, lecturer and writer.
In A DREAM OF JOHN BALL and in A KIN G' S LES S O N can be found William Morris the poet, the painter, the seeker for beauty, and, not the least, the critic who based his criticism of all things - life, the arts, history, the world - in the teachings of Karl Marx. Vissza