William Morris’ The Earthly Paradise: what it means to be ‘the idle singer of an empty day

In this short paper I discuss the nature of poetry as it is portrayed by William Morris’ The Earthly Paradise: as a string of sources into which the poet subsumes himself. Furthermore, in light of Maurer’s observation that Morris had a ‘preoccupation with the stories and indifference to the historical backgrounds and ethical overtones usually associated with them’, I examine what exactly it meant to historically-disinterested Morris to be a historian-poet.