Between Utopia and Tradition: William Morris’s A Dream of John Ball

ABSTRACT

William Morris, author of the famous nineteenth-century utopian novel News from Nowhere, thought it both possible and desirable to develop a utopian vision that could be affirmed by many individuals. However, Morris also recognised that achieving such utopian unity was not easy. There is, at least potentially, something personal about utopian visions; they are shaped by idiosyncratic desires that cannot be shared. Through a reading of Morris’s A Dream of John Ball, I argue that Morris offers a temporal solution to the problem of utopian unity. The central characters in the text, medieval priest John Ball and a nineteenth-century socialist agitator, come to recognise their shared adherence to the same image of a new society. This is achieved through the mediation of tradition: Ball and the agitator overcome their differences by committing themselves to disappointed hopes elaborated in past struggles that have been handed down to the present. Morris’s articulation of utopia and tradition—the sense that visions of the future can be made shareable through reference to the past—offers the possibility of a transtemporal solidarity of utopians and the bringing together of the dreams of a plurality of individuals.     

国家宏观调控政策及区外市场价格波动在青海的时滞性研究

国家宏观政策和市场物价水平在地方的传导存在一定的时滞期。本研究分析货币政策、投资政策和进出口政策对青海传导的执行时滞以及农畜产品价格、工业产品价格和生活消费品价格波动对青海传导的时滞性特征，以期为相关政府部门决策提供参考。