SOURCE: Clutton-Brock, A. “Morris as a Romantic Poet.” In William Morris: His Work and Influence, pp. 79-96. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1914.

In the following essay, Clutton-Brock discusses Morris as a Romantic poet, contending that of “all the Romantic poets Morris, in his early poetry was the most romantic; for he was more consciously discontented with the circumstances of his own time than any of them.”

The word Romantic, as applied to a certain movement in art, has been used vaguely and in different senses. We know better who the Romantic poets are than why we call them Romantic. But if we examine their works, and especially those which any one would choose as being peculiarly romantic, we shall find that they have this in common—namely, that they interest us through their unlikeness, rather than through their likeness, to our own experience. In poems like Keats's...