News From Nowhere - ACE076.2

William Morris in an Underground train. Narrator reads description of his thoughts: "What would happen on the morrow of the Revolution?" The Morris family at home, preparing for a trip to Kelmscott, Oxfordshire, in the summer of 1880. Morris, his wife, Jane, and Richard Grosvenor, board a small boat. Morris giving a lecture and exhorting his listeners "to strive to enter into the real meaning of the Arts, which is surely to express a reverence for nature, the life of Man upon Earth". Grosvenor’s narration explains that Morris used the river journey as the basis for his book, News from Nowhere, in which he would propose a retreat from industry and a revival of crafts. Morris talks about his epic poem, Sigurd the Volsung, and expresses his views on Wagner’s operas. They reach Hampton Court. Grosvenor describes Morris’s liking for Gothic architecture and his dislike of Christopher Wren’s addition to the palace. Morris expresses his dislike of "classical" architecture; he says "architecture should grow out of a genuine need". Overtaken by a steam boat which gives them a tow, even though Morris disapproves of mechanisation. Lecture: on the need for machines to free rather than enslave.