A Dream of John Ball
Encyclopedia
A Dream of John Ball is a novel by English author William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...

 about the English peasants' revolt of 1381 and the rebel John Ball
John Ball (priest)
John Ball was an English Lollard priest who took a prominent part in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. In that year, Ball gave a sermon in which he asked the rhetorical question, "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?".-Biography:Little is known of Ball's early years. He lived in...

. Like the novel's close contemporary - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is an 1889 novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The book was originally titled A Yankee in King Arthur's Court...

(1889) by Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

 - it describes a dream and time travel encounter between the medieval and modern worlds.

Depiction of the Middle Ages

Unlike Twain's novel, which depicted early-Medieval England
History of Anglo-Saxon England
Anglo-Saxon England refers to the period of the history of that part of Britain, that became known as England, lasting from the end of Roman occupation and establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the 5th century until the Norman conquest of England in 1066 by William the Conqueror...

 as a violent and chaotic Dark Age, Morris depicts the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 in a positive light, seeing it as a golden, if brief, period when peasants were prosperous and happy and guilds protected workers from exploitation.

Reaction

Modern appraisal has been mixed, with some seeing Morris as an early hero of the labour movement, and others of him catering to champagne socialism
Champagne socialist
Champagne socialist is a pejorative political term originating in the United Kingdom. The phrase is used to describe self identified socialists whose comfortable upper middle class lifestyles are perceived to be incompatible with their professed political convictions...

.

More importantly Morris presented an alternative view of the Middle Ages, being a positive and progressive period, an unusual position in the 19th century.

The story was originally published in serial format in The Commonweal
Commonweal (UK)
Commonweal was a British socialist newspaper founded in 1885 by the newborn Socialist League. Its aims were to spread socialistic views and to win over new recruits....

, November 13, 1886 - January 22, 1887.

See also

  • A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
    A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
    A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is an 1889 novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The book was originally titled A Yankee in King Arthur's Court...

    (1889) by Mark Twain
    Mark Twain
    Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

  • Looking Backward
    Looking Backward
    Looking Backward: 2000-1887 is a utopian science fiction novel by Edward Bellamy, a lawyer and writer from western Massachusetts; it was first published in 1887...

    (1888), by Edward Bellamy
    Edward Bellamy
    Edward Bellamy was an American author and socialist, most famous for his utopian novel, Looking Backward, set in the year 2000. He was a very influential writer during the Gilded Age of United States history.-Early life:...


External links

  • A Dream of John Ball, scanned illustrated books from Internet Archive
    Internet Archive
    The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...

     and Project Gutenberg
    Project Gutenberg
    Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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