A PICTORIAL UTOPIA: THE KELMSCOTT CHAUCER

Willliam Morris (1834-1896) sadece Viktorya Dönemi'nin üretken bir yazarı ve sanatçısı değil, aynı zamanda profesyonel hayatına yansımış olduğu üzere, Ortaçağ elyazmalarına, İskandinav hikâyelerine, romanslara ve gotik geleneğe olan ilgisiyle, döneme damgasını vurmuş olan Yeni-ortaçağcılık'ın vücut bulmuş halidir. Morris, Endüstri Devrimi'nin bireyler üzerindeki etkisinden kaçınmaya çalışarak, Ortaçağ ideallerine dönmüş ve bir Viktorya Dönemi ortaçağcısı olarak bunları resimlerinde ve çizimlerinde somutlaştırmıştır. Ancak, Morris'in Ortaçağ sanatlarına ve edebiyatına olan ilgisini göstermesini sağlayan en iyi olanak, Kelmscott Yayınevi'nin kuruluşudur. Kelmscott Chaucer (1896) hem Morris'in bir Ortaçağ şairi olarak Chaucer'ı idealleştirmesinin, hem de Karen Barad'ın deyimiyle madde ve söylemin "içtenetkime"sinin bir ürünüdür. Bu bağlamda, bu makalenin amacı, Kelmscott Chaucer'ın Canterbury Hikâyeleri bölümündeki resimli sayfaları inceleyerek, bu kitabı resimli bir ütopya olarak ele almak ve Ortaçağ baskı teknikleri arayışıyla Morris'in madde ve söylemin içten-etkimesini yansıttığını tartışmaktır.

RESİMLİ BİR ÜTOPYA: KELMSCOTT CHAUCER

William Morris was not only a prolic writer and artist of the Victorian Age, but also the embodiment of Neo-medievalism, which dominated the age, with his interest in medieval manuscripts, sagas, romances and the gothic tradition as reected in his professional life. Trying to avoid the inuences of the Industrial Revolution on individuals, Morris turned to medieval ideals and materialised them in his paintings and drawings as a Victorian medievalist. Yet, it was the foundation of the Kelmscott Press that endowed Morris with the best means to display his interest in medieval arts and literature. The Kelmscott Chaucer (1896) can be regarded as the product both of Morris's idealisation of Chaucer as a medieval poet, and of what Karen Barad denes as the “intra-action” of matter and discourse. Accordingly, through an analysis of the illustrated pages of The Canterbury Tales section of the Kelmscott Chaucer, the aim of this article is to analyse this book as a pictorial utopia and argue that Morris displays the intra-action of matter and discourse through his search for medieval printing techniques

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