Both Morris s narrative structure and his fictions reflect his knowledge of earlier literature. His well-travelled storytellers resemble the characters of Boccacio s Decameron and Chaucer s Canterbury Tales, while his stories originate from medieval, classical, Eastern, and Norse legends. W ith such stories as The Man Born to be King, The Lady of the Land, and The Watching of the Falcon, the poem s popularity has been attributed to its vivid imagery and marked literary escapism. T he edition shown here appears to have been designed and laid out without much input from Morris. This rather plain text can be compared with the elaborate ornamentation and typographic imagination that Morris would later exhibit in his Kelmscott Press publications.
Love is Enough.
M orris s affection for ancient literature led him to experiment with literary form as well as archaic language. In his 1873 work, Love is Enough, Morris attempted to imitate the alliterative language and complex metrical structure of old English poetry. As his daughter wrote years later, the work is the most elaborate scheme the poet ever worked on, and shows his most sensitive touch. It will be a very fine work. Appropriately enough, the masque tells the story of a mighty king who is tested by sickness and age and ultimately abandons his throne for the woman of his dreams.