Abstract：The Tables Turned is a play by William Morris, a famous English writer, artist, designer and early socialist activist. The play attacks the decaying capitalist judicial system of Britain in the form of a courtroom farce, and extols the socialist revolutionary movement. In the play, Morris refutes the capitalist judicial system by means of allegory, presents a view of art as “art of the people” with writing techniques of literary realism, and delineates an ideal society in Utopian styles. By doing so, he displays his thoughts of romantic socialism, artistic socialism, and Utopi-an socialism. It is argued that the play expresses Morris’s revolutionary faith, and exhibits an ef¬fective integration of revolutionary ideas into a literary masterpiece.
Key words: The Tables Turned; socialist thought; allegory; realism; Utopia
