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Books about Utopian Literature :
More's Utopia and Utopian Literature (Cliffs Notes)
The Greek term ou topos means "no place." From it Sir Thomas More derived the word utopia to describe
an ideal human society. His book 'Utopia' was published in Latin in 1516 and in English translation in 1551 (see
More, Thomas). More wrote at a time when the social institutions that held society
together during the Middle Ages were beginning to break down. New economic undertakings were laying the foundations
of capitalism. Thousands of people in England had been driven from their villages by land enclosures to make room
for sheep raising.
More realized that a way of life was passing and that a new, uncertain one was being forged. He wrote 'Utopia'
as a protest against the breakdown of the old order. To make his protest effective he described an ideal commonwealth
in which people have to work only six hours a day, leaving plenty of time for leisure. Everyone lives in a pleasant
home surrounded by a garden. Communities have good schools and hospitals. Education is compulsory, and every student
learns at least one trade. Food is given out at public markets and community dining halls. Children, after their
earliest years, leave home and are brought up by public authorities. The rulers are selected by secret ballot from
among the best-educated citizens. Lawyers are unnecessary because there are so few laws.
More's book shares two primary characteristics of all utopian literature. It criticizes the present as an unhappy
time, and it proposes an alternative society in which the state is exalted over the individual.
Although More's book is fiction, it came so soon after the discovery of the Americas that utopia began to take
on the sense of a real place--a new Garden of Eden in the West where humanity could begin anew. (It was no accident
that the book's island, Utopia, is situated near the Western Hemisphere.) In later centuries utopian literature
often presented what were then regarded as realistic programs for ideal human societies. This was especially true
during the 19th century, with its diversity of socialist doctrines. In the United States many of these programs
were put into practice in hundreds of planned communities based mostly on socialist writings. Other utopias were
based on religion, politics, and science and technology.
More's 'Utopia' was not the first book of its kind, nor was it the last. In ancient Greece Hesiod (about 800
BC), in 'Works and Days', locates his utopia in a long-past Golden Age. The Bible also locates it in the past--in
the Garden of Eden. A few centuries after Hesiod's book the philosopher Plato's 'Republic' describes a state ruled
by philosopher-kings. In his 'Critias' Plato uses the myth of the undersea kingdom of Atlantis to describe an ideal
commonwealth. The legend of Atlantis was taken up by other writers and has persisted in literature to the present.
A century after Plato, the Greek writer Euhemerus (about 300 BC) wrote of a utopian island in his 'Sacred
History'. The historian Plutarch (2nd century AD), in his 'Lives', describes the Greek city-state of Sparta
under Lycurgus in utopian terms. The Latin author Lucian (2nd century AD) satirizes earlier utopias in his
'True Story'.
During the Middle Ages, under the influence of Christianity, utopian literature disappeared in Europe. Attention
was instead focused on the afterlife, on the city of God, or on a time of bliss on Earth during a millennium.
More's 'Utopia' was written just after the end of the Middle Ages, and its popularity prompted imitation. Antonio
Francesco Doni edited an Italian translation of 'Utopia' in 1548, and four years later he published his own book,
'The Worlds', about a perfect city in which marriage has been abolished. This was followed in 1553 by Francesco
Patrizi's 'The Happy City'.
In 1602 Tommaso Campanella published 'The City of the Sun'. In his utopia everyone's work contributes to the welfare
of the whole community. Private property, great wealth, and poverty do not exist. His ideas were taken up by 19th-century
socialists. Johann Valentin Andreae proposes a Christian commonwealth in 'Christianopolis' (1619), and Gerrard
Winstanley advocates a political and economic ideal in 'The Law of Freedom' (1652). 'Oceana' (1656) by James Harrington
calls for redistribution of land as an economic goal. Francis Bacon's 'The New Atlantis' (1627) lays out a program
for the new science within a Christian society.
One of the first writers to project a utopia far in the future was Louis-Sebastien Mercier in his 'The Year 2440'
(1772). Much of today's science fiction deals with similar themes, criticizing present society and proposing better
alternatives.
In the 19th century G.A. Ellis' 'New Britain' (1820) and Etienne Cabet's 'Voyage in Icaria' (1840) were utopian
socialist works relating to communal experiments in North America. Two other influential 19th-century economic
utopias are Edward Bellamy's 'Looking Backward: 2000-1887' (1888), one of the most significant such books by an
American, and Theodor Herzka's 'A Visit to Freeland' (1894). The great science-fiction writer H.G. Wells produced
'A Modern Utopia' in 1905.
Utopian ideals were not without critics. Jonathan Swift satirizes them in 'Gulliver's Travels' (1726). Samuel Butler's
'Erewhon' (1872) foreshadows the satirical utopias and anti-utopias of the 20th century. His title is a rearrangement
of the letters in the word nowhere. The 20th-century anti-utopias have been more than satirical. They are powerful
attacks on the notion of utopianism itself. The anti-utopian novel was created by the Russian satirist Yevgeny
Zamyatin in 'We' (1925), a parody of the Communist state. It was followed by Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World'
(1932), a savage criticism of the scientific future. George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' (1944) shows his disillusionment
with the Communist paradise, and his 'Nineteen Eighty-four' (1949) projects a totalitarian world.
During the last years of the 20th century the utopian experiments based on 19th-century socialism all came to grief.
Communism collapsed in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Socialist practices in Africa impoverished many nations.
The attempts to turn humanity into selfless servants of the state had failed. Readers interested in learning more
about the subject should consult 'Utopian
Thought in the Western World' by F.E. and F.P. Manuel.
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