LITR 5439 Literary & Historical Utopias

conclude Utopia; begin Looking Backward

Examples from last week's discussions:

Questions raised over individual freedom versus social expectations or rules

Questions whether More's references to "slaves" from 1516 can be read without reference to slavery from 1619-1863

As a genre, utopian literature can provide a vehicle--or a dodge!--for confronting sensitive social issues--other examples from last week?

These are ideas, but they're also personal, having to do with identities

Even if reading of utopian novels can drag, discussion begins to fulfill Horace's prescription for literature to "entertain and inform"

1

Literary objective 2d. How essential is “millennialism” (apocalyptic or end-time narrative) to the utopian narrative?

Millennium or apocalypse can take many forms, but very frequently involved in utopian stories

Why?

More's Utopia, opening of Book II

How is this like an apocalyptic or millennial event?

Millennium usually implies a large-scale change--everything changes at once--

Revelation: "New Heaven and New Earth"

"Admiration and terror" = sublime (pleasure and pain, beauty and terror combined)

Looking Backward: less violent change, but look for moments where Dr. Leete tries to explain how or why things changed

How convincing? What possible suspicions?

What are the reader's options?

Concluding discussion of Utopia

Probably more ready to discuss Looking Backward

Quick look back--What carry from it?

Two flashpoints:

private property and private family

private property

1.12 his safety consisted more in his people’s wealth than in his own

1.13d Plato contrives, Utopians practice . . . so different from our establishment, which is founded on property, there being no such thing among them

2.4c there being no property among them, every man may freely enter into any house whatsoever. At every ten years end they shift their houses by lots

private family

29-30 2.2b [chicken family modifications

37 2.11 removing some of the children of a more fruitful couple to any other family that does not abound so much in them

40 2.13a child considers nurse as mother

42 2.16 the whole island is, as it were, one family

32 2.4d Utopus x too much for one man to bring to perfection

Importance of examples--

competition of communities, not individuals

4 1.2 patterns might be taken for correcting the errors of these nations among whom we live

31 2.4c gardens, emulation by streets [civic competition]

35 2.8c even the Syphogrants . . . work, that by their examples they may excite the industry of the rest of the people

Looking Backward

quality as novel?

clarity, New England plain style

personalizing of Edith?

historical impact (handout)

historical background

full title: Looking Backward, 2000-1887

historical context of "Gilded Age" of late 19th century

"Robber Barons" and "Captains of Industry"

rapid urbanization

rising immigration, surplus of workers, exploitation plus cultural change from "Anglo"-dominant North American society to more diverse

3c. Is the utopian impulse universal, or is it special to western civilization, esp. in its modern phase? Has the utopian impulse become extinct or evolved? Is utopia “progressive / liberal” or “reactionary / conservative?”

good introduction to Modern Library edition

other Utopian literary / cultural sources

Impact of Looking Backward on history

publishing sensation, discussion groups formed (cf. Purpose-Driven Life?)

influence of "Progressive Movement" of early 20th century?

(progressive taxation, environmental and health regulations, worker protection)

Three of our course texts are centered around the "Progressive Era" and "New Deal era" of the late 19th, early 20th century

Looking Backward (1888)

Herland (1915)

Anthem (1938)

2-3 generations of most "utopian" or socialist progress in United States governance

Goes through 1960s-70s, when Civil Rights Movement alienates many whites from government activism

1980s-2000s: return to Gilded Age economics, inequality, dis-investment in civic institutions (like universities!)

Historical background to More's Utopia (1516)

Printing press developed 1450s (Gutenberg Bibles)--More's traveler makes references to printing in Utopia

Discovery of America 1492--More makes direct references to travels and writings of Amerigo Vespucci

Renaissance (1400s-1500s) as revival of humanistic and empirical thought from Classical Greece and Rome, in contrast to emphasis on divine revelation and tradition in Middle Ages

Rise of modern "power politics" in statesmanship, formalized in Machiavelli's The Prince -- Utopia, especially in its emphasis on "If I were advising a leader" bits, often seems like a reply to The Prince that differs by emphasizing the need for leaders to be humble and models of virtuous behavior rather than power players.

Christian humanism

"Note," p. iii: Erasmus as editor

17 Plato

defining utopia

4 monsters x states that are well and wisely governed

4 patterns might be taken for correcting the errors of these nations among whom we live

4 manners and laws of the utopians, commonwealth

17 Plato, philosophers > kings, kings > philosophers

28 island of Utopia [cf. Britain]

28 Utopus, Abraxas

28 separated them from the continent, deep channel dug

family issues

29-30 [chicken family modifications]

34 trade from father to son; if change, adopted into another family

37 none of their cities may contain above six thousand families

37 removing some of the children of a more fruitful couple to any other family that does not abound so much in them

40 child considers nurse as mother

42 the whole island is, as it were, one family

property / capital vs. human capital / merit

22 philosophical way of speculation > friends, x-court

22 not able to make them go well they may be as little ill as possible; for except all men were good everything cannot be right

23 Plato contrives, Utopians practice . . . so different from our establishment, which is founded on property, there being no such thing among them

25 analogy of sick man

25 [common sense to the contrary]

31 there being no property among them, every man may freely enter into any house whatsoever. At every ten years end they shift their houses by lots

34 no man may live idle, but do not wear themselves out with perpetual toil

34 6 hrs of labor

35 a small proportion of time would serve for doing all that is either necessary, profitable, or pleasant to mankind, especially while pleasure is kept within its due bounds.

37 improvement of their minds, in which they think the happiness of life consists [cf. Weber]

38 laws x-pomp, glory, pride, excess

43 folly of men has enhanced the value of gold and silver, because of their scarcity . . .  Nature, as an indulgent parent, has greely given us all the best things in great abundance, such as water and earth, but has laid up and hid from us the things that are vain and useless.

50 heap up wealth for contemplation and joy of it? [neglects re-investment of Protestant work ethic]

69 [human capital]

Mithras

Preview of Looking Backward 

priority question for first part of midterm: What formal and historical resemblances between More's Utopia and Bellamy's Looking Backward?

How do you start building a working definition of "utopian text" or "utopian novel" from these examples?

historical background

full title: Looking Backward, 2000-1887

historical context of "Gilded Age" of late 19th century

"Robber Barons" and "Captains of Industry"

rapid urbanization

rising immigration, surplus of workers, exploitation plus cultural change from "Anglo"-dominant North American society to more diverse

3c. Is the utopian impulse universal, or is it special to western civilization, esp. in its modern phase? Has the utopian impulse become extinct or evolved? Is utopia “progressive / liberal” or “reactionary / conservative?”

good introduction to Modern Library edition

other Utopian literary / cultural sources

Impact of Looking Backward on history

publishing sensation, discussion groups formed (cf. Purpose-Driven Life?)

influence of "Progressive Movement" of early 20th century?

(progressive taxation, environmental and health regulations, worker protection)

Ergo historically exciting, but a somewhat dull reading experience--clear and readable, though.

2a. What problems of plot or narrative rise from a utopian vision that minimizes conflict and maximizes description or exposition of success and harmony? What genre variations derive from these problems with plot?

2b. How much does the “plotlessness” of utopian fiction correspond to or circumvent the problem of arriving at utopia?

In both Looking Backward and Herland, the journeys to the utopia may be the most dramatic episodes

What parts work best?

What drives you crazy?

What does the report leave out?

If you were writing a dystopian counter-text to Looking Backward, which characters or scenes would you redevelop or diverge from?

Looking Backward questions assigned from last class

priority question for sake of midterm, course: What formal and historical resemblances between More's Utopia and Bellamy's Looking Backward?

How do you start building a working definition of "utopian text" or "utopian novel" from these examples?

What does the report leave out?

If you were writing a dystopian counter-text to Looking Backward, which characters or scenes would you redevelop or diverge from?

defining utopia

4 monsters x states that are well and wisely governed

4 patterns might be taken for correcting the errors of these nations among whom we live

4 manners and laws of the utopians, commonwealth

17 Plato, philosophers > kings, kings > philosophers

28 island of Utopia [cf. Britain]

Utopia & Looking Backward as novels?

In what ways does Utopia resemble a novel? (Broadly, the "modern English novel" would not appear for app. 200 more years--DeFoe's Robinson Crusoe 1719)

Lacking plot, what literary pleasures?

p. 1--frontier of fact and fiction

2-3 scene, dialogue, narrative

2 characterization of Raphael

84 character interplay

poetics > rhetoric 

("poetics" refers to literary mimesis or representation; "rhetoric" refers to persuasion)

objective 1c. Can utopias join science fiction, speculative fiction, and allied genres in constituting a “literature of ideas?”

proverbs 2, 7

anecdote 6-7

figurative speech

21 analogy, proverb

23 no ill simile

25 analogy of a sick man

cf science fiction

33 Tranibors

67 Zapolets

80 hieroglyphics

28 Utopus, Abraxas

28 separated them from the continent, deep channel dug

utopias and science fiction, like popular science writing and even some scientific research, explains through use of analogies, metaphors > "models," "paradigms"

Looking Backward

1-2 alleviate the instructive nature of book > romantic narrative ("romance" as common synonym for novel)

ch. 16 my reason you saved

Northrop Frye, "Varieties of Literary Utopias." Utopias and Utopian Thought, ed. Frank E. Manuel (Cambridge: Riverside, 1966). 25-49.

26  In utopian stories a frequent device is for someone, generally a first-person narrator, to enter the utopia and be shown around it by a sort of Intourist guide.  The story is made up largely of a Socratic dialogue between guide and narrator, in which the narrator asks questions or thinks up objections and the guide answers them. . . .  As a rule the guide is completely identified with his society and seldom admits to any discrepancy between the reality and the appearance of what he is describing.

 ch. 1 coach metaphor

ch. 7 analogy with military

ch. 15 Berrian's novel

objective 2a. What problems of plot or narrative rise from a utopian vision that minimizes conflict and maximizes description or exposition of success and harmony? What genre variations derive from these problems with plot?

assignments

Tuesday: complete Looking Backward; read Herland through 1st 4 chapters (through p. 50 in Signet Classics edn)

Discussion leader for Tuesday: Bryon Smith--please compare / contrast selections from both texts, ask inclusive question

Thursday: complete Herland

"Millennialism" in both Looking Backward & Herland

2c. How does the introduction of “millennialism” (end-time or apocalyptic narrative) transform the plot of the utopian narrative?

Herland creation story depends on violent apocalyptic narrative

Looking Backward depends on an alternative "post-millennial" millennialism that is a tradition in liberal American Christianity--less about Judgment Day, more about establishment or fulfillment of Kingdom of God on Earth, America as "New Jerusalem" (Brook Farm, the Transcendentalist Utopia, started with similar theories by Unitarian ministers.)

148 New Heavens and New Earth (from Revelation)

Comparison of some consistent utopian themes with "status quo" of capitalism, nationalism, etc.

Herland maintains most of these divisions, but instead of concentrating on property-labor as essential or determining division in society, it concentrates on gender.

eco-feminism is a hybrid word of "ecological feminism"

eco-feminism definition

"environmental feminism"

(One reason this subject is brought up here is that much of Herland anticipates our last course text, Ecotopia.)

Literary issues:

Stylistically, Herland is a tour de force [a feat of skill, ingenious accomplishment]. Compared to most other utopian novels, the novel's style is surprisingly brisk and energetic.

Written in 1915-16, Gilman's style appears to imitate that of various male swashbuckling adventure novelists of the time such as Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan and John Carter, Warlord of Mars series, both begun 1912); Anthony Hope (Prisoner of Zenda 1894), H. Rider Haggard (She 1886, King Solomon's Mines 1885)

Told through male point-of-view

Three distinct male characters visit an "Amazonian" hidden valley (cf. Shangri-La)

Highest interest of novel may be Gilman's depiction of male psychology in reaction to women in power.

But . . . 

Some problems with women's characterization

Problem of sameness in utopian community?

At what points do women characters achieve most literary impact?

Preview of Looking Backward 

priority question for sake of midterm, course: What formal and historical resemblances between More's Utopia and Bellamy's Looking Backward?

How do you start building a working definition of "utopian text" or "utopian novel" from these examples?