This class introduces the question of what it means to talk about early modern utopian writing from a range of departure points. First, it examines ancient and medieval precursors of the utopian genre with particular reference to the influence of Plato's Republic. Secondly, it attempts to construct possible definitions of 'utopianism' in historical, philosophical, literary terms by examining ancient precursos alongside early modern utopian writers self-consciously reflecting on the genre. It also addresses the relationship between political reality and utopian ambition and the reformist or radical nature of this ambition. Finally, the class also addresses more methodological, sociological and historiographical questions provoked by contemporary critics of early modern utopian writing.
Primary Sources:
1.1 Hesiod, Works and Days [pre 5th century BCE], Stanley Lombardo and Robert Lamberton eds., (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993), 26-9.
1.2 Plato, The Republic [c. 380 BCE) ed. G. Ferrari, trans. T. Griffith, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), Sections 368c-376d and 471c-472e and 592a-6, (pp. 50-60, 173-4, 312).
1.3 St. Augustine, The City of God against the Pagans [416-22 CE], R. W. Dyson ed., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 632-3 and 638-9.
1.4 Sir Thomas More, Utopia [1516], George M. Logan and Robert M. Adams eds., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 9-13, 110-1 and 112-4.
1.5 David Hume, 'Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth' [1752], in Gregory Claeys ed., Utopias of the British Enlightenment, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 57-8, 68-9.
Secondary Reading:
Suggested Utopian Text:
Sir Thomas More, Utopia [1516], George M. Logan and Robert M. Adams eds., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
Early modern utopian writing is generically evasive. It drew upon conventions derived from travel literature, imaginary voyages, Lucianic ('Menippean') satire, princely advice literature, poetic and political allegory, and systematic moral and political philosophy. Furthermore, there are problems of distinguishing between different kinds of utopian writing. J. C. Davis, for instance, distinguishes between Utopia, Arcadia, Cockaigne, millennial transformation, and the perfect moral commonwealth, and argues that 'only in the fugal context of its counterpoint with other ideal society forms does utopia's history take on a dynamic.' Through sources illustrating some of the more prominent generic debts of the tradition, this class will attempt to identify some of the many generic affiliations of utopian writing and develop the questions of definition raised in the first week. It will also raise the vexed question of authors' commitments to their written utopias.
Primary Sources:
2.1 Lucian, A True History, pp. 136-41
2.2 Richard Hakluyt, Voyages and Discoveries (1598-1600), pp. 51-52
2.3 Joseph Hall, Another World and Yet the Same (1605), pp. 33-36
2.4 William Shakespeare, The Tempest (1611), II. i. 1-195
2.5 Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1632), pp. 85-97
2.6 Gabriel Plattes, Macaria (1641), sig. A2r-v, pp. 1-5
2.7 James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656), pp. 2-7
2.8 Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels (1726), pp. 257-62 (Bk IV, ch. 8)
2.9 Samuel Johnson, Rasselas (1759), pp. 39-43
Secondary Reading:
Suggested Utopian Text:
Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy [1632], ed. Thomas C. Faulkner, et al., 6 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989-), vol. I, pp. 85-97
This class will consider the physical aspects of the early modern utopia, from the largest to the smallest scale. What is the significance of the location of an ideal society - whether in the new world (More) or old (Campanella)? Should it be a country (Harrington), an island (More, Bacon), a city (Campanella), a religious community (Rabelais, Andreae), or a fantasy world (Cavendish)? At the level of the city, what are the architectural prescriptions that encourage particular forms of social life? On a related issue, what are the relations between utopian writings and plans for ideal cities such as those by Filarete and Ledoux?
Primary Sources:
3.1 Antonio Averlino ('Filarete'), 'Plan of Sforzinda' (c. 1460)
3.2 Unknown Central Italian Artist, 'Ideal City', (end 15th cent.). Urbino, Galleria Nazionale della Marche.
3.3 Unknown Central Italian Artist, 'Ideal City with a Fountain and Statues of the Virtues' (end 15th cent.). Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore.
3.4 Anon., 'Figure of the island of Utopia' and 'The alphabet of the Utopians', in Thomas More, Utopia (1516)
3.5 Ambrosius Holbein, 'Map of the island of Utopia', in Thomas More, Utopia (Basel, 1518)
3.6 Thomas More to Peter Giles, in Utopia (1516), pp. 4-6
3.7 Thomas More, Utopia (1516), pp. 42-48
3.8 Francesco Patrizi, La Città felice (1553), parts 5 and 6
3.9 François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel (1558), pp. 28-29
3.10 Tommaso Campanella, City of the Sun (1602), pp. 27-37
3.11 Joseph Hall, Another World and Yet the Same (1605), p. 1
3.12 J. V. Andreae, illustration of Christianopolis (1619)
3.13 James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656), pp. 3-7
3.14 Claude Nicolas Ledoux, 'Perspective view of the town of Chaux' (from 1774)
3.15 Ledoux, 'Market of Chaux' (from 1774).
Secondary Reading:
Suggested Utopian Text:
Francesco Patrizi, La città felice (1553). English translation by Eugene F. Ryan online at http://www.ecu.edu/medieval/cittafel.htm
By adopting the utopian genre, early modern authors were enabled to experiment with ideas of social organisation and manners in ways that would have been inconceivable outside the framework of imaginative literature. The sources included here illustrate some of these societal experiments, beginning with the sexual communism and eugenics programme advocated in Plato's Republic and developed in Campanella's City of the Sun. Also discussed are debates about how to secure compatibility in marriage, together with the legitimacy of divorce. Other accounts, such as Nevile's Isle of Pines exploit the isolation of utopian societies to license polygamy and incest.
Primary Sources:
4.1 Plato, The Republic [c. 380 BCE) ed. G. Ferrari, trans. T. Griffith, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 155-60 (Sections 458c-461e).
4.2 Sir Thomas More, Utopia [1516], eds. George M. Logan and Robert M. Adams, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 55-60, 80-3.
4.3 Thomas Campanella, The City of the Sun [1602], trans. Daniel J. Donno, (Berkley: University of California Press, 1981), 53-63
4.4 J. V. Andreae, Christianopolis [1619], Edward H. Thompson ed., (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Press, 1999), 265-70
4.5 Francis Bacon, 'New Atlantis' [1627], in Three Early Modern Utopias, Susan Bruce ed., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 172-5.
4.6 [Henry Nevile], 'Isle of Pines' [1668] in Three Early Modern Utopias, Susan Bruce ed., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 197-200.
4.7 Anon., 'The Island of Content: or, A New Paradise Discovered' [1709], in Gregory Claeys ed., Utopias of the British Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 12-14.
Secondary Reading:
Suggested Utopian Text:
Tommaso Campanella, The City of the Sun: A Poetical Dialogue, Daniel J. Donno ed., (Berkeley, 1981).
This class investigates why education was a pervasive preoccupation of many early utopian writers. It assesses the interest in education both as a legacy of Renaissance humanism and, more specifically, as the result of a more specifically late-Renaissance fascination with universal learning. Plato's assertion that philosophers must be kings and kings must be philosophers was taken up and developed by early modern writers. As such, educational reform supplied one of the principal exemplary functions of the utopian genre, illustrating how some of the most radical social aspirations of early modern utopian writers emerge in this sphere, including, for example, the belief that education should be universal and irrespective of gender or social class.
Primary Sources:
5.1 J. V. Andreae, Christianoplis [1619], Edward H. Thompson ed. (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Press, 1999), 203, 217-24.
5.2 Denis Vairasse d'Allais, 'The Economy and Education of the Sevarambians' [1677-9], in Frank E. Manuel and Fritizie P. Manuel eds., French Utopias. An Anthology of Ideal Societies (New York: Free Press, 1966), 53-7.
5.3 [William Smith], A General Idea of the College of Mirania (New York, 1753), 9-16.
5.4 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile [1762], P. D. Jimack ed., Barbara Foxley trans. (London: Everyman, 1993), 63-5, 176-7.
5.5 William Hodgson, 'The Commonwealth of Reason' [1795], in Gregory Claeys ed., Utopias of the British Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 238-42.
Secondary Reading:
Suggested Utopian Text:
Francois de Fenelon, Telemachus. Son of Ulysses, Patrick Riley ed. and trans., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
The fascination with natural science in early modern utopianism follows naturally from their preoccupation with education; the two, indeed are often hard to separate. A preoccupation with utopian societies' understanding and control of nature is an equally central fascination of early modern utopian writers, although Bacon is unusual in respect to the weight he accords this as an end in itself rather than as an integrated aspect of an ideal society. This class will raise some of the most pressing questions about the place of science in utopia: its capacity to perfect human society within a non-religious framework; scientific knowledge as an aspect of living in harmony with nature; the utopian ambitions that the 'new philosophy' of the seventeenth century inspired in its proselytes; and the importance of medicine. The advances of the natural sciences have also provided the most fertile source of the dystopias of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and so we will conclude by asking whether the seeds of this dissatisfaction can be found in their early modern precursors.
Primary Sources:
6.1 Thomas More, Utopia (1516), pp. 66-67, 77-79
6.2 Tommaso Campanella, City of the Sun (1602), pp. 33-37, 121-27
6.3 J. V. Andreae, Christianopolis (1619), pp. 209-217
6.4 Francis Bacon, New Atlantis (1627), pp. 176-85
6.5 Abraham Cowley, A Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy (1661), pp. 14-28, sigs D4r-D7r
6.6 First Statutes of the Royal Society of London for the Promotion of Natural Knowledge (1663), chapters iv-vi
6.7 Margaret Cavendish, The Description of a New World called the Blazing-World (1666), pp. 25-30
6.8 Louis Sébastien Mercier, 'The Academy of Science', in L'An 2440 (1771), pp. 134-41
Secondary Reading:
Recommended Utopian Text:
Francis Bacon, 'New Atlantis', in Three Renaissance Utopias: Utopia, New Atlantis, The Isle of Pines, ed. by Susan Bruce (Oxford: World's Classics, 1999)
Religious communities, and particularly the monastic experience, have provided a constant source of inspiration for utopians, and in some cases (most notably that of Andreae's Christianopolis) have underpinned the entire conception. Religious motives have also been dominant, historically speaking, in the formation of ideal or perfectionist communities throughout the world - a fertile topic that is beyond the scope of this course. How far was the early modern utopia invented explicitly as a means of considering human society outside a religious framework, as some have suggested? Was early modern utopianism a means of transcending the confessional conflict with which early modern Europe was riven? What was the role of millenarianism in early modern utopianism (Thomas Muentzer; Gerrard Winstanley)? Did ambitions for a Christian pansophia (Andreae, Comenius, Leibniz) win out over the neo-Augustinian critique of human perfectibility?
Primary Sources:
7.1 Thomas More, Utopia (1516), pp. 95-107
7.2 Tommaso Campanella, City of the Sun (1602), pp. 101-21
7.3 J. V. Andreae, Christianopolis (1619) pp. 146-54
7.4 Francis Bacon, New Atlantis (1627), pp. 157-59
7.5 Joseph Glanvill, 'Anti-Fanatical Religion' (1676), pp. 1-11
7.6 Ambrose Phillips, A Description of New Athens (1720), pp. 42-45
7.7 James Burgh, An Account of the . . . Cessares (1764), pp. 104-11
Suggested Utopian Text:
Johann Valentin Andreae, Christianopolis [1619], ed. and trans. by Edward H. Thompson (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1999)
This final class turns to the heart of the political issues raised in early modern utopian writing. What is the role of law in an ideal society? With what constitutional structures should it best be governed? Do utopias provide the best way of discussing the 'best state of a republic'? Is communism a defining feature of the utopian tradition, or rather only a preoccupation of certain prominent writers?
Primary Sources:
8.1 Sir Thomas More, Utopia [1516], eds. George M. Logan and Robert M. Adams, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 38-41.
8.2 Gerrard Winstanley, The Law of Freedom [1652], in The Law of Freedom and other Writings, ed. by Christopher Hill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 305-7, 311-2, 372, 374-5, 377-80.
8.3 Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, 'Warfare on the Moon' [before 1655], in Frank E. Manuel and Fritizie P. Manuel eds., French Utopias: An Anthology of Ideal Societies (New York: Free Press, 1966), 45-7.
8.4 Jan Amos Comenius, Panorthosia, or Universal Reform [before 1670], ed. A. M. O. Dobbie (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 102-11.
8.5 'Annus Sophiae Jubilaeus', The Sophick Constitution: or, Evil Customs of the World Reformed [1700], in Gregory Clays ed., Modern British Utopias 1700-1850. Volume I, (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1997), 23-8.
8.6 David Hume, 'Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth' [1752], in Gregory Claeys ed., Utopias of the British Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 59-66.
Secondary Reading:
Suggested Utopian Text:
James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceanea [1656], ed. J. G. A. Pocock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)