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Utopia [Utopian literature] | [Anti-Utopian literature]

Utopian literature Sir Thomas More of the 16th century published a book entitled “Utopia”, taken from the Greek word outopos, meaning “no place”. It was a time when social institutions that had held society together during the Middle Ages were starting to collapse and economic undertakings were laying the groundwork for capitalism. Thousands of English people were driven from their villages to make land for sheep rearing. More wrote “Utopia” as a statement that life, in passing was forging a new way and as a protest against this wanton destruction of the Old World Order. His book shared two primary characteristics of Utopian literature: 1. It criticises the present as an unhappy time. 2. It proposes an alternative society in which the state is exalted over the individual.

“Utopia” was fiction, but shortly after the New World (the Americas) was discovered, and an Eden began to materialise before the eyes of the people. Here was a chance for them to start over a create a society upon which was based upon the experience of their previous mistakes. After aeons of thought, this was the time to put the teachings of Hesiod’s “Works and Days”(800 B.C), Plato’s “The Republic” and “Critias”, Euhemerus’ “Sacred History”(300 B.C), Plutarch’s “Lives” and Lucian’s “True Story”(2nd century). Many more utopian wors have been published since then, but the key point to note here is that today, utopian literature is regarded as realistic programs for ideal human societies. With the development of socialist doctrines and left-wing thought, many programs were implemented in hundreds of planned communities in the United States, based on religion, politics or science and technology. [Top]

Anti-Utopian Literature
Utopian ideals were obviously not without critics, and from the 18th to the 20th century, writers like Jonathan Swift, Samuel Butler and Yevgeny Zamyatin in works like “Gulliver’s Travels”(note: especially in the chapter about Yahoos), “Erewhon” (incidentally the letters in ‘Nowhere’ rearranged) and “We” respectively criticised utopian thought. More familiar works include “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, “Animal Farm” and “1984” by George Orwell.
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