Literature and Utopian Politics in Seventeenth-Century England

Abstract

Hundreds of writers in the English-speaking world of the seventeenth-century imagined alternative ideal societies. Sometimes they did so by exploring fanciful territories, such as the world in the moon or the nations of the Antipodes; but sometimes they composed serious disquisitions about the here and now, proposing how England or its nascent colonies could be conceived of as an 'Oceana,' or a New Jerusalem. First published in 2002, this book provides a comprehensive view of the operations of the utopian imagination in literature from 1603 to the 1660s. Appealing to social theorists, literary critics, and political and cultural historians, this volume revises prevailing notions of the languages of hope and social dreaming in the making of British modernity during a century of political and intellectual upheaval.

Exploring the Relationship between Hope and Utopia: Towards a Conceptual Framework

“…This patient hope gave way in the 1620s and 1630s to a restless critical hope that developed in response to economic and political destabilisation. Underscored by critical hope, this was a period of ‘utopian experimentalism’ (Appelbaum, 2002), the defining text of which was Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy (1621–1638). This contemporary bestseller fully embodied the predominant mode of hoping.…”

“…Rather, the predominance of transformative hope within the collective emotional orientation of 1640s England created the conditions for the emergence of utopia. What emerged during the 1640s were a reconfigured political subjectivity and a sense of ‘transformative possibilities’ (Appelbaum, 2002, p. 112). This ensured that when crisis and disappointment came, the reaction was not one of apathy, resignation or despair.…”

Experimenting with Matter in the Works of Gabriel Plattes

“…147-70;White and Woodward 2007, pp. 285-98); or the utopian literature of the seventeenth century (Davis 1981;Boesky 1997;Dickson 1998;Appelbaum 2002). He was an inventor and alchemist with a special interest in projects of amelioration, from the improvement of barren fields to producing new medicines, and to even more ambitious projects of advancing economic welfare.…”