Utopian Writers of the 17th

Utopian Writers of the 17th Century

The stereotypical concept of utopia in the minds of the average citizen in contemporary American society - who is likely uninformed as to the literature and diversity of forms that utopia has taken historically - is that of a lovely paradise where life flows freely, there's no work to do, the weather's always gorgeous, stress and pressure are non-existent, and happy days are endless. However, this description shows naivete because first of all, utopian philosophies in most cases are not about giving humans a free ride in some fantasy world; and secondly, there are myriad definitions of utopia and numerous social and moral reasons why writers and philosophers advanced ideas of utopia. Thirdly, even scholars and literary icons are in disagreement as to what utopia means and how utopia should be integrated into the literature and social studies paradigm.

In this paper, the utopian literature and ideas put forth with writers and philosophers in the 17th Century will be reviewed and analyzed from the perspective of literary critics and the writers who carve out utopian ideology and circumstance. It is a fact that is expressed in many styles by myriad scholars and authors that pinning down a definition for utopia is an exercise in opinion and not substantive fact.

For example, Ruth Levitas has taught courses on utopia as a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Bristol and helped launch the Utopian Studies Society in the UK. In her book, the Concept of Utopia (1990) which was reviewed in Science Fiction Studies by Tom Moylan of DePauw University, Levitas asserts that the "validity of utopia" is not "escapist nonsense but a significant part of human culture" (Moylan 1992). And while Levitas praises the "vitality of utopian studies" and admires the "rich diversity of recent work" she expresses concern that an expanded investigation into utopia (presumably done outside a thorough historical context), Moylan goes on, she fears this expansion could result in "creative disorder or debilitating confusion." Her concern is grounded in her believe that any general definition of utopia "needs to accommodate a wide variety of methods and objects," according to Moylan's article; she fears there will be (and perhaps already are) "rigid and narrow formulations" of utopia. To engage in a worthwhile intellectual discussion of utopia, she asserts, one cannot cast any definition in terms of "content, form, or even function," because "all three change with each historical context."

Indeed, what is utopia and what can be said in a general yet succinct way about utopia, in Levitas' view? Levitas has chosen to relate to utopia, Moylan explains as part of his critique of Levitas' book, "in terms of the central characteristic of desire: 'the desire for a better being' (p. 199 of the Concept of Utopia)." A more elaborate definition by Levitas (incorporating "desire" as a central theme) is that utopia "...arises not from a 'natural' impulse subject to social mediation, but as a socially constructed response to an equally constructed gap between the needs and wants generated by a particular society and the satisfactions available to and distributed by it" (Moylan 1992). In other words, the distance between what a culture needs and what it wants can be mitigated through the creation of a utopian bridge to be constructed between the two.

DEFINITIONS of UTOPIA: JAMES HOLSTUN:

In James Holstun's book, a Rational Millennium: Puritan Utopias of Seventeenth-Century England & America, the author offers a historical review of utopia as a blend of philosophy and literature, beginning with Socrates in Book 6 of the Republic. Socrates suggests in Book 6 that Greece must institute a "carefully applied program of educational discipline" (Holstun 36) and that will allow philosophers to reform the entire state, one person at a time. But wait, before that reform can take place, Socrates went on, the "proper utopian raw materials" must be given to the populace. The utopian philosophers will then "take the city and characters of men, as if they were a tablet, and wipe them clean - no easy task." And Socrates' view of a Greek utopia would be that philosophers will constantly be "...rubbing out and correcting their image of the ideal character and state according to their divine pattern," Holstun writes, paraphrasing Socrates. However, Socrates' idea of a utopian Greek society failed to include "practical method[s] for erasing previous ideological contamination from the minds of his pupils," Holstun explains (36); hence, the great philosopher's plan for dramatic reform was "doomed," writes Holstun.

DEFINITIONS of UTOPIA: SIR THOMAS MORE:

While More was not a 17th Century utopian writer, and this paper focuses on the 17th Century utopian writers and their narratives, More is given credit generally among scholars for launching the concept of utopia. Indeed he authored the word, from the Greek "no place" in his 1516 philosophical treatise Utopia. The key to initial understanding of More's utopian presentation is found in his description of three forces, which author J.C. Davis describes as "inducing men to behave in a socially acceptable way" - a way in which a "stable and healthy society" may emerge.

Those three are, one, "law and the sanctions behind it"; two, "informal social pressure" (i.e., public opinion regarding accepted norms of behavior); and three, "conscience, the small voice within, be it the voice of God or the voice of society internalized" (Davis 46). The bottom line in More's Utopia was, according to Davis, who has a tendency to elaborate beyond the immediate need to do so, that the utopians were not ideal men or even "eminently reasonable men" since they were capable of falling from good standing, and they prepared for war albeit they denounced war as solution. More's utopia (Davis paraphrases on page 56) was the development of a social order "in which harmony was ensured in such a way that law and social pressure confirmed the dictates of conscience."

Put another way by professor Daniel Bender (Dictionary of Literary Biography) (Bender 2003), More's Utopia embraces the idea of "practical wisdom" and blends that into a "bold, visionary social policy" (Bender 2003). Far from some dreamland paradise where everything is beautiful and perfect, More's Utopia is a society in which "rational solutions" are offered to "perennial social problems"; to wit, a) "fair taxation policy"; b) "prudent strategies for food storage"; c) premarital requirements "to ensure the stability of marriages"; d) a "studied tolerance of religious differences"; and e) socially engineered attitudes "to prevent avarice (by casting chamber pots from solid gold for instance)." Actually, upon further thought, More's utopia would be a good start for a new republic just starting out and seeking to draft a constitution that reflected good human and social values.

DEFINITIONS of UTOPIA: J.C. DAVIS:

In his book Utopia and the Ideal Society, Davis first asks questions like, "Why did some people or groups in society abandon reality in order to engage in utopian dreaming?" (Davis 1981 p. 6). He also asked, "What sorts of social frustration, blockage, aspiration and dysfunction did their work represent?" He also wondered, "How did the evolution of these patterns correspond with social change?" And in the process of his research Davis became "uneasy" regarding the simplistic generalization that there was always in evidence the juxtaposition of "social realism" and "utopia dreaming" (7). He learned that the definition is not that easy, and that there was no "social consistency" in the various utopian presentations, nor were there an abundance of utopian thinkers whose lives "were devoted to a single vision" (7). Davis found it hard to justify giving a great deal of weight to "one aspect" of a writer's activities, and treat that aspect (a utopian vision or idea for a utopian society) as typical of that author's career or philosophical emphasis.

So, his dissatisfaction over the dearth of straightforward explanations and identifiable consistencies within the body of utopian writing notwithstanding, Davis titled Chapter 1 "In search of a Definition," and used 28 pages to make his point that there are no simple definitions of utopia. And that having been said, Davis did indeed cover the wide diversity of utopian writing and thought - in this chapter and in the entire text - with his unique philosophical and scholarly brush-strokes. For example, on page 38 he writes that while utopias are not always given the form of literary fiction, "they are always conceived as total schemes, which distinguishes them from other forms of political writing." The utopian schemes he says are preoccupied with "detail" and they attempt to "project a total social environment" (Davis 38).

On page 38 Davis offers that all utopian writings, whether literature or not, "stems from the urge not merely to improve, but to perfect." And within that context there are three "cardinal characteristics of the utopian form"; they are, "totality, order, perfection," and they are so totally interrelated, Davis continues, that they seem to be "aspects of the same phenomenon." It is worth mentioning that in closing his chapter on the definition, Davis asserts that the definition of utopia "as a type of ideal society to be distinguished by its approach to the collective problem," and through its vision "of a total, perfect, ordered environment," must be "validated by its correspondence to the classic sources of the utopian tradition." In other words to understand any writer's utopian vision, one must compare and contrast that particular vision to what utopian authors in the classic traditions have already put forward.

DEFINITIONS of UTOPIA: J.H. "JACK" HEXTER:

Historian, professor and humorist Jack Hexter wrote that "Utopia implies that the nature of man is such that to rely on individual conscience to supply the deficiencies of municipal law is to embark on the bottom-less sea of human sinfulness in a sieve." Utopians approach conscience with "legal sanctions," Hexter believed. In a "properly ordered society," he asserted, the "massive force of public law performs the function which in natural law theory ineptly is left altogether to a small voice so often still" (Davis 56).

EASTERN DEFINITIONS of UTOPIA: BUDDHISM, DAOISM, and CONFUCIANISM:

The Buddhism utopia is conceived in the "antithetical images of Heavenly Paradise and Hell" (Wu 1995, p. 24), according to author Qingyun Wu (Female Rule in Chinese and English Literary Utopias). Like the Christian concepts the Buddhist Heaven is a place where good people go as a reward and Hell is a place where "evildoers and sinners" are punished. In Buddhism messianism (philosophy) a "subversive, this-worldly myth of utopia" is invented that "pronounces the end of the world and the salvation of humanity..." (Wu 24). "The time of Maitreye (the future Buddha that Buddhist followers believe will eventually appear on earth to achieve enlightenment) is described as a Golden Age in which kings, ministers and people will vie one with another in maintaining the reign of righteousness and the victory of truth" (Wu 24).

In Daoist utopianism, Wu explains (23), Dao is "the law of nature" and is the model for "perfect individuals and an ideal society." Further, the model rejects civilization as "the root of evil." Daoist utopia is located in one of two places: either in a "hidden mountain valley with a small population" - featuring an extended family structure surviving on "scanty but sufficient sustenance" - or in a remote country. In Tao Yuanming's story, the Peach Blossom Spring, utopians are escaping the war and the "tyranny of the Qing Dynasty." They till the land and thrive in a natural world harmonious existence with little concept of "time or evil" (Wu 24).

Author Wu explains on page 24 that the Confucian version of utopia is much like the city-state utopia in Plato's works. The Confucian utopia did exist at one time in history but due to "social disorder" it vanished, Wu goes on. The future utopian society (according to Confucian thought) will feature the following:

Order, justice, and virtue are essential to this society in which everyone has a place." Officials are chosen based on their merits, not on cronyism. "Men and women, old and young, love each other, and widows, orphans, and the disabled are well taken care of," Wu explains. The Confucian version of utopia is "...the most influential current of utopian thought in China," Wu asserts, because of its "social practicality."

UTOPIAN LUMINARIES: FRANCIS BACON:

Bacon's New Atlantis is recognized as a classic piece of utopian writing. Critic Max Patrick writes that "Bacon fired the imagination of his readers" and moreover "...roused his countrymen to awareness of the possibilities of co-operative research, applied science, and organized learning" through his New Atlantis project. Clearly, Bacon was aware that his New Atlantis could not be "imitated in all respects," Patrick explains. The geography, isolation and history would not be possible for England to duplicate. But the point of Bacon's work was not that this would be something capable of being emulated or copied; the point was readers can take what they want from a story like this, and perhaps make England a better place for all its citizens by adopting even a few of the precepts put forward.

The need for a greater emphasis of the simple dignity of the individual, Patrick goes on, was something Bacon hoped to bring into the conscience minds of the English people. "Calm courteousness in human relations" along with careful attention to "religious toleration" and "reverence for the family," along with a careful review of hygiene, are some of the aspects of life in the New Atlantis that certainly did apply to life in England in the 17th Century.

Bacon was visionary. That is perhaps not as well-known among readers of literature as it should be; but in his New Atlantis, Bacon approximates the future invention of submarines, telephones, airplanes and more. If people would life truly Christian lives, Bacon explained through his narrative - which is a kind of investigative journalism depicting a highly functional and practical world that does not seem surrealistic in the least to a reader in 2007 - and keep an open mind about how mankind can interact with nature, they could live lives that are more moral and socially substantial.

What Bacon devoted a lot of energy to in this story is, according to Patrick, is that material things do not necessarily bring happiness and human fulfillment. Science and technological advancement is desirable in New Atlantis, but taking science too far "would warp men's lives and thinking," Patrick writes.

In New Atlantis, Bacon explains that this strange and fascinating world has "large and deep caves" sunk up to 600 fathoms, which are used to produce "new artificial metals" and for curing diseases. Also, these caves prolong life among some of the "hermits that choose to life there" - longer life is always an attractive idea to civilizations in all parts of the world. Those caves are the "lower region" but New Atlantis also has a "higher region" which juts up a half a mile and is used for "insulation, refrigeration, conservation" and for better viewing of meteors, snow, rain, hail and even wind.

Reading through the descriptions of the world that Bacon described in his 1626 "Search the New Atlantis" portion of New Atlantis, a reader can easily see how this could be categorized as utopia in seventeenth century England. For example, New Atlantis has "great lakes" with plenty of fish and fowl and an apparent desalinization technology in "...pools...which some do strain fresh water out of salt, and other by art do turn fresh water into salt." As for the human conveniences, Bacon's world offered "great and spacious houses, where we imitate and demonstrate meteors," and they also had "chambers of health, where we qualify the air as we think good and proper for the cure of divers diseases and preservation of health."

There are "large and various orchards and gardens" in this utopia of Bacon's; yes they respect nature and beauty there, but also they graft and "inoculate" the fruit trees to produce creative results. There are parks where "beasts and birds" thrive; they conduct experiments on the animals including poisons and medicines to make them "greater or smaller" and even more fruitful as well as coloring and shaping them in creative ways. There are also "brew-houses, bake-houses, and kitchens," where meats and breads and drinks are produced. The wines that are produced along with drinks made from fruits, grains, roots, get mixed with honey, sugar, manna and dried fruits.

This is all well and good, but what if people get sick? For that, Bacon offers "dispensatories or shops of medicines" that are obviously more than "you have in Europe (for we know what you have)..." Moreover, this world offers houses where various sounds are experimented, and "harmony, which you have not, of quarter-sounds and lesser slides of sounds." And there are houses that offer perfumes, and in those houses are smells that imitate smells in the natural world.

Let's not forget the mathematical houses, where geometry and astronomy are practiced and experimented with; for anyone who needs to learn juggling, New Atlantis has that as well, along with war toys like muskets and engines that are "stronger and more violent than yours, exceeding your greatest cannons and basilisks."

PURITANISM as UTOPIA: When 16th Century voyagers like Vasco de Quiroga and Franciscan missionary Geronimo de Mendieta made their way to the New World, Holstun continues, they conceptualized the Native Indians as "soft wax" (37). The theory was put forward that those "soft wax" individuals would be easily molded into any new form that the colonists wished for them; hence, the utopian idea here was similar to Socrates' metaphor embracing a slate, or tablet. Roman Catholic men like Quiroga and Mendieta were "possessed by a quasi-Protestant fantasy" of re-writing the history of the church by "...erasing the centuries of intervening corruption" and with utopian intentions these explorers would have a "clean slate and need not find some way to wipe it clean themselves" (Holstun 37).

Meanwhile, in Puritan life - both in England and America - utopia meant taking "displaced and disorganized populations" and creating for them a "new organization of social space, time, and procedure," according to Holstun. The explosive 17th Century populations of England had grown to a point where there were tens of thousands of unemployed, poverty-stricken homeless people, and they were the "raw material" from which utopian plans could be instituted. The Puritans did not spend a lot of time fretting about the "loss of social cohesion," but instead Puritans (17th Century utopians) saw the "chaotic situation as an opportunity to form a radically new social covenant" (Holstun 37). And so, Holstun points out that Puritan utopia has largely "escaped the attention of historians" because Puritan utopia wasn't so much about literature (which has a shelf life of centuries) as it was about people.

But what was a Puritan? There are so many definitions of Puritanism that it gets confusing, the author goes on; but for his book, he defines Puritanism "like utopia," as a label of "convenience." And moreover, Holstun's Puritanism - "in more recent histories" - has become less the name of a "unified logical structure or 'mind,' more the name of a complex field of social, theological, and political controversy with no clear center" (41). It that seems a bit vague, Holstun goes on to clarify that Puritanism offers "one crucial trait" and though it is not a definition, that trait is "...the central importance it lends to the printed world." The author mentions two utopian writers that he intends to present as good examples of Puritan thought, John Eliot and James Harrington.

On page 103, Holstun claims that John Eliot launched "...the single most ambitious utopian project within the larger Puritan utopia of New England" (Holstun makes a point of saying in several sections of his book that New England itself was a kind of utopia, in particular when juxtaposed with the social chaos in England at that time). Eliot does not receive a lot of attention from historians for his utopian efforts, because he is seen as a person who strictly worked with Algonquian Indians and specialized in Caucasian-Native relationships. However, Eliot, in the words of Holstun (103) was special; "No other Puritan, Old or New World, worked so long with such concentration on a single utopian project." Moreover, no other Puritan utopist remained so loyal to "connecting utopian writing and practice," Holstun writes.

In the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 24: American Colonial Writers, 1606-1734, editor Emory Elliott explains John Eliot's utopian efforts in specifics. Eliot organized around four thousand Native (Algonquian) "converts" into fourteen communities of "Praying Indians." The Indians clearly trusted Eliot, and for the most part were willing to go along with his vision of a utopian culture in the New World. Eliot projected a structure of governance in which each ten men in each village would choose a leader, and each one hundred men would choose a "council of leaders of ten," and so on. He based this concept of ten percent of each group as leaders on "Jethro's advice to Moses in Exodus 18: 17-26," editor Elliott explains.

That was all well and good, and indeed Eliot put his utopian formula for the Natives in the New World in book form, called the Christian Commonwealth (in 1649). However, Eliot's brand of utopia didn't go over very well with the General Court of Massachusetts; it was considered "antimonarchical" and hence it was banned on May 30, 1661. The colonies (Puritans and the entire collection of new immigrants) were very much under the thumb of the British Monarchy, and in fact copies of Eliot's book "were ordered defaced or turned over to the magistrates," Elliott writes. And while John Eliot recanted his book (in order to avoid possible incarceration), he also stated that although a lot is said about "the rightful heir of the crown of England, and the unjustice of casting out the right heir; but Christ is the only right heir..."

Meanwhile Eliot was allowed to carry on his vision of a utopian culture for the Native peoples; he taught them farming skills and "marketable handcrafts," editor Elliott explains. The women learned spinning and men cut their hair in "the roundhead style" that Eliot preferred. The villages had roads, frame houses, "centrally located churches" and bridges; and all seemed to be moving along smoothly in Eliot's utopian experiment until 1675, when King Philip's War broke out and many colonists believed the Indians were disloyal. The commonwealth of Massachusetts attempted to protect the "Praying Indians" from being massacred by driving the Indians - "hastily and brutally" from their villages - to Deer Island in Boston Harbor for safety. After the Indians were driven from their utopian homes, the towns were destroyed in the war and "most copies of the Indian Bible burned."

Several of the Indian villages were later rebuilt, but many of the Natives had died in exile, and that dark period was in fact the end of Eliot's dream of a utopia in the New World. Editor Elliott writes that in the intervening years Eliot's reputation "has rested on his actions more than his authorship." What Eliot is remembered for is having become fluent in the Algonquian language "and having translated the Bible into it" that gets historians' attention. What doesn't get much attention are Eliot's literary accomplishments: his translations, catechisms, textbooks and devotional writings, editor Elliott explains. Today's historians tend to critique John Eliot's work through "anthropological and political judgments" of his Indian "evangelizing," writes editor Elliott. He truly stands alone though, in terms of his "racial tolerance," which, if practiced by more leaders in the colonial period, might "have bettered the course of our nation's history," the editor concludes.

Meanwhile, the work of Tommaso Campanella is critiqued in J.C. Davis's Utopia and the ideal society: A Study of English utopian writing 1516-1700. Davis writes that Campanella was "a strange and tortured figure" who abruptly quit his study at a Dominican monastery in 1589 to write about "open-minded scientific research" in Naples. Three years later he was ordered to return but he "chose to defy the order" and visited Rome, Florence and Padua where he became acquainted with Galileo. After being "examined under torture" by the Roman Catholic Church's Holy Office in Rome. He was committed to prison on "heresy and conspiracy" charges and kept in confinement for 27 years; during that time he was tortured and brought before tribunals several times. He pretended to be insane and was finally released. During his imprisonment for "heresy" (believing in the rights of people like Galileo to study science), he wrote City of the Sun, and it was published in 1602.

In his "On State Controlled Marriage" (from the City of the Sun), Campanella sets up his utopian view of a near-perfect city by first raging against the government and its policies on giving birth to children; he objects sarcastically against the policy of matching beautiful women with the right male sexual companions. He indeed viewed the State with contempt, insisting that since the operative government view is that "children are bred for the preservation of the species and not for individual pleasure...therefore the breeding of children has reference to the commonwealth, and not to individuals, except in so far as they are constituents of the commonwealth." Moreover, in this state-controlled world that Campanella takes issue with, the magistrates "distribute male and female breeders of the best natures according to philosophical rules."

But a different kind of manipulation happens in the City of the Sun. There, Campanella writes, "deformity is unknown" and with exercise, women have clear complexions and grow tall, strong and agile. There is no need for fakery in his City but if a woman does attempt to appear taller than she really is by wearing "high-heeled boots" and in doing so conceal those boots, or wear makeup, she will be put to death. In the City of the Sun, love is "born of friendship" not of "eager desire"; he is apparently saying that only sincerity and honest interaction between man and woman is permitted, and raw sexual desire is prohibited.

Holstun (93) alludes to Campanella's descriptions of the utopian human body as "chilling" in City of the Sun; "If a man is lame, his eyes make him useful as a sentinel; if he is blind, he may still card wool or pluck the down from feathers to stuff mattresses; if he has lost his hands, he can still serve some purpose." The body of a man in Campanella's utopia is not "an organic whole serving as an analogical model for the entire state" (Holstun 94). It is instead a "raw material" which is "susceptible to painstakingly detailed disciplinary procedures" and to "infinite analysis into component parts and individual reflexes." In utopia, according to Holstun's view of Campanella and other utopists, the organic model of the body politic is accompanied by a "unified, personified, and absolutist faculty" kind of political power that can be found in the "ruling consciousness of the individual sovereign."

Meanwhile, political power in James Harrington's Oceana seems to be quite a bit different from the political dynamics in Campanella's City. Holstun (95) describes the "central political ritual" in Harrington's version of utopia as allowing each and every citizen to see all others "exercising civic virtue in a public election" which combines a "martial drill" with the actual casting of voter ballots. In another sense, Holstun says that in Harrington's utopia, instead of a "theatrical gaze of monarchical sovereignty" (a kind of big brother one would suppose) there is a "highly charged field of mutual surveillance." So, to capsule Holstun's take on Oceana, during the political democratic process, everyone is in view of everyone else and there is a hit of paranoia; but is that better than being under the watchful eye of a government that dictates?

Critic J.C. Garrett (Garrett 1968, p. 9) observes that in Oceana, Harrington breaks away from the mold of most pre-Romantic period utopian models in which contemporary life is "unfavorably compared" with utopian life. Oceana, though it is "hardly a literary Utopia," Garrett explains, was nearly entirely a "suggestion for political organization." In J.C. Davis' book, he views Oceana as a kind of political utopia where citizens rarely ever act virtuously, where "...no citizen does anything in a fully moral sense" (Davis 209). What citizens do in Oceana is follow a set of rituals "designed to reduce his moral responsibility rather than enhance it."

The backdrop to this political scenario written by Harrington (in the mid-1650s) is the fact that "custom and customary forms in England had collapsed"; the Church of England, the monarchy and the ancient English constitution had "abruptly gone," Davis explains (210). And in that vacuum, it is up to the secular world to set the rules; "human free will" was the order of the day because God planned for there to be government, but "how the institutions necessary" for government would be designed and would operate "was left to human choice." And so in Oceana Harrington's utopia is one in which anarchy (a dearth of political structure) would be replaced by popular will, and through it all the aristocrats would not dominate the society, but rather they would lead that society. And the people of Harrington's "ideal society would always be free to determine how far, and in which direction," they would follow the lead of the aristocrats.

In order to prevent dominance by the aristocratic leaders, Harrington created "agrarian laws"; and the Oceana society would promote the principles of voting and "popular deference without servility" (212) While Harrington's vision of a stable government looks more like a simply stated branch of democracy today in the 21st Century, in literary hindsight, Harrington is seen as utopian because England was in a very "unhappy state" in the 1650s, and bringing political stability out of disorder and power grabs was in a very real sense revolutionary. But how indeed would men avoid social chaos and build an orderly society in the midst of such uncertainty in the mid-seventeenth century? The answer (using Davis' evaluation of Harrington) is that the English society would not get back on a good footing as a result of some independent "moral review of its citizens"; rather, men must be "disciplined" and all of their "antisocial proclivities contained by institutional, legal and educational pressures" (Davis 213).

On page 213 Davis quotes from Oceana:

Give us good men, and they will make us good laws, is the maxim of a demagog, and is (thro' the alteration which is commonly perceivable in men, when they have power to work their own wills) exceedingly fallible. But give us good orders, and they will make us good men, is the maxim of a legislator, and the most infallible in the politics" (p. 70 in Oceana, Works).