This book endeavours to understand the seemingly direct link between utopianism and the USA, discussing novels that have never been brought together in this combination before, even though they all revolve around intentional communities: Imlay’s The Emigrants (1793), Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance (1852), Howland’s Papas Own Girl (1874), Griggs’s Imperium in Imperio (1899), and Du Bois’s The Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911). They relate nation and utopia not by describing perfect societies, but by writing about attempts to immediately live radically different lives. Signposting the respective communal history, the readings provide a literary perspective to communal studies, and add to a deeply necessary historicization for strictly literary approaches to US utopianism, and for studies that focus on Pilgrims/Puritans/Founding Fathers as utopian practitioners. This book therefore highlights how the authors evaluated the USA’s utopian potential and traces the nineteenth-century development of the utopian imagination from various perspectives.
Author(s): Verena Adamik
Series: Palgrave Studies in Utopianism
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 248
City: Cham
Acknowledgments
Contents
About the Author
Chapter 1: ‘The Optimal State of a Republic’: Introduction
References
Chapter 2: ‘That Excellent Perfection’: A Short History of Utopia
‘Far from Us’: The Psychology of Utopian Production
‘In the Beginning, All the World Was America’: European Origins of US American Utopianism
References
Chapter 3: ‘Idle Speculation’ and Utopian Practice: Gilbert Imlay’s The Emigrants (1793)
‘Antipathy to Control’: Challenges to Nationhood and the Early Republic
‘Societies of This Kind Established Throughout a Great Community’: The Emigrants’s Separatism
‘All the Comforts of Living in the Most Superfluous Abundance’: Geographical Determinism
‘Most Dangerous to the Safety of Society’: Romantic Relationships and Utopia in The Emigrants
‘Decisive Action’: Establishing Utopia in The Emigrants
References
Chapter 4: ‘Between Fiction and Reality’: The Utopian Past in The Blithedale Romance (1852)
‘Numberless Projects of Social Reform’: The Communal Wave of the Nineteenth Century
No ‘Conclusion Favorable or Otherwise’: Blithedale’s Utopianism
‘Better Air to Breathe’: Blithedale’s Promising Beginnings
‘A Cold Arcadia’: Utopian Aspirations Unfulfilled
‘Faery’ Instead of ‘Virgin’ Land: The Fate of Utopia in The Blithedale Romance
References
Chapter 5: ‘A Great Republic of Equals’: Postbellum Utopia in Marie Howland’s Papa’s Own Girl (1874)
‘A Story of American Life’: Utopianism, Women’s Rights, and Marie Howland
‘Papa Is a Radical, They Say; So Are We’: Gender and Collaboration
‘Love is Not All that There is to Life’: Romance and the Utopian Narrator
‘Never a Possible Question of Equality’: Utopia Surviving the Civil War
References
Chapter 6: ‘Shrouded in an American Flag’: Sutton E. Griggs’s Imperium in Imperio (1899)
‘A Contest of Two Ideologies’: Conflicting Solutions in Imperium in Imperio
‘Make the Separation Physical’: Race and the Lack of Closure
‘Beneath the American Flag’: Utopian States for African Americans
‘Our Race as an Empire’: US American Empire in the Imperium
‘Mightier Weapon’: Final Appeals in Imperium in Imperio
References
Chapter 7: ‘A Bold Regeneration’: W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911)
‘Of the Whole Nation’: Systemic Complexities and Far-Reaching Solutions
‘Field of Dreams’ and ‘Toil beyond Exhilaration’: Geographic Symbolism
‘The Real and Mighty World’ and the ‘Old and Shaken Dream’: Combining Literary Traditions
‘A New National Errand’: Appropriating the National Tradition
‘The Battle Scarcely Even Begun’: Decolonizing Utopian Space
References
Chapter 8: ‘To Begin the World Over Again’: Conclusion
References
Index
