L'épopée du possible: Ou l'arc-en-ciel des utopies (1800-1850) (review)

Françoise Sylvos's book-length study L'épopée du possible: Ou l'arc-en-ciel des utopies (1800-1850) is the fifth volume of a collection titled L'Atelier des Voyages, directed by Jean-Michel Racault and Frank Lestringant. As the title announces, in this extensive critical work (comprising a preamble, nine chapters, and a conclusion), Sylvos focus her attention on the first half of the nineteenth century. Her aim is to deconstruct the prevailing idea that, contrary to the eighteenth century, this period was not a fertile ground for the writing of utopias, in France.

By offering a wide variety of texts as paradigmatic examples, the author successfully makes the case for the resilience and the pervasiveness of the utopian imaginary during the period under analysis (1800-1850). She argues, moreover, that by the dawn of the 1800s, this utopian imaginary began to be translated into writing through diversified forms. Indeed, as Sylvos herself emphasizes, More's archetype was progressively substituted by innovative and hybrid ways of writing utopia that combine tradition with inventiveness and eccentricity. Bodin's Roman de l'avenir is, according to Sylvos, a good example of these new utopias. Contrary to L'an 2440, Bodin's text is not limited to the conventional journey into the ideal city but, rather, juxtaposes a stellar epic to a review of the state of the world in the late twentieth century (32).

As the Earth became increasingly mapped, many utopian writers turned their attention to another space, the space of time, by projecting their dreams of a better society into the future. However, it is not exactly, or entirely, the alleged "lack" of land to be discovered that explains this movement forward. As Sylvos observes, these new utopias assume a "preparatory function" (23), and the significant growth of euchronias, written or published between 1800 and 1850, embodies an all-encompassing hope in the perfectibility of human nature and in the possible construction of a better and happier future society.

Though French socialism is invariably intertwined with utopian thought and writing, in this study, Sylvos does not intend to draw its archaeology. Although she recognizes the importance of this particular period of time to the rising of socialism, epitomized in France by names such as Saint-Simon and Pierre Leroux, she offers numerous examples of other political trends that also expressed themselves, at that time, through utopian fiction and discourse (14). A good example of a nonsocialist euchronia, provided by Sylvos, is Les voyages de Kang-Hi, written by the duke of Lëvis.

The preamble of L'épopée du possible thoroughly informs the reader about the logic followed by the author. Indeed, Sylvos's strategy is to map the ideological and formal structures of utopia in each stage of a period between the publication of Olbie (1800) and the death of Cabet (1856). The c hronological organization aims at highlighting the place of utopia in French political and social history, and the definition of each stage is informed by the analysis of different texts and utopian currents, though only the most representative examples are discussed in detail (34).

Thus, Sylvos not only provides a rather developed historical, social, and political contextualization of early nineteenth-century France, but she also presents and discusses an impressive number of texts and authors. Furthermore, the great novelty of Sylvos's work is the inclusion of writers usually considered of minor interest. Side by side with celebrated names—such as Nodier, Gautier, Balzac, and Cabet—Sylvos introduces less renowned names—such as Félix Bodin, Charles Duveyrier, or the duke of Lëvis—reading them with the same importance and length. In the author's own words, there are several reasons to mingle major works and writers with minor ones. This combination not only provides a more accurate portrait of French literature...