The Development of Utopian Thought

Reviews The Development of Utopian Thought AUBREY ROSENBERG Raymond Trousson. Voyages aux pays de nulle part: Histoire litt~ra ire de la pensee utopique. Second revised edition Bruxelles: Editions de l'Universite de Bruxelles '979. xxvii, 298 This is a revised edition of a work that first appeared in 1975. The revisions are confined to a new preface in which the author deals with utopias not treated in the first edition, answers criticisms levelled in various reviews, and brings up to date the state of research in the field. Raymond Trousson's aim is to provide a chronological and comprehensive, but not exhaustive, history of the develop· ment of utopian thought in Western literature (mainly in England and France) from its earliest manifestations to the present day. His method is to provide a brief biography of each author and an analysis of his work, so as to demonstrate how the features now generally regarded as characteristic of literary utopias evolved and were modified over the centuries. He begins with the pre-Platonic Phaleas of Chalcedon, known only through the writings of Aristotle, and ends, in the revised preface, withJacques Sternberg's Mai 86 (Paris: Albin Michel 1978). All the major authors are treated, as well as a host of minor and obscure but noteworthy practitioners of the art. Finding no utopias written in the Middle Ages Trousson concludes that the classical models remained unexploited until they suddenly discovered their identity and achieved theirapotheosis through the publication of More's Utopia (1516) which became the archetype. In More's work are embodied all those topographical, social, political, economic, educational, moral, and religious considerations destined to be endlessly repeated and varied in all subsequent attempts to construct an ideal society. The longest chapter of Trousson's book is devoted to the eighteenth century, which he describes as Tage d'or de l'utopie: It was towards the end of this century that there were produced, for the first time, utopias flxed in time and space, in a particular year in the future and in a specific country. This break with tradition heralds the modern era that leads, in the twentieth century, to a seeming preponderance of dystopias, although, as Trousson suggests in the revised preface, the most recent attempts indicate a return to a more positive approach. The main criticisms of this work have been directed against Trousson's UNrvERSl'n' OF TORONTO QUARTERLY, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 3, SPRING 1981 0042-0247/81/0500-0336$00.00/0 C UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS ROBERT CHALLE'S JOURNAL 337 definition of utopia. He has been accused of neglecting form for content of misrepresenting the genre by adhering too closely to a chronolOgical presentation , of ignoring utopian politics and aesthetics, and the like. In my opinion, however, Trousson has wisely chosen to delimit clearly his area of study. Whether his choice was the right one is another question, but it seems unreasonable to criticize him for not doing what he never intended. His stated aim is to deal solely with fictional portrayals of utopian societies. Thus, he rigorously excludes, for example, accounts of solitary existences on desert islands, evocations of Arcady, and so on, and restricts his discussion to those works in whkh, 'dans Ie cadre d'un recit (ce qui exc1ut les traites politiques), se trouve decrite une communaute (ce qui exc1ut la robinsonade), organisee selon certains principes politiques , economiques, moraux, restituant la complexite de l'existence sedale (ce qui exdut I'age d'or et I'arcadie), qu'elle soit presentee comme ideal arealiser (utopie constructive) ou comme la prevision d'un enfer (l'anti-utopie moderne), qu'elle soit situ~e dans un espace reel, imaginaire, ou encore dans Ie temps, qu'elle soit enfin decrite au terme d'un voyage imaginaire vraisemblable ou non.' Of aU the earlier studies of utopia to which Trousson acknowledges a debt, none has been nearly as influential as Raymond Ruyer's seminal L'Utopie et les utopies (Paris: Les Presses universitaires de France 1950). Indeed, I believe it no exaggeration to say that Trousson's book is primarily an elaboration and commentary on Ruyer's study. This is in no way to belittle the...