Artur Blaim. Aesthetic Objects and Blueprints: English Utopias of the Enlightenment. Lublin: Maria Curie-Sklodowska UP, 1977. 231 pp.
THIS AMBITIOUS STUDY draws on a wide range of contemporary criticism to frame a discussion of utopian fiction written in English during the eighteenth century. Between a brief introduction and a slightly longer conclusion there are four substantial chapters. Chapter One ("The Field") notes that despite comments by Lewis Mumford, Frank E. and Fritzie P. Manuel and others, a significant number of English fictional utopias were published between 1700 and 1800. But having defined "utopia as a fictional construct depicting an ideal society located in space and time" (9), Blaim spends the first part of this chapter explaining why he is not considering Robinson Crusoe (and all Robinsonades), or the many eighteenth-century texts that Christine Rees regards as utopian. (Blaim has already rejected Sarah Scott's A Description of Millenium Hall, "one of the favourite texts of feminist criticism," because it "presents a small community of women established by two charitable ladies, and not a comprehensive account of social and political organization of a state" [9].) Blaim then argues that in contrast to seventeenth-century utopias like Harrington's Oceana and Plattes's Macaria (50), and unlike several utopias published at the very end of the century, including A True and Faithful Account of the Island of Veritas (1790), Memoirs of Planetes, or a Sketch of the Laws and Manners of Makar (1795), and three by Thomas Spence (1782, 1795, 1798), the bulk of English utopias in this period should be read as "aesthetic objects" rather than "blueprints": "utopia as a model of the ideal invited the reader to contemplate this ideal and to evaluate it but demanded no practical action on his part" (44-45); "its didactic function consists in the affirmation of these values and not in a call for action aimed at implementing the model in real life" (49). Chapter Two ("The Margins of Utopia") describes the narrative frames in more than twelve of these texts, especially The Memoirs of Signor Gaudentio di Lucca (1737). Chapter Three ("The Utopian Paradigm") draws on at least sixteen texts to describe key features of "the utopian world" (95) they collectively presented, offering readers numerous long and intriguing quotations from these relatively unknown texts. Chapter Four ("The Paradigm Reversed") considers the satirical function of some eighteenth-century utopias, including several of the texts already considered, and then describes the anti-utopian strategies of A Voyage to Cacklogallinia (1727), The Voyage of Capt. John Holmesby (1739), The Travels of Hildebrand Bowman (1778), and especially Gulliver's Travels (1726) and Rasselas (1759).
Though I found this wide-ranging study suggestive and provocative, I was far from satisfied. The theoretical discussions in the first and last chapters are repetitious and seem somewhat unnuanced. The basic distinction between "aesthetic object" and "blueprint" is useful, and it makes sense to see these texts in the context of other prose fictions of the eighteenth century, especially novels and satires. But I want more than assertions that "Throughout the eighteenth century the ideal worlds of utopian texts did not function as blueprints. Their didactic function consisting in promoting certain generic moral values, or particular ideas, did not differ in any essential way from the tendency evident in all eighteenth-century fiction. The blueprint potential of utopian discourse remained unrealised and unrealisable" (145). If the key is "the actual functioning of the utopian text in its immediate cultural context" (27), as Blaim argues in trying to block what he sees as a tendency to turn "utopian studies ... into a part of topical political practice" (30), we need a much richer discussion of the eighteenth-century contexts for these texts. Blaim notes the relative unpopularity of most--but not all--of these utopias, as indicated in the lack of more than one edition, and he quotes from contemporary reviews of a few texts published mid-way through the century to indicate a lack of enthusiasm (40-41). But we need much more, considering the continued interest in Harrington's Oceana, for example, a "blueprint" text (50) that was reprinted four times during this century (40), and especially given the eventual appearance of "Utopias which foreground their blueprint function" (141). Blaim calls attention to the French Revolution, after which six of the twenty-eight texts he discusses were published, more than a fifth of the total in a single decade. But it also seems noteworthy that five of the nine texts he uses from the first half of the century were published in the 1720s, with only one in each of the four other decades; then another nine were published between 1750-1769, in contrast to just four between 1770-1789. Attention to "context" might help explain this uneven distribution--an unevenness that is mostly confirmed by Gregory Claeys's more complete "Chronology of main eighteenth-century British utopian and anti-utopian texts" in Utopias of the British Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994, pp. xxix-xxxii). This study, however, pays little attention to chronology as it moves from text to text. The final paragraph (195) quotes texts John Dennis and Charles Gildon published before 1720, implying they spoke for everyone alive then and for the whole century to follow; and an early reference to "the English civil war in the latter half of the seventeenth century" (21) suggests a certain vagueness about English history.
Throughout the book there is more report or summary than analysis of texts, even of those discussed most extensively. In the 51-page chapter on "The Utopian Paradigm," texts are introduced piecemeal, so it is difficult to see the specific structural principles of each utopia. The Island of Content (1709), for instance, is considered in connection with its rather scary abundance of food ("Clusters of thumping Peaches, and overgrown Nectorals, swinging at the end of stragling Boughs, will be ready at each Step to knock his Teeth down his throat, as if they were angry with their Owner, that he had not eaten 'em sooner" [100]), religion (125), laws (127), courtship rituals (132), and temperate diet (137-38); and The Reign of George VI 1900-1925 (1763) is introduced to illustrate the blend of art and nature in the King's garden and woods (101-02), the general perfection of this "age of happiness and plenty" (103-04), beauty in architecture (111-12), and the admirable qualities of the king (140-141). More important, Blaim's assumption that a common set of values lies behind the construction of each of these utopian states, values linked to eighteenth-century ideals of "beauty and perfection in art" (46), leads him not to examine suggestive differences among the various examples he introduces. The discussion of power, for instance, begins with the claim that "in most utopias, the principle of eldership determines the power distribution in the state: from the rule of the country to the ruler of the family" (117). This point is illustrated with a three-page discussion of The Memoirs of Signor Gaudentio di Lucca (117-119), and a page later we hear that "In the underground country described in A Voyage to the World in the Centre of the Earth, the system of eldership applies also to the royal position, which is neither elective nor hereditary but simply assumed by the eldest inhabitant upon the death of the previous king" (121). But in between these two examples we are told about the "different system[s]" in Cessares and Veritas, where "eldership" seems not to play a major role (119-120); and what we are then told about Marak and the "country of the Children of Love" (121) makes clear that in these lands, too, age does not determine "the power distribution in the state." The quotations describe various ingenious solutions to "the problem of government" (121), but most do not support the initial claim.
I was also disappointed by the sustained and generally sensible discussion of the two texts I know best, Gulliver's Travels and Rasselas. It needs to be established that Lilliput has "the most perfect plan" for a state (175), and that Brobdingnag has the "[i]deal political organization" (176); it should be noted that Brobdingnag has at least momentarily found a cure for the political dissension and civil strife "to which the whole Race of Mankind is Subject" (II.vii, last paragraph); and the long footnote outlining debate about the "utopian" status of Houyhnhnmland (216-17) fails to acknowledge how this argument has been extended and significantly modified by numerous critics writing since 1970. The discussion of Rasselas remains in the Happy Valley, so does not note how the rest of the book radically redirects utopian desire to what Nekayah calls "the choice of eternity," or how it repeatedly reaffirms what Rasselas discovers after his first conversation with Imlac, the importance of friendship.
The list of "Primary Sources" usefully gives the full, often remarkably long titles for most texts (though not for Gulliver's Travels); but it would have helped to inform readers that five of these (in addition to Hume's otherwise easily available "Idea of a perfect Commonwealth") are reprinted in Claeys's Utopias of the British Enlightenment. The highly selective list of "Secondary Sources" would have been more useful if original publication dates were given for those listed in modern editions, and if modern editions were noted wherever available. More important, this wide-ranging study would have been much easier to use if there were an index, even a minimal listing of where authors and texts were cited or discussed.
John B. Radner George Mason University