1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910139560803321

Autore

Fokkema Douwe Wessel <1931-2011, >

Titolo

Perfect worlds : utopian fiction in China and the West / / Douwe Fokkema [[electronic resource]]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Amsterdam University Press, 2011

Amsterdam : , : Amsterdam University Press, , 2011

ISBN

1-283-33447-X

9786613334473

90-485-1486-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (448 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Disciplina

809/.93372

Soggetti

Utopias in literature

Comparative literature - Western and Chinese

Chinese fiction - History and criticism

Utopias

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 29 Jan 2021).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Nota di contenuto

1. Introduction -- 2. The Utopia of Thomas More -- 3. From Rational Eutopia to Grotesque Dystopia -- 4. Interlude: The Island Syndrome from Atlantis to Lanzarote and Penglai --5. Enlightenment Utopias -- 6. Orientalism: European Writers Searching for Utopia in China -- 7. Chinese Philosophers and Writers Constructing Their Own Utopias -- 8. Small-Scale Socialist Experiments, or "The New Jerusalem in Duodecimo" -- 9. Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done? and Dostoevsky's Dystopian Foresight -- 10. When Socialist Utopianism Meets Politics  -- 11. Bellamy's Solidarity and Its Feminist Mirror Image in Herland --12. Chinese Occidentalism: The Nostalgia for a Utopian Past Gives Way to the Idea of Progress --13. H. G. Wells and the Modern Utopia --14. Dystopian Fiction in the Soviet Union, Proletkult, and Socialist-Realist Utopianism -- 15. Mao Zedong's Utopian Thought and the Post-Mao Imaginative Response -- 16. Utopias, Dystopias, and Their Hybrid Variants in Europe and America since World War I -- 17. Concluding Observations -- References -- Subject Index -- Index of Names.



Sommario/riassunto

Perfect Worlds is an extensive, comparative study of utopian narratives in both the East and the West. Douwe Fokkema provides an elegant argument about the human impulse to imagine new and better worlds, astutely observing that the utopian imagination thrives in the context of secularization. Fokkema also tracks the rise of dystopian narratives, invoking authors as diverse as Margaret Atwood and Lao She, and provides a cogent evaluation of the role of imagined worlds in both Chinese and Euro-American fiction. A shrewd comparison of cultures, as well as a vivid account of cross-cultural influence, this volume is a welcome addition to the scholarly discourse on utopias.