A utopia ( / j uː ˈ t oʊ p i ə / yoo- TOH -pee-ə ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia , which describes a fictional island society in the New World .
122-456: " Merry England ", or in more jocular, archaic spelling " Merrie England ", refers to a utopian conception of English society and culture based on an idyllic pastoral way of life that was allegedly prevalent in Early Modern Britain at some time between the Middle Ages and the onset of the Industrial Revolution . More broadly, it connotes a putative essential Englishness with nostalgic overtones, incorporating such cultural symbols as
244-536: A medieval Latin form of the name Goliath , the giant who fought King David in the Bible —thus suggestive of the monstrous nature of the goliard or, notes historian Christopher de Hamel , as "those people beyond the edge of society". Another source may be gailliard, a "gay fellow". Many scholars believe the term goliard is derived from a letter between Bernard of Clairvaux and Pope Innocent II in which Bernard referred to Pierre Abélard as Goliath, thus creating
366-600: A Merry England viewpoint range from the radical visionary poet William Blake to the evangelical Christian Arthur Mee . The Rudyard Kipling of Puck of Pook's Hill is certainly one; when he wrote it, he was in transition towards his later, very conservative stance. Within art, the fabled long-lost merrie England was also a recurring theme in the Victorian-era paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood . The 1890 News from Nowhere by William Morris portrays
488-451: A bare twenty-seven. The annual festal round in parish society, consolidated between 1350 and 1520 and including such customs as church ales , May games, maypoles and local plays, came under severe pressure in Elizabeth's reign. Religious austerity, opposed to Catholic and pagan hangovers, and economic arguments against idleness, found common ground in attacking communal celebrations. However,
610-498: A blush of their own shame. Finally they drive about the town and its theatres in shabby carriages and carts, and rouse the laughter of their fellows and the bystanders in infamous performances, with indecent gestures and with scurrilous and unchaste words. The goliards used sacred sources such as texts from the Roman Catholic Mass and Latin hymns and played upon them to secular and satirical purposes in their poems (such as in
732-436: A connection between Goliath and the student adherents of Abélard. By the 14th century, the word goliard became synonymous with minstrel , and no longer referred to a particular group of clergy. The goliardic class is believed to have arisen from the need of younger sons to develop means of support. The medieval social convention of primogeniture meant that the eldest son inherited title and estate. This practice of bestowing
854-426: A form adapted to political conservatism , the vision of "Merry England" extends to embrace a few urban artisans and other cosmopolitans; a flexible and humane clergy; an interested and altruistic squirearchy , aristocracy and royalty . Solidity and good cheer would be the values of yeoman farmers , whatever the foibles of those higher in the hierarchy. The idea of Merry England became associated on one side with
976-629: A future England that has reverted to a rural idyll following a socialist revolution. Reference points might be taken as children's writer Beatrix Potter , John Betjeman (more interested in Victoriana ), and the fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien , whose hobbit characters' culture in The Shire embodied many aspects of the Merry England point of view. In his essay " Epic Pooh ", Michael Moorcock opined: The little hills and woods of that Surrey of
1098-628: A greater "utopian socialist" movement, due to their shared characteristics. A once common characteristic is an egalitarian distribution of goods, frequently with the total abolition of money . Citizens only do work which they enjoy and which is for the common good , leaving them with ample time for the cultivation of the arts and sciences. One classic example of such a utopia appears in Edward Bellamy 's 1888 novel Looking Backward . William Morris depicts another socialist utopia in his 1890 novel News from Nowhere , written partially in response to
1220-442: A new space. Utopia is not kind of a free imagination utopia is a matter of inner most urgency, you are forced to imagine it, it is the only way out, and this is what we need today." Philosopher Milan Šimečka said: ...utopism was a common type of thinking at the dawn of human civilization . We find utopian beliefs in the oldest religious imaginations, appear regularly in the neighborhood of ancient, yet pre-philosophical views on
1342-543: A nostalgia for aspects of an earlier society that are missing in modern times. The concept of Merry England originated in the Middle Ages, when Henry of Huntingdon around 1150 first coined the phrase Anglia plena jocis . His theme was taken up in the following century by the encyclopedist Bartholomeus Anglicus , who claimed that "England is full of mirth and of game, and men oft-times able to mirth and game". However Ronald Hutton 's study of churchwardens' accounts places
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#17330861347931464-467: A pastoral England of the past before industrial capitalism and factory production. It was widely read and enjoyed worldwide sales, and probably introduced more working-class readers to socialism than William Morris or Karl Marx. Another variant of Merry England was promoted in the organic community of F. R. Leavis by which he seems to have meant a community with a deeply rooted and locally self-sufficient culture. In his view, such communities existed in
1586-474: A period of turbulent development of capitalism that highlighted antagonisms of capitalist society ( Saint-Simon , Fourier , Owen , Cabet , Lamennais , Proudhon and their followers). Famous quotes from writers and characters about utopia: Utopian socialist Étienne Cabet in his utopian book The Voyage to Icaria cited the definition from the contemporary Dictionary of ethical and political sciences : Utopias and other models of government, based on
1708-459: A reaction quickly set in, John Caius in 1552 deploring the loss of what he called "the old world, when this country was called merry England". James I in 1618 issued his Book of Sports , specifically defending the practice of sports, dancing, maypoles and the like after Sunday Service; and his son Charles took a similar line. The question of "Merry England" thus became a focal point dividing Puritan and Anglican, proto-Royalist and proto-Roundhead, in
1830-454: A rigorous 50-year-long educational program to be benign oligarchs, the "philosopher-kings." Plato stressed this structure many times in statements, and in his published works, such as the Republic . The wisdom of these rulers will supposedly eliminate poverty and deprivation through fairly distributed resources, though the details on how to do this are unclear. The educational program for the rulers
1952-421: A rural, Southern England. The term is often used to describe what English cultural conservatives would wish to conserve, and is used by both supporters and critics of the concept. The term, which alludes to la France profonde , has been attributed to both Patrick Wright and Angus Calder . The concept of Deep England may imply an explicit opposition to modernism and industrialisation; and may be connected to
2074-429: A ruralist viewpoint typified by the writer H. J. Massingham . Major artists whose work is associated with Deep England include: the writer Thomas Hardy , the painter John Constable , the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams , and the poets Rupert Brooke and Sir John Betjeman . Examples of this conservative or village green viewpoint include the ideological outlook of magazines such as This England . Wartime propaganda
2196-487: A similar fraternity. More legitimised recreation came in the form of archery, ice-skating, wrestling, hunting and hawking, while there was also the medieval angler, of whom Juliana Berners wrote: "atte the leest hath his holsom walke and mery at his ease".Above the town or village itself stood a semi-approved-of layer of nomadic entertainers – minstrels, jugglers, mummers , morris-dancers, actors and jig-makers, all adding to first stirrings of mass entertainment. Thus there
2318-404: A social framework characterized by vigorous competition between alternative philosophies. The English political philosopher James Harrington (1611–1677), author of the utopian work The Commonwealth of Oceana , published in 1656, inspired English country-party republicanism (1680s to 1740s) and became influential in the design of three American colonies. His theories ultimately contributed to
2440-525: A species to become extraordinarily cooperative and capable of creating culture . The Book of Revelation in the Christian Bible depicts an eschatological time with the defeat of Satan , of Evil and of Sin . The main difference compared to the Old Testament promises is that such a defeat also has an ontological value: "Then I saw 'a new heaven and a new earth ,' for the first heaven and
2562-439: A turning wheel, A million marching feet. The song seems therefore to offer a synthesis and combine the two Englands, the archaic bucolic one and the modern industrialised one, in the focus of patriotic loyalty and veneration. The transition from a literary locus of Merry England to a more obviously political one cannot be placed before 1945, as the cited example of J. B. Priestley shows. Writers and artists described as having
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#17330861347932684-529: A utopia, dystopia is a concept which surpassed utopia in popularity in the fictional literature from the 1950s onwards, chiefly because of the impact of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four . In 1876, writer Charles Renouvier published a novel called Uchronia ( French Uchronie ). The neologism , using chronos instead of topos , has since been used to refer to non-existent idealized times in fiction, such as Philip Roth 's The Plot Against America (2004) , and Philip K. Dick 's The Man in
2806-456: A vital, if unofficial medieval existence. Langland might castigate, but also provided a vivid picture of, those who "drink all day in diverse taverns, and gossip and joke there", of the field-workers who "sat down to drink their ale and sing songs – thinking to plough his field with a 'Hey-nonny-nonny'". The wandering scholar, or goliard , who posed the mock questions of whether it was better to eat meat or fish, to court Agnes or Rose, belonged to
2928-546: Is Held in Common' Tianxia weigong( Chinese : 天下爲公 ; pinyin : Tiānxià wèi gōng ) influenced modern Chinese reformers and revolutionaries, such as Kang Youwei . It is said, once Maitreya is reborn into the future kingdom of Ketumati , a utopian age will commence. The city is described in Buddhism as a domain filled with palaces made of gems and surrounded by Kalpavriksha trees producing goods. During its years, none of
3050-461: Is bolstered by the title of the book and nation and its apparent confusion between the Greek for "no place" and "good place": "utopia" is a compound of the syllable ou-, meaning "no" and topos, meaning place. But the homophonic prefix eu-, meaning "good," also resonates in the word, with the implication that the perfectly "good place" is really "no place." In many cultures, societies, and religions, there
3172-555: Is essential for the improvement of the human condition. But if used wrongly, it becomes dangerous. Utopia has an inherent contradictory nature here. The opposite of a utopia is a dystopia . Utopian and dystopian fiction has become a popular literary category. Despite being common parlance for something imaginary, utopianism inspired and was inspired by some reality-based fields and concepts such as architecture , file sharing , social networks , universal basic income , communes , open borders and even pirate bases . The word utopia
3294-524: Is lettered "Merrie England" together with progressive slogans ("Shorten Working Day & Lengthen Life", "The Land for the People", "No Child Toilers") with socialism ("Production for Use Not for Profit"). For a time, the Merry England vision was a common reference point for rhetorical Tories and utopian socialists , offering similar alternatives to an industrialising society, with its large-scale movement off
3416-519: Is not realized or feasible, but has the ideal that is somewhere beyond the horizon, a lighthouse to which it may seek to approach if it considers that ideal socially valid and generally accepted." Chronologically, the first recorded Utopian proposal is Plato 's Republic . Part conversation, part fictional depiction and part policy proposal, Republic would categorize citizens into a rigid class structure of "golden," "silver," "bronze" and "iron" socioeconomic classes. The golden citizens are trained in
3538-588: Is of course unattainable and ridiculous ..." The phrase merry England appears in English in the German text. William Cobbett provided conservative commentary on the rapidly changing look and mores of an industrialising nation by invoking the stable social hierarchy and prosperous working class of the pre-industrial country of his youth in his Rural Rides (1822–26, collected in book form, 1830). The later works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge also subscribed to some extent to
3660-450: Is some myth or memory of a distant past when humankind lived in a primitive and simple state but at the same time one of perfect happiness and fulfillment. In those days, the various myths tell us, there was an instinctive harmony between humanity and nature. People's needs were few and their desires limited. Both were easily satisfied by the abundance provided by nature. Accordingly, there were no motives whatsoever for war or oppression. Nor
3782-562: Is sometimes taken to reflect a generalised view of a rural Deep England, but this is perhaps to ignore both the competing views of ruralism, and the mix of rural and non-rural actually offered for a post-war vision of a better Britain. In Angus Calder's re-examination of the ideological constructs surrounding " Little England " during the Second World War in The Myth of the Blitz , he puts forward
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3904-447: Is the central notion of the proposal. It has few laws, no lawyers and rarely sends its citizens to war but hires mercenaries from among its war-prone neighbors. These mercenaries were deliberately sent into dangerous situations in the hope that the more warlike populations of all surrounding countries will be weeded out, leaving peaceful peoples to remain. During the 16th century, Thomas More's book Utopia proposed an ideal society of
4026-399: Is this old notion of imagining this ideal society we know will never be realized, the other is the capitalist utopia in the sense of new perverse desire that you are not only allowed but even solicited to realize. The true utopia is when the situation is so without issue, without the way to resolve it within the coordinates of the possible that out of the pure urge of survival you have to invent
4148-643: The Anglo-Catholics and Catholicism , as a version of life's generosity; for example Wilfred and Alice Meynell entitled one of their magazines Merrie England . The pastoral aspects of William Blake , a Londoner and an actual craftsman, lack the same mellow quality. G. K. Chesterton in part adapted it to urban conditions. William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement and other left-inclined improvers (whom Sir Hugh Casson called "the herbivores") were also (partly) believers. Walter Crane 's "Garland for May Day 1895"
4270-524: The Drinkers Mass ). The jargon of scholastic philosophy also is frequently featured in their poems, either for satirical purposes, or because these concepts were familiar parts of the writers' working vocabulary. Their satires were almost uniformly directed against the church, attacking even the pope. The word "goliard" outlived the original meaning. It was absorbed into the French and English literature of
4392-592: The Gothic revival promoted in England what once had been a truly international European style. Its stages, though, had been given purely English antiquarian labels – "Norman" for the Romanesque , and " Early English ", for example – and the revival was stretched to include also the succeeding, more specifically English style: a generic English Renaissance revival, later named " Jacobethan ". The revival
4514-822: The Shakers , who originated in England in the 18th century and arrived in America in 1774. A number of religious utopian societies from Europe came to the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, including the Society of the Woman in the Wilderness (led by Johannes Kelpius (1667–1708), the Ephrata Cloister (established in 1732) and the Harmony Society , among others. The Harmony Society
4636-591: The Victorian period often used Merry England as a setting as it is seen as a mythical utopia. They often contain nature-loving mythological creatures such as elves and fairies , as well as Robin Hood . The London-based Anglo-Catholic magazine of prose and verse Merry England began publication in 1879. Its issues bore a sonnet by William Wordsworth as epigraph, beginning "They called thee 'merry England' in old time" and characterising Merry England "a responsive chime to
4758-592: The diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897, consisted of a series of scenes depicting idealised versions of British mythology and past eras typical of Merry England, including a country village celebrating May Day in Elizabethan times and Christmas during the Restoration . The final scenes were recreations of Victoria's coronation and a celebration of the British Empire , tying the contemporary world of 1897 back to
4880-483: The idyllic state of affairs they describe is not irretrievably and irrevocably lost to mankind, that it can be regained in some way or other. One way might be a quest for an "earthly paradise" – a place like Shangri-La , hidden in the Tibetan mountains and described by James Hilton in his utopian novel Lost Horizon (1933). Christopher Columbus followed directly in this tradition in his belief that he had found
5002-535: The thatched cottage , the country inn and the Sunday roast . Folklorist Roy Judge has described the concept as "a world that has never actually existed, a visionary, mythical landscape, where it is difficult to take normal historical bearings." It may be treated both as a product of the sentimental nostalgic imagination and as an ideological or political construct, often underwriting various sorts of conservative world-views. Favourable perceptions of Merry England reveal
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5124-460: The "Merry England" view. Thomas Carlyle 's Past and Present also made the case for Merrie England; the conclusion of Crotchet Castle by Thomas Love Peacock contrasts the mediaevalism of Mr. Chainmail to the contemporary social unrest. Barry Cornwall's patriotic poem. "Hurrah for Merry England", was set twice to music and printed in The Musical Times , in 1861 and 1880. In the 1830s,
5246-573: The 14th century, generally meaning jongleur or wandering minstrel, and no longer related to the original clerical association. It is thus used in Piers Plowman , and by Chaucer . This belief that the goliards were the authors of vast parts of this satirical and worldly poetry that originated in the twelfth and early thirteenth century has been criticized in recent revisionist work on the grounds that most traceable goliardic poets were an integral part of church hierarchy and often worked as teachers in
5368-500: The 20th century. During his heyday, German successfully tapped into and fostered a new enthusiasm for British music in the context of a romanticised Shakespearian or semi mythical "Merrie England". His Three Dances from 'Henry VIII ' (1892) was easily the most frequently performed English orchestral work in the first decade of the Proms , with well over 30 performances between 1895 and 1905. Three Dances from 'As You Like It ' (1896)
5490-556: The Dragon ... proves to be the first time ever that the Dragon (played by William) ever came out on top in the conflict". Eric Saylor traces Arcadian antecedents in English pastoral music back to 18th century works such as Handel's Acis and Galatea (1718, text by John Gay ), which remained a mainstay of English choral festivals throughout the 19th century. Arthur Sullivan 's Iolanthe (1882) made use of pastoral conventions. His ballet Victoria and Merrie England , produced for
5612-641: The Garden of Eden when, towards the end of the 15th century, he first encountered the New World and its indigenous inhabitants. The Peach Blossom Spring ( Chinese : 桃花源 ; pinyin : Táohuāyuán ), a prose piece written by the Chinese poet Tao Yuanming , describes a utopian place. The narrative goes that a fisherman from Wuling sailed upstream a river and came across a beautiful blossoming peach grove and lush green fields covered with blossom petals. Entranced by
5734-602: The Greek historian and biographer of the 1st century, dealt with the blissful and mythic past of humanity. From Sir Philip Sidney 's prose romance The Old Arcadia (1580), originally a region in the Peloponnesus , Arcadia became a synonym for any rural area that serves as a pastoral setting, a locus amoenus ("delightful place"). The Biblical Garden of Eden as depicted in the Old Testament Bible 's Book of Genesis 2 ( Authorized Version of 1611 ): And
5856-564: The High Castle (1962) . According to the Philosophical Dictionary , proto-utopian ideas begin as early as the period of ancient Greece and Rome, medieval heretics , peasant revolts and establish themselves in the period of the early capitalism, reformation and Renaissance ( Hus , Müntzer , More , Campanella ), democratic revolutions ( Meslier , Morelly , Mably , Winstanley , later Babeufists , Blanquists ,) and in
5978-475: The Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. [...] And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; [...] And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he took one of his ribs and closed up
6100-446: The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil . [...] And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And
6222-446: The Merry England legend, and Jim's "Merrie England" lecture somehow turns into a debunking of the whole concept (a position almost certainly reflecting that of Amis). Richmal Crompton 's William the Bad [1930] contains a chapter, "The Pennymans Hand On The Torch", about an idealist couple who wish to return to Merrie England, as a staging post towards their ideal of living at "the morning of
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#17330861347936344-660: The Village Green Preservation Society in 1968 as a homage to English country life and culture: it was described by AllMusic senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine as an album "lamenting the passing of old-fashioned English traditions". Their 1969 album Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) also contains similar elements. Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull has often alluded to an anti-modern, pre-industrial, agrarian vision of England in his songs (
6466-442: The absence of death and suffering ; changes in human nature and the human condition . Technology has affected the way humans have lived to such an extent that normal functions, like sleep, eating or even reproduction, have been replaced by artificial means. Other examples include a society where humans have struck a balance with technology and it is merely used to enhance the human living condition (e.g. Star Trek ). In place of
6588-399: The audience would respond: "He Haw, Sire Ass, He haw!". The University of Paris complained: Priests and clerks... dance in the choir dressed as women... they sing wanton songs. They eat black pudding at the altar itself, while the celebrant is saying Mass. They play dice on the altar. They cense with stinking smoke from the soles of old shoes. They run and leap throughout the church, without
6710-844: The band's namesake was himself an agrarian, the inventor of the seed drill ). Utopia Hypothetical utopias focus on, among other things, equality in categories such as economics , government and justice , with the method and structure of proposed implementation varying according to ideology. Lyman Tower Sargent argues that the nature of a utopia is inherently contradictory because societies are not homogeneous and have desires which conflict and therefore cannot simultaneously be satisfied. To quote: There are socialist, capitalist, monarchical, democratic, anarchist, ecological, feminist, patriarchal, egalitarian, hierarchical, racist, left-wing, right-wing, reformist, free love, nuclear family, extended family, gay, lesbian and many more utopias [ Naturism , Nude Christians , ...] Utopianism, some argue,
6832-404: The beauty of the English natural environment, this at a time when rationing was at its height, and the population of London was sheltering from The Blitz in its Underground stations. In reference to one of Priestley's bucolic broadcasts, Calder made the following point: Priestley, the socialist, gives this cottage no occupant, nor does he wonder about the size of the occupant's wage, nor ask if
6954-504: The beauty, he continued upstream and stumbled onto a small grotto when he reached the end of the river. Though narrow at first, he was able to squeeze through the passage and discovered an ethereal utopia, where the people led an ideal existence in harmony with nature. He saw a vast expanse of fertile lands, clear ponds, mulberry trees, bamboo groves and the like with a community of people of all ages and houses in neat rows. The people explained that their ancestors escaped to this place during
7076-404: The causes and meaning of natural events, the purpose of creation, the path of good and evil, happiness and misfortune, fairy tales and legends later inspired by poetry and philosophy ... the underlying motives on which utopian literature is built are as old as the entire historical epoch of human history. ” Philosopher Richard Stahel said: ...every social organization relies on something that
7198-493: The church through song, poetry and performance. Disaffected and not called to the religious life, they often presented such protests within a structured setting associated with carnival, such as the Feast of Fools , or church liturgy . The derivation of the word is uncertain. It may come from the Latin gula, gluttony. It may also originate from a mythical "Bishop Golias",
7320-429: The church. For example, at St. Remy , the goliards went to mass in procession, with each trailing a herring on a string along the ground. The game was to step on the herring in front and keep your own herring from being trod upon. In some districts, goliards staged a celebration of the ass , in which a donkey dressed in a silly costume was led to the chancel rail where a cantor chanted a song of praise. When he paused,
7442-499: The civil unrest of the Qin dynasty and they themselves had not left since or had contact with anyone from the outside. They had not even heard of the later dynasties of bygone times or the then-current Jin dynasty . In the story, the community was secluded and unaffected by the troubles of the outside world. The sense of timelessness was predominant in the story as a perfect utopian community remains unchanged, that is, it had no decline nor
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#17330861347937564-491: The cottage has internal sanitation and running water. His countryside only exists as spectacle, for the delectation of people with motor cars." (Angus Calder, The Myth of the Blitz , London 1991) However, in Journey Through England , Priestley identified himself as a Little Englander because he despised imperialism and the effect that the capitalist Industrial Revolution had on the people and environment. Part of
7686-440: The countryside through into Tudor times. The Reformation set in motion a debate about popular festivities that was to endure for at least a century-and-a-half – a culture war concerning the so-called politics of mirth. As part of the move away from Catholicism , Henry VIII had slashed the number of saint day holidays, attacking the "lycencyous vacacyon and lybertye of these holy days", and Edward VI had reduced them further to
7808-532: The development of such a utopia. In his book Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World , philosopher Nick Bostrom explores what to do in a "solved world", assuming that human civilization safely builds machine superintelligence and manages to solve its political, coordination and fairness problems. He outlines some technologies considered physically possible at technological maturity, such as cognitive enhancement , reversal of aging , self-replicating spacecrafts , arbitrary sensory inputs (taste, sound...), or
7930-471: The early-19th century also centred on economic considerations, but with a view to preserving class distinctions; Wakefield influenced several colonies founded in New Zealand and Australia in the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s. In 1905, H. G. Wells published A Modern Utopia , which was widely read and admired and provoked much discussion. Also consider Eric Frank Russell 's book The Great Explosion (1963),
8052-522: The feudal aristocracy (though the term " Norman yoke " belongs to a later period) and return to a perceived time where the Saxons ruled in equality and freedom. The main arguments of Tyler's rebels were that there was no basis for aristocratic rule in the Bible, and that the plague had demonstrated by its indiscriminate nature that all people were equal under God. Even in relatively peaceful times, medieval existence
8174-408: The first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea...'He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away" and no longer just gnosiological ( Isaiah : "See, I will create/new heavens and a new earth./The former things will not be remembered,/nor will they come to mind". Narrow interpretation of
8296-620: The flesh instead thereof and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman and brought her unto the man. According to the exegesis that the biblical theologian Herbert Haag proposes in the book Is original sin in Scripture? , published soon after the Second Vatican Council , Genesis 2:25 would indicate that Adam and Eve were created from the beginning naked of the divine grace , an originary grace that, then, they would never have had and even less would have lost due to
8418-400: The form of official censure, ecclesiastical or secular). The festival calendar provided some fifty holy days for seasonal and communal coming-together and merry-making. Complaints against the rise in levels of drunkenness and crime on holidays, of flirting in church or on pilgrimage, of grievous bodily harm from the "abominable enough ... foot-ball-game" all testify (however indirectly) to
8540-618: The goliards were eventually denied the privileges of the clergy. Their strained relationship with the church, along with their vagabond lifestyle, also contributed to many poems describing the complaints of such a lifestyle. One of the largest and most famous collections of goliardic poetry is the Carmina Burana , translated as "Songs from Beuern". It includes about 300 poems written mostly in Latin; "few are in Old French, Provencal and Middle German." The satires were meant to mock and lampoon
8662-405: The goliards wrote about the physicality of love, in contrast to the chivalric focus of the troubadours . They wrote drinking songs and reveled in riotous living. Their satirical poems directed at the church were inspired by their daily worlds, including mounting corruption in monasteries and escalating tensions among religious leaders. As a result of their rebellious writings against the church,
8784-476: The heart's fond belief": ...Can, I ask, This face of rural beauty be a mask For discontent, and poverty, and crime?— These spreading towns a cloak for lawless will?— Forbid it, Heaven! —that Merry England still May be thy rightful name, in prose or rhyme. In the late Victorian era, the Tory Young England set perhaps best reflected the vision of "Merry England" on the political stage. Today, in
8906-541: The idealistic principles of the American Founders. The colonies of Carolina (founded in 1670), Pennsylvania (founded in 1681), and Georgia (founded in 1733) were the only three English colonies in America that were planned as utopian societies with an integrated physical, economic and social design. At the heart of the plan for Georgia was a concept of "agrarian equality" in which land was allocated equally and additional land acquisition through purchase or inheritance
9028-415: The imagery of the 1940 patriotic song " There'll Always Be an England " seems to be derived from the same source: There'll always be an England While there's a country lane, Wherever there's a cottage small Beside a field of grain. The continuation evokes, however, the opposite image of the modern industrialised society: There'll always be an England While there's a busy street, Wherever there's
9150-546: The inhabitants of Jambudvipa will need to take part in cultivation and hunger will no longer exist. In the 21st century, discussions around utopia for some authors include post-scarcity economics , late capitalism , and universal basic income ; for example, the "human capitalism" utopia envisioned in Utopia for Realists ( Rutger Bregman 2016) includes a universal basic income and a 15-hour workweek , along with open borders . Scandinavian nations , which as of 2019 ranked at
9272-452: The land to jerry-built cities and gross social inequality . This was also the theme of the journalist Robert Blatchford, editor of the Clarion , in his booklet Merrie England (1893). In it he imagined a new society much on the basis of William Morris's News from Nowhere , in which capitalism had disappeared and people lived in small self-sufficient communities. The book was deeply nostalgic for
9394-474: The last section of which details an economic and social utopia. This forms the first mention of the idea of Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS). During the " Khrushchev Thaw " period, the Soviet writer Ivan Efremov produced the science-fiction utopia Andromeda (1957) in which a major cultural thaw took place: humanity communicates with a galaxy-wide Great Circle and develops its technology and culture within
9516-565: The later Middle Ages: "Merry England" thus reflects those historical aspects of rural English customs and folklore that were subsequently lost. The same concept may have also been used to describe a utopian state of life that peasants aspired to lead (see Cockaigne ). Peasant revolts, such as those led by Wat Tyler and Jack Straw , invoked a visionary idea that was also egalitarian – John Ball arguing for "wines, spices, and good bread ... velvet and camlet furred with grise" all to be held in common. Tyler's rebels wished to throw off
9638-662: The lead-up to the Civil War. Unsurprisingly, the Long Parliament put an end to ales, the last of which was held in 1641, and drove Christmas underground, where it was kept privately, as a form of protest; while the Restoration saw the revival of such pastimes (if not on the Sabbath itself) widely and popularly celebrated. At various times since the Middle Ages, authors, propagandists, romanticists, poets and others have revived or co-opted
9760-438: The life of an ordered monk, but one mainly intent on the pursuit of carnal pleasures. The goliards, as scholars, often wrote their poetry in Latin. As a kind of traveling entertainer, the goliards composed many of their poems to be sung. These poems, or lyrics, focus on two overarching themes: depictions of the lusty lifestyle of the vagrant and satirical criticisms of society and the church. Expressing their lusty lifestyle,
9882-742: The longest-running financially successful communes in American history. The Oneida Community , founded by John Humphrey Noyes in Oneida, New York , was a utopian religious commune that lasted from 1848 to 1881. Although this utopian experiment has become better known today for its manufacture of Oneida silverware, it was one of the longest-running communes in American history. The Amana Colonies were communal settlements in Iowa , started by radical German pietists , which lasted from 1855 to 1932. The Amana Corporation , manufacturer of refrigerators and household appliances,
10004-747: The majority of the secular communes failed within 8 years. Sosis cites anthropologist Roy Rappaport in arguing that rituals and laws are more effective when sacralized . Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt cites Sosis's research in his 2012 book The Righteous Mind as the best evidence that religion is an adaptive solution to the free-rider problem by enabling cooperation without kinship . Evolutionary medicine researcher Randolph M. Nesse and theoretical biologist Mary Jane West-Eberhard have argued instead that because humans with altruistic tendencies are preferred as social partners they receive fitness advantages by social selection , with Nesse arguing further that social selection enabled humans as
10126-503: The mind, the Shire , are 'safe', but the wild landscapes everywhere beyond the Shire are 'dangerous'. Experience of life itself is dangerous. The Lord of the Rings is a pernicious confirmation of the values of a declining nation with a morally bankrupt class whose cowardly self-protection is primarily responsible for the problems England answered with the ruthless logic of Thatcherism . Humanity
10248-405: The morning sun shining on the lonely glades, or through the idle branches of the tangled forest, the leisure, the freedom, 'the pleasure of going and coming without knowing where', the troops of wild deer, the sports of the chase, and other rustic gambols, were sufficient to justify the appelation of 'Merry Sherwood' , and in like manner, we may apply the phrase to Merry England . Hazlitt's subject
10370-575: The myth does not take place towards the remote past but either towards the future or towards distant and fictional places, imagining that at some time in the future, at some point in space, or beyond death, there must exist the possibility of living happily. In the United States and Europe, during the Second Great Awakening (ca. 1790–1840) and thereafter, many radical religious groups formed utopian societies in which faith could govern all aspects of members' lives. These utopian societies included
10492-553: The mythological tradition (the poem Works and Days ), explained that, prior to the present era , there were four other progressively less perfect ones, the oldest of which was the Golden Age . Perhaps the oldest Utopia of which we know, as pointed out many years ago by Moses Finley , is Homer 's Scheria , island of the Phaeacians . A mythical place, often equated with classical Corcyra , (modern Corfu / Kerkyra ), where Odysseus
10614-494: The need to improve. Eventually, the Chinese term Peach Blossom Spring came to be synonymous for the concept of utopia. Datong ( Chinese : 大同 ; pinyin : dàtóng ) is a traditional Chinese Utopia. The main description of it is found in the Chinese Classic of Rites , in the chapter called "Li Yun"( Chinese : 禮運 ; pinyin : Lǐ yùn ). Later, Datong and its ideal of 'The World Belongs to Everyone/The World
10736-548: The popular idealised world of Merry England. Sullivan's score consisted of original music mixed with a large number of popular and historical folk tunes, traditional songs and national anthems. The ballet was very popular, running continuously for nearly six months. Merrie England , a comic opera by Edward German , also became a great success in 1902, and over the following century was so frequently produced by amateur groups in England that it has probably been performed more often than any other British opera or operetta written in
10858-526: The precise control of motivation, mood, well-being and personality. Goliard The goliards were a group of generally young clergy in Europe who wrote satirical Latin poetry in the 12th and 13th centuries of the Middle Ages . They were chiefly clerics who served at or had studied at the universities of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and England, who protested against the growing contradictions within
10980-569: The public good, may be inconceivable because of the disordered human passions which, under the wrong governments, seek to highlight the poorly conceived or selfish interest of the community. But even though we find it impossible, they are ridiculous to sinful people whose sense of self-destruction prevents them from believing. Marx and Engels used the word "utopia" to denote unscientific social theories. Philosopher Slavoj Žižek told about utopia: Which means that we should reinvent utopia but in what sense. There are two false meanings of utopia one
11102-404: The real consolidation of "Merry England" in the years between 1350 and 1520, with the newly elaborative annual festive round of the liturgical year, with candles and pageants, processions and games, boy bishops and decorated rood lofts . Hutton argued that, far from being pagan survivals , many of the activities of popular piety criticised by sixteenth-century reformers were actually creations of
11224-592: The religion-based Twelve Tribes , which started in the United States in 1972. Since its inception, it has grown into many groups around the world. Similarly, a commune called Brook Farm established itself in 1841. Founded by Charles Fourier's visions of Utopia, they attempted to recreate his idea of a central building in society called the Phalanx. Unfortunately, this commune could not sustain itself and failed after only six years of operation. They wanted to stay open for longer, but they could not afford it. Their goal, however,
11346-531: The rights of inheritance upon the eldest son forced younger sons to seek other means by which to support themselves. Often, these younger sons went, or were sent, to the universities and monasteries of the day, where theology and preparation for clergy careers were a major focus. Many felt no particular affinity for religious office, and often could not secure an office even if they desired one because of an overabundance of those educated in theology. Consequently, over-educated, under-motivated clerics often adopted not
11468-557: The roads dusty, when hawthorn and wild roses bloomed, when big-bellied landlords brewed October ale at a penny a pint ... The novel England, England by Julian Barnes describes an imaginary, though plausible, set of circumstances that cause modern England to return to the state of Deep England. The author's views are not made explicit, but the characters who choose to remain in the changed nation are treated more sympathetically than those who leave. In Kingsley Amis 's novel Lucky Jim , Professor Welch and his friends are devotees of
11590-469: The same name. Readers, including Utopian socialists, have chosen to accept this imaginary society as the realistic blueprint for a working nation, while others have postulated that Thomas More intended nothing of the sort. It is believed that More's Utopia functions only on the level of a satire, a work intended to reveal more about the England of his time than about an idealistic society. This interpretation
11712-433: The secular clergy. It also claims that they had no communality nor a single provable point of contact with the historical goliards. Instead, the revisionist thesis posits that the cathedral schools of northern France were the decisive historical context of goliardic poetry. Thus, it argues that "goliardic poets" on the one hand and "goliards" on the other hand need to be strictly distinguished. This fringe view runs contrary to
11834-487: The similarity of the word to eutopia , meaning "good place", from Greek : εὖ ("good" or "well") and τόπος ("place"), which ostensibly would be the more appropriate term for the concept in modern English. The pronunciations of eutopia and utopia in English are identical , which may have given rise to the change in meaning. Dystopia , a term meaning "bad place" coined in 1868, draws on this latter meaning. The opposite of
11956-412: The static perfection of a utopia, libertarian transhumanists envision an " extropia ", an open, evolving society allowing individuals and voluntary groupings to form the institutions and social forms they prefer. Mariah Utsawa presented a theoretical basis for technological utopianism and set out to develop a variety of technologies ranging from maps to designs for cars and houses which might lead to
12078-527: The subject of several poems, one of which, an early translation of a 13th-century French work, is given in George Ellis' Specimens of Early English Poets . In this, "the houses were made of barley sugar and cakes, the streets were paved with pastry and the shops supplied goods for nothing." London has been so called (see Cockney ) but Boileau applies the same to Paris. Schlaraffenland is an analogous German tradition. All these myths also express some hope that
12200-437: The subsequent events narrated. On the other hand, while supporting a continuity in the Bible about the absence of preternatural gifts ( Latin : dona praeternaturalia ) with regard to the ophitic event , Haag never makes any reference to the discontinuity of the loss of access to the tree of life. The Land of Cockaigne (also Cockaygne, Cokaygne), was an imaginary land of idleness and luxury, famous in medieval stories and
12322-499: The term. The celebrated Hogarth engraving illustrating the patriotic song " The Roast Beef of Old England ", is as anti-French as it is patriotic. William Hazlitt 's essay "Merry England", appended to his Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819), popularised the specific term, introduced in tandem with an allusion to the iconic figure of Robin Hood , under the epigraph "St George for merry England!": The beams of
12444-439: The text depicts Heaven on Earth or a Heaven brought to Earth without sin . Daily and mundane details of this new Earth, where God and Jesus rule, remain unclear, although it is implied to be similar to the biblical Garden of Eden. Some theological philosophers believe that heaven will not be a physical realm but instead an incorporeal place for souls . The Greek poet Hesiod , around the 8th century BC, in his compilation of
12566-546: The top of the World Happiness Report , are sometimes cited as modern utopias, although British author Michael Booth has called that a myth and wrote a 2014 book about the Nordic countries . Particularly in the early 19th century, several utopian ideas arose, often in response to the belief that social disruption was created and caused by the development of commercialism and capitalism . These ideas are often grouped in
12688-601: The top-down ( bureaucratic ) nature of Bellamy's utopia, which Morris criticized. However, as the socialist movement developed, it moved away from utopianism; Marx in particular became a harsh critic of earlier socialism which he described as "utopian". (For more information, see the History of Socialism article.) In a materialist utopian society, the economy is perfect; there is no inflation and only perfect social and financial equality exists. Edward Gibbon Wakefield 's utopian theorizing on systematic colonial settlement policy in
12810-521: The view that the story of Deep England was central to wartime propaganda operations within the United Kingdom, and then, as now, served a clearly defined political and cultural purpose in the hands of various interested agencies. Calder cites the writer and broadcaster J. B. Priestley whom he considered to be a proponent of the Deep England world-view. Priestley's wartime BBC radio "chats" described
12932-598: The villages of 17th and 18th century England and were destroyed by the machine and mass culture introduced by the Industrial Revolution . Historians of the era say that the idea was based on a misreading of history and that such communities had never existed. Punch in 1951 mocked both planning, and the concept of a revived Merry England, by envisioning a 'Merrie Board' with powers to set up 'Merrie Areas' in rural England – intended to preserve "this hard core of Merriment". "Deep England" refers to an idealised view of
13054-536: The world organized and built intentional communities with the hope of developing a better way of living together. Many of these intentional communities are relatively small. Many intentional communities have a population close to 100, with many possibly exceeding this number. While this may seem large, it is pretty small in comparison to the rest of society. From the small populations, it is apparent that people do not prefer this kind of living . While many of these new small communities failed, some continue to grow, such as
13176-503: The world", which means dressing in flowing robes and (incongruously with the Merrie England concept, bearing in mind the traditions of English Ale and The Roast Beef of Old England) being vegetarian and teetotal. The pageant they organise becomes a fiasco, largely, needless to say, on account of William's involvement as part of the dragon who fights Mr Pennyman's St George. "The Pennymans'... pageant for May Day which involves St George and
13298-511: The world. Anthropologist Richard Sosis examined 200 communes in the 19th-century United States, both religious and secular (mostly utopian socialist ). 39 percent of the religious communes were still functioning 20 years after their founding while only 6 percent of the secular communes were. The number of costly sacrifices that a religious commune demanded from its members had a linear effect on its longevity, while in secular communes demands for costly sacrifices did not correlate with longevity and
13420-706: Was a Christian theosophy and pietist group founded in Iptingen , Germany , in 1785. Due to religious persecution by the Lutheran Church and the government in Württemberg , the society moved to the United States on October 7, 1803, settling in Pennsylvania . On February 15, 1805, about 400 followers formally organized the Harmony Society, placing all their goods in common . The group lasted until 1905, making it one of
13542-603: Was certainly merriment in Medieval England, even if always found in an unidealised and conflictual social setting. If there was a period after the Black Death when labour shortages meant that agricultural workers were in stronger positions, and serfdom was consequently eroded, the growing commercialisation of agriculture – with enclosures, rising rents, and pasture displacing arable, and sheep displacing men – meant that such social and economic hardship and conflict continued in
13664-642: Was coined in 1516 from Ancient Greek by the Englishman Sir Thomas More for his Latin text Utopia . It literally translates as "no place", coming from the Greek : οὐ ("not") and τόπος ("place"), and meant any non-existent society, when 'described in considerable detail'. However, in standard usage, the word's meaning has shifted and now usually describes a non-existent society that is intended to be viewed as considerably better than contemporary society. In his original work, More carefully pointed out
13786-421: Was derided and marginalised. Sentimentality became the acceptable substitute. So few people seem to be able to tell the difference. The Pyrates , the 1983 spoof historical novel by George MacDonald Fraser , sets its scene with a page-long sentence composed entirely of (immediately demolished) Merry England tropes : It began in the old and golden days of England, in a time when all the hedgerows were green and
13908-403: Was for the majority a harsh and uncertain one – Lawrence Stone describing rural life as "at the mercy of disease and the weather ... with money to burn today from the sale of a bumper crop, plunged into debt tomorrow because of harvest failure". Nevertheless, the rural community was clearly prepared to play hard, as well as work hard (even if much of the surviving evidence for this comes in
14030-532: Was originally started by the group. Other examples are Fountain Grove (founded in 1875), Riker's Holy City and other Californian utopian colonies between 1855 and 1955 (Hine), as well as Sointula in British Columbia , Canada. The Amish and Hutterites can also be considered an attempt towards religious utopia. A wide variety of intentional communities with some type of faith-based ideas have also started across
14152-606: Was prohibited; the plan was an early step toward the yeoman republic later envisioned by Thomas Jefferson . The communes of the 1960s in the United States often represented an attempt to greatly improve the way humans live together in communities. The back-to-the-land movements and hippies inspired many to try to live in peace and harmony on farms or in remote areas and to set up new types of governance. Communes like Kaliflower , which existed between 1967 and 1973, attempted to live outside of society's norms and to create their own ideal communalist society. People all over
14274-534: Was similarly popular. Other composers, such as Charles Villiers Stanford ( Suite of Ancient Dances , 1895), Frederick Cowen ( Four English Dances in the Old Style , 1896), Norman O'Neill (overture to Hamlet , 1904) and Percy Pitt ( Three Old English Dances , 1904) turned to similar sources for inspiration. A few popular music artists have used elements of the Merry England story as recurring themes. The Kinks and their leader Ray Davies crafted The Kinks are
14396-621: Was spurred by a series of lithographs by Joseph Nash (1839–1849), illustrating The Mansions of England in the Olden Time in picturesque and accurate detail. They were peopled with jolly figures in ruffs and farthingales , who personified a specific "Merry England" that was not Catholic (always an issue with the Gothic style in England), yet full of lively detail, in a golden pre-industrial land of Cockaigne. Children's storybooks and fairytales written in
14518-502: Was the traditional sports and rural diversions native to the English. In Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England (1844: translated as The Condition of the Working Class in England ), Friedrich Engels wrote sarcastically of Young England (a ginger-group of young aristocrats hostile to the new industrial order) that they hoped to restore "the old 'merry England' with its brilliant features and its romantic feudalism. This object
14640-414: Was there any need for hard and painful work. Humans were simple and pious and felt themselves close to their God or gods. According to one anthropological theory, hunter-gatherers were the original affluent society . These mythical or religious archetypes are inscribed in many cultures and resurge with special vitality when people are in difficult and critical times. However, in utopias, the projection of
14762-503: Was very similar to that of Utopia: to lead a more wholesome and simpler life than the atmosphere of pressure surrounding society at the time. It is clear that despite ambition, it is difficult for communes to stay in operation for very long. Though Francis Bacon 's New Atlantis is imbued with a scientific spirit, scientific and technological utopias tend to be based in the future, when it is believed that advanced science and technology will allow utopian living standards ; for example,
14884-509: Was washed ashore after 10 years of storm-tossed wandering and escorted to the King's palace by his daughter Nausicaa . With stout walls, a stone temple and good harbours, it is perhaps the 'ideal' Greek colony , a model for those founded from the middle of the 8th Century onward. A land of plenty, home to expert mariners (with the self-navigating ships), and skilled craftswomen who live in peace under their king's rule and fear no strangers. Plutarch ,
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