The Nationality of Utopia: H. G. Wells, England, and the World State

The Nationality of Utopia: H. G. Wells, England, and the World State - Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature

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Publisher's Synopsis

Since its generic inception in 1516, utopia has produced visions of alterity which renegotiate, subvert, and transcend existing places. Early in the twentieth century, H. G. Wells linked utopia to the World State, whose post-national, post-Westphalian emergence he predicated on English national discourse. This critical study examines how the discursive representations of England's geography, continuity, and character become foundational to the Wellsian utopia and elicit competing response from Wells's contemporaries, particularly Robert Hugh Benson and Aldous Huxley, with further ramifications throughout the twentieth century. Contextualized alongside modern theories of nationalism and utopia, as well as read jointly with contemporary projections of England as place, reactions to Wells demonstrate a shift from disavowal to retrieval of England, on the one hand, and from endorsement to rejection of the World State, on the other. Attempts to salvage the residual traces of English culture from their degradation in the World State have taken increasing precedence over the imagination of a post-national order. This trend continues in the work of George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, J. G. Ballard, and Julian Barnes, whose future scenarios warn against a world without England. The Nationality of Utopia investigates utopia's capacity to deconstruct and redeploy national discourse in ways that surpass fear and nostalgia.

About the Publisher

Routledge

Routledge

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Book information

ISBN: 9781032090139
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Imprint: Routledge
Pub date:
DEWEY: 809.93372
DEWEY edition: 23
Language: English
Number of pages: 212
Weight: 260g
Height: 229mm
Width: 152mm
Spine width: 15mm