UTOPIA

Week 1 Introduction
• Utopia is originally a literary genre; it is a
category of literary production with a
particular content and form.
• The specific content of utopia :
- an ideal but
- nonexistent place.
• The specific form is usually fiction; mostly
novel. So, when we are talking about utopias
we are talking about specific “novels” of
specific writers.
• There are also examples where a novel
contains a utopian line of story .
 u.topia

• ou: not in Greek • eu: good, well (in

Greek)
nonexistent,
(from another
no-place invention of More
eutopia)
 PLACE
topos: place
 IDEAL AND/OR IMAGINERY
utopia:
1. an ideal place
2. a nonexistent place

Earliest forms in myths and fairy tales

 definiton

1. (the idea of) a perfect society in which

everyone works well with each other and
is happy a place of ideal perfection;
imaginary and indefinitely remote place
• any visionary (and mostly impractical)
system of political or social perfection.
• Example sentences for UTOPIA
• The town's founders wanted to create a
Christian utopia.
• It's a nice place to live, but it's no Utopia
• Some Synonyms
• Eden, paradise,
•
• Antonyms
• anti-utopia, dystopia, hell
•
• Related Words
• arcadia; dreamland, dreamworld, fairyland,
wonderland; euphoria, gladness, joy
• The word utopia has itself been used as the
root for the formation of new words such as
• eutopia
• dystopia, anti-utopia
• echotopia, heterotopia
• Every addition and transformation added new
and precise meanings to the word.
3.an imaginary island described in Sir Thomas
More's Utopia (1516)as enjoying perfection in law,
politics, etc.

References:
• http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/utopia
• http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/utopia?s
=t
 DESIRES AND FEARS
• Utopias reflect the desires and fears of the
human being.
• The desire for eternal happiness and
abundance.
• The desire to improve living.
• The fear of death and longing for immortality.
• The utopia may idealize or romanticize an
existing ideology, project the vision
– far into place: to a distant island, a mountain-top,
a hidden valley, another planet, or
– in time: into a future period.
 TIME
• FUTURE: In general “utopia” is a place to be
attained in the future

• PAST: Although there are exception such as

Arcadia or Golden, which refers to a perfect
place in the past.
 ABOUT SOCIETY
The concept of “utopia” has extensive “social”
implications. Most utopias tell us about “an
ideal society”.
 PERSPECTIVE OR POINT OF VIEW
• Every utopia reflects a point of view. A certain
set of preferences.
Utopia is not just a word it is a concept
• What is a concept?:
• a principle or It is very difficult to define the
concept of beauty.I failed to grasp the
film's central concept.
• 1. something conceived in the
mind : THOUGHT, NOTION
• 2 : an abstract or generic idea generalized
from particular instances
The concept of utopia is older than utopia as a
word. The word was coined in Thomas More’s
Utopia (1516).
But the utopia is an age old concept. T. More
built on a tradition of utopian thinking.
• Therefore we have to view “utopia” both as a
a word and as a word which reflects a
concept.
• What is the idea or collection of ideas that
“utopia” is composed of?
• There types of utopias. Some describe the
characteristics of the ideal city, some discuss
the various aspects of an ideal city from
various angles, with the conflicting opinions of
a number of characters in the text.
• There are various utopias:
• the sensate or the spiritual,
• the aristocratic or the plebian,
• the utopia of escape or the utopia of
realization; ,
• the collectivist and the individualistic
utopias
• Sir Philip Sidney, English poet and critic,
named utopia as a “speaking picture”. It is a
suitable naming because the utopia depicts
the ideal way of life in the mind of the writer,
it creates an ideal place in accordance with
the main principles and concerns of the writer
vis-à-vis his/her age.
 Main Parts of the Course
I. Utopian thinking before Thomas More’s
Utopia
II. Thomas More’s Utopia
III. Utopianism after Thomas More
IV. Ideology and Utopia
V. Utopia in Mass Society
 The term coined by T. More
• Utopia was first used in Thomas More’s text
depicting an imaginery island Utopia (1516). It
was a neologism at the time in the sense that
it synthesized and named pre-existing
concepts. In time its meaning changed in
various contexts, it was adopted by various
authors to represent divergent interests and
conflicting aims.
But T. More invented the term utopia but not
utopianism. The idea existed in human
thinking much before Thomas More.
T.More worked on a tradition of thought that goes
back to ancient Greece and is nourished by the
myth of the Golden Age. It is a universal
archetype which carries the promise of a happy
after life.
Archetype: a recurrent image or idea.
(in Jungian psychology)
a collectively inherited unconscious idea,
pattern of thought, image, etc., universally prese
nt in individual psyches.
• As a typical Renaissance man Thomas More
valued Ancient Greek culture very much and
over the ruins of the Medieval social order a
confidence in the capacity of humankind
emerged.
• More’s Utopia was a reflection of this
optimistic outlook and he tried to create a
model which rested on a new confidence that
human being did not exist simply to accept his
or her fate, but to use reason in order to build
the future.
Thomas More’s utopia has three main
characteristics
• It is isolated, it is on an island set apart from
the known world
• It rivals Plato’s ideal city, it claims to be
superior to it
• Its inhabitants and its laws are so wonderful
that it should be called Eutopia (the good
place) instead of Utopia.
• T.More’s reference to Plato is no coincidence,
Plato (428-348 B.C.) the prominent ancient
Greek philosopher, an idealist philosopher
rendered the first elaborated version of
utopian thought in his depiction of the ideal
city.
Plato and More imagined alternative ways to
organize society. Both of them resorted to
fiction to discuss these alternatives.
Plato’s Republic is the main text in which he
displays a utopianist approach to social
matters.
• As well as the confidence in human capacity
for progress, to improve his/her living.
In the Middle Ages, Christian theologian St.
Augustine wrote the City of God. The
difference of this text is that St. Augustine
precisely makes his projections for an ideal
afterlife.
Historically, the concept of utopia has been
defined with regard to one of four of these
characteristics.
1) the content of the imagined city: the
identification of that city with the idea of
“good place”,
2) the literary form into which the utopian
imagination has been crystiallized. It is a
limiting way of defining utopia
3) Also connected to reality and it has social
functions of utopia. The effect that it causes
on the reader, making him to criticize his
society and making him to take action.
4) The desire for a better life. A universal desire
which has social and psychological origins.
 The related fields
• Therefore utopianism is related to several
fields including:
- Literature
- History of thought and philosophy
- Sociology, social sciences
- Politics
- Environmentalism
- Feminism
• Utopian thinking is linked with and nourished
by two contradicting principles:
1) The need for an ideal life and happiness.
2) The worries about death and disappearance.
The First Narration of Idel Place
The Epic of Gilgamesh
• The story of the destruction of humanity by
the big flood. It is a widespread archetype. It is
found in several ancient cultures.
• Generally this destruction is seen as a
purification which will be followed by the
continuation of existence in an ideal, edenic
new place and under a new social
organization.
• They are age old universal ideas found in the
humans and they are expressed in various
ancient myths. The earliest known text to
display these contradicting principles and the
archetype of flood is the Gilgamesh.
• It is a Babylonian epic. (Sumerian and
Babylonian)
The Epic of Gilgamesh

• the world’s oldest story

• Gilgamesh was a real Sumerian king (of Uruk) sometime between

2700-2500 B.C.

• stories about the heroic deeds of Gilgamesh were initally developed in

oral tradition

• first written down in approximately 2100 B.C. (1300 years before

Homer’s The Illiad)

• was adopted and spread by the Babylonians (Sumer/Babylonia)

The Epic of Gilgamesh

STORY LINE

• Gilgamesh angers his people with his arrogance and selfishness. The
gods create Enkidu to accompany him and to teach him humility.
Enkidu and Gilgamesh first fight and then become friends.

• Gilgamesh and Enkidu meet and kill the giant Humbaba.

• Enkidu is killed due to Ishtar’s anger against Gilgamesh.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

•Gilgamesh goes to Utanapisthim (Noah), the survivor of the great

flood, to learn how a human being can gain immortality.

• Gilgamesh makes the journey to and from Utanapishtim in a boat,

with the help of a boatman, sailing across the Waters of Death

• Utanapisthtim tells the story of how gods were furious at human

beings and created the flood.

• The god Enlil wanted to punish humans with the flood.

Some of the other gods felt sorry for what Enlil did and god Ea guided
Utanapishtim to build a ship (ark) to save the human race from
extinction.
The Epic of Gilgamesh

• Gods grant Utanapishtim and his wife immortality. It can be seen as

a compensation for Enlil’s unfair punishment. They live in a remote
place in perfect harmony. It is the earliest prototype of a utopian land.
They are immortal and responsible to save the mankind and the life on
earth.
Gilgamesh:
• a Sumerian king, king of the city of Uruk
• a combination of godly and manly features:
2/3 god+1/3 human
• Mourning the death Enkidu, his friend who
endured several troubles and dangerous
challenges with him.
• Gilgamesh starts a travel to find Utanapishtim
(he who found life) (also called Noah in other
texts)
• Why?
• Because Utanapishtim, the Faraway is a man
who has found immortality and has been
accepted among the gods. He lives in a very
distant place, a place which is impossible for
any human being to reach.
• Gilgamesh also wishes to attain immortality,
everlasting life and he wants Utanapishtim to
teach him how to get it, how to evade death.
But no human being has ever found
Utanapishtim, no human being had the courage
to make the journey to the place where
Utanapishtim lives, amont the gods.
On the road to Utanapishtim he struggles and
beats a number of obstacles. He looks like a
traveler from afar, his face torn by heat and cold.
He also looks like a hunter, a violent man in lion
skins.
• 2 lions in a mountain pass
• scorpion men on the gate of the Mount
Mashu (a scorpion man warns him, tries to
dissuade him to continue his journey by saying
that no human being could reach there)
• a long tunnel within the mountains, he
travelled in darkness
• an orchard o jewel bearing trees (orchard:
bağ, meyve bahçesi)
– a green and beautiful garden
– fruit trees
– branches of trees are like dancing in
– a light wind
• Shamas (a god) warns him “You will not find
the life for which you are searching”.
• the sea shore (the fisher women warns him not to
continue his impossible journey, she says that men
cannot attain eternal life, it is only or the gods)
• “Delight in the pleasures that your (mortal) life brings
you. Make every day of your life a feast for rejoicing.
This is the task that the gods have set before all human
beings. This is the life you should seek, for this is the
best life a mortal can hope to achieve”.
• “There is no way to cross this deep sea”
• Only the boatman of Utanapishtim might help you
• journey on the sea together with the boatman:
– breaks the sacred stone figures of the boatman
– the boatman: “you have have hindered the journey”
by breaking the stone figures
– Gilgamesh brings 120 poles (a long piece of wood)
– they sailed and reached the Waters of Death
– Gilgamesh used the sticks to move the boat but he
had to keep his hands dry (not to touch the Waters of
Death) and he had to use a new stick each time
– Utanapishtim saw them.
• arrival at Utanapishtim’s land:
• Gilgamesh: I wish to talk to you about life and
death. I know that you have found everlasting
life and have joined the assembly of the gods.
I too wish to live on earth forever. Teach me
what you know, so I can live as you do!”
•
• Utanapishtim: Death is the fate of every living
thing.

He explains the story how he attained

immortality and tells Gilgamesh that he cannot
do the same, that he has to accept his fate as a
mortal being.
• Utanapishtim makes a flash-back in history and
tells the story of the great flood and how he had
saved the seeds of humanity and of plant and
animal life with the help of some of the gods.
• Then his award is to live eternally in Dilmun with
his wife:
• “He and his wife will live far to the east, where
the sun rises, at the mouth of the river in the
mountainous land of Dilmun”.
 First Image of a Perfect Place
• Dilmun is described as
- a heavenly and holy land
- a garden: plants, trees, abundant food
- a place of everlasting life and youth
- a place without illness and death
- eternal spring
Bazı Türkçe Kaynaklar
Mina Urgan. Edebiyatta Ütopya Kavramı ve
Thomas More. İstanbul: Adam, 1984
Nilnur Tandaçgüneş. Ütopya: Antikçağ’dan
Günümüze Mutluluk Vaadi. İstanbul:
Ayrıntı, 2013.
James Hollis. Cennet Projesi: Büyülü Öteki’nin
Arayışında. İstanbul: Tavanarası, 2002.
• Ernest Callenbach. Ekotopya. İstanbul: Agora
Kitaplığı, 2010.
• Varlık Sayı 1301 Şubat 2016. «Ütopya’nın 500.
Yılında Yok Ülkenin Peşinde»
• Kitaplık. Sayı 76 Ekim 2004. Dosya Konusu:
Ütopya