Utopia's Doom

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Publisher : Art & Religion
ISBN 13 : 9789042934689
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (346 download)

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Book Synopsis Utopia's Doom by : P. VandenBroeck

Download or read book Utopia's Doom written by P. VandenBroeck and published by Art & Religion. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The so-called Garden of Delights by Jheronimus Bosch (c. 1450-1516), now located in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, was painted over half a millennium ago yet remains an absolutely iconic work in European art history. The highly complex and enigmatic image has frequently been interpreted as a paradisaical utopia, in which people indulge playfully in erotic pleasure in harmony with nature. It is a visual utopia framed before Thomas More had actually coined the word in a book whose entirely unfrivolous blueprint for society could hardly differ more from Bosch's phantasm. More traditional art historians have identified Bosch's masterpiece as a painted warning against the sins of the body, more specifically that of 'lust', citing the image of Hell in the right wing in support. Paul Vandenbroeck argues that these two interpretations need not preclude one another: Bosch painted a phantasmagorical false paradise that leads inexorably to ruin. He drew his inspiration from folk ideas about a semi-earthly, semi-supernatural erotic paradise or Grail, in which those who entered could live in a dream-world of unbridled pleasure. But only until Judgement Day, upon which they would all wind up in Hell. As far as 'right-thinking' town-dwellers were concerned from their vantage point within a 'bourgeois civilizing offensive', belief in such an existence was dangerous, if not diabolical nonsense - tantamount to the 'Cult of Adam' and the indiscriminate sexual promiscuity of the late-medieval Sect of the Free Spirit. In large swathes of countryside throughout Europe, however, people were familiar with 'ecstatics', those 'born with the caul', who were able to access this other world. Bosch's magisterial work is simultaneously a reflection on the first and last times, on passions and moral norms, human beings and Nature. A Nature which, although also part of God's creation, was permeated with malevolent and highly dangerous sexual urges, which human beings were required to keep in check. For whom did Bosch paint this enormous triptych? Since the discoveries of Prof. J.K. Steppe of Leuven University, art historians have tended to identify the patron as Henry III of Nassau or, more recently, his uncle, Engelbert II. This book presents an unexpected alternative hypothesis.

Sustainable Utopias

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Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674249143
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis Sustainable Utopias by : Jennifer L. Allen

Download or read book Sustainable Utopias written by Jennifer L. Allen and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To reclaim a sense of hope for the future, German activists in the late twentieth century engaged ordinary citizens in innovative projects that resisted alienation and disenfranchisement. By most accounts, the twentieth century was not kind to utopian thought. The violence of two world wars, Cold War anxieties, and a widespread sense of crisis after the 1973 global oil shock appeared to doom dreams of a better world. The eventual victory of capitalism and, seemingly, liberal democracy relieved some fears but exchanged them for complacency and cynicism. Not, however, in West Germany. Jennifer Allen showcases grassroots activism of the 1980s and 1990s that envisioned a radically different society based on community-centered politicsÑa society in which the democratization of culture and power ameliorated alienation and resisted the impotence of end-of-history narratives. BerlinÕs History Workshop liberated research from university confines by providing opportunities for ordinary people to write and debate the story of the nation. The Green Party made the politics of direct democracy central to its program. Artists changed the way people viewed and acted in public spaces by installing objects in unexpected environments, including the Stolpersteine: paving stones, embedded in residential sidewalks, bearing the names of Nazi victims. These activists went beyond just trafficking in ideas. They forged new infrastructures, spaces, and behaviors that gave everyday people real agency in their communities. Undergirding this activism was the environmentalist concept of sustainability, which demanded that any alternative to existing society be both enduring and adaptable. A rigorous but inspiring tale of hope in action, Sustainable Utopias makes the case that it is still worth believing in human creativity and the labor of citizenship.

Walt's Utopia

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Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 1476693358
Total Pages : 221 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (766 download)

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Book Synopsis Walt's Utopia by : Priscilla Hobbs

Download or read book Walt's Utopia written by Priscilla Hobbs and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2024-09-18 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "Happiest Place on Earth" opened in 1955 during a trying time in American life--the Cold War. Disneyland was envisioned as a utopian resort where families could play together and escape the tension of the "real world." Since its construction, the park has continually been updated to reflect changing American culture. The park's themed features are based on familiar Disney stories and American history and folklore. They reflect the hopes of a society trying to understand itself in the wake of World War II. This second edition expands its perspective in response to, among other things, the cultural shifts brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. New and updated chapters endeavor to hold Disney accountable: not accountability for misdeeds, but its accountability to include everyone, as American mythmakers and cultural titans.

Utopia Is Creepy: And Other Provocations

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Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393254550
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (932 download)

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Book Synopsis Utopia Is Creepy: And Other Provocations by : Nicholas Carr

Download or read book Utopia Is Creepy: And Other Provocations written by Nicholas Carr and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A freewheeling, sharp-shooting indictment of a tech-besotted culture. With razor wit, Nicholas Carr cuts through Silicon Valley’s unsettlingly cheery vision of the technological future to ask a hard question: Have we been seduced by a lie? Gathering a decade’s worth of posts from his blog, Rough Type, as well as his seminal essays, Utopia Is Creepy is “Carr’s best hits for those who missed the last decade of his stream of thoughtful commentary about our love affair with technology and its effect on our relationships” (Richard Cytowic, New York Journal of Books). Carr draws on artists ranging from Walt Whitman to the Clash, while weaving in the latest findings from science and sociology. Carr’s favorite targets are those zealots who believe so fervently in computers and data that they abandon common sense. Cheap digital tools do not make us all the next Fellini or Dylan. Social networks, diverting as they may be, are not vehicles for self-enlightenment. And “likes” and retweets are not going to elevate political discourse. Utopia Is Creepy compels us to question the technological momentum that has trapped us in its flow. “Resistance is never futile,” argues Carr, and this book delivers the proof.

The Concept of Utopia

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Publisher : Syracuse University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780815625131
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (251 download)

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Book Synopsis The Concept of Utopia by : Ruth Levitas

Download or read book The Concept of Utopia written by Ruth Levitas and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Probes the contested concept of utopia, examining the different ways in which it has been used by commentators and theorists in both liberal and Marxist radiations. The works of Karl Mannheim, Georges Sorel, Ernst Bloch, William Morris, and Herbert Marcuse are studied. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The End of Doom

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Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 1466861444
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (668 download)

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Book Synopsis The End of Doom by : Ronald Bailey

Download or read book The End of Doom written by Ronald Bailey and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-07-21 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the past five decades there have been many, many forecasts of impending environmental doom. They have universally been proven wrong. Meanwhile, those who have bet on human resourcefulness have almost always been correct. In his widely praised book Ecoscam, Ronald Bailey strongly countered environmentalist alarmism, using facts to demonstrate just how wildly overstated many claims of impending ecological doom really were. Now, twenty years later, the Reason Magazine science correspondent is back to assess the future of humanity and the global biosphere. Bailey finds, contrary to popular belief, that many present ecological trends are quite positive. Including: Falling cancer incidence rates in the United States. The likelihood of a declining world population by mid-century. The abundant return of agricultural land to nature as the world reaches peak farmland. A proven link between increases in national wealth and reductions in air and water pollution Global warming is a problem, but the cost of clean energy could soon fall below that of fossil fuels. In The End of Doom, Bailey avoids polemics and offers a balanced, fact-based and ultimately hopeful perspective on our current environmental situation. Now isn't that a breath of fresh air?

History in Times of Unprecedented Change

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350095079
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis History in Times of Unprecedented Change by : Zoltán Boldizsár Simon

Download or read book History in Times of Unprecedented Change written by Zoltán Boldizsár Simon and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-06-13 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our understanding of ourselves and the world as historical has drastically changed since the postwar period, yet this emerging historical sensibility has not been appropriately explained in a coherent theory of history. In this book, Zoltán Simon argues that instead of seeing the past, the present and the future together on a temporal continuum as history, we now expect unprecedented change to happen in the future (in visions of the future of technology, ecology and nuclear warfare) and we look at the past by assuming that such changes have already happened. This radical theory of history challenges narrative conceptualizations of history which assume a past potential of humanity unfolding over time to reach future fulfillment and seeks new ways of conceptualizing the altered socio-cultural concerns Western societies are currently facing. By creating a novel set of concepts to make sense of our altered historical condition regarding both history understood as the course of human affairs and historical writing, History in Times of Unprecedented Change offers a highly original and engaging take on the state of history and historical theory in the present and beyond.

Annihilation and Utopia

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135027250
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (35 download)

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Book Synopsis Annihilation and Utopia by : Errol E. Harris

Download or read book Annihilation and Utopia written by Errol E. Harris and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1966. The main purpose of this book is not philosophical speculation, but to draw the obvious conclusions from political and historical facts about the prospects and methods of human political survival. The central theme is developed in the context of problems which cause most anxiety today: the mounting arms race, the unstable balance of power, the rapid growth of population, racial conflicts and ideological incompatibilities.

Erotic Utopia

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Publisher : Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN 13 : 0299208834
Total Pages : 356 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (992 download)

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Book Synopsis Erotic Utopia by : Olga Matich

Download or read book Erotic Utopia written by Olga Matich and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2005-08-01 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first generation of Russian modernists experienced a profound sense of anxiety resulting from the belief that they were living in an age of decline. What made them unique was their utopian prescription for overcoming the inevitability of decline and death both by metaphysical and physical means. They intertwined their mystical erotic discourse with European degeneration theory and its obsession with the destabilization of gender. In Erotic Utopia, Olga Matich suggests that same-sex desire underlay their most radical utopian proposal of abolishing the traditional procreative family in favor of erotically induced abstinence. 2006 Winner, CHOICE Award for Outstanding Academic Titles, Current Reviews for Academic Libraries Honorable Mention, Aldo and Jean Scaglione Prize for Studies in Slavic Languages and Literatures, Modern Language Association “Offers a fresh perspective and a wealth of new information on early Russian modernism. . . . It is required reading for anyone interested in fin-de-siècle Russia and in the history of sexuality in general.”—Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Slavic and East European Journal “Thoroughly entertaining.”—Avril Pyman, Slavic Review

Playing Utopia

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Publisher : transcript Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3839450500
Total Pages : 333 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (394 download)

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Book Synopsis Playing Utopia by : Benjamin Beil

Download or read book Playing Utopia written by Benjamin Beil and published by transcript Verlag. This book was released on 2019-11-30 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Media narratives inform our ideas of the future - and Games are currently making a significant contribution to this medial reservoir. On the one hand, Games demonstrate a particular propensity for fantastic and futuristic scenarios. On the other hand, they often serve as an experimental field for the latest media technologies. However, while dystopias are part of the standard gaming repertoire, Games feature utopias much less frequently. Why? This anthology examines playful utopias from two perspectives. It investigates utopias in digital Games as well as utopias of the digital game; that is, the role of ludic elements in scenarios of the future.

Utopias and Dystopias in the Fiction of H. G. Wells and William Morris

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Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 1137523409
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (375 download)

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Book Synopsis Utopias and Dystopias in the Fiction of H. G. Wells and William Morris by : Emelyne Godfrey

Download or read book Utopias and Dystopias in the Fiction of H. G. Wells and William Morris written by Emelyne Godfrey and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-12-08 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about the fiercely contrasting visions of two of the nineteenth century’s greatest utopian writers. A wide-ranging, interdisciplinary study, it emphasizes that space is a key factor in utopian fiction, often a barometer of mankind’s successful relationship with nature, or an indicator of danger. Emerging and critically acclaimed scholars consider the legacy of two great utopian writers, exploring their use of space and time in the creation of sites in which contemporary social concerns are investigated and reordered. A variety of locations is featured, including Morris’s quasi-fourteenth century London, the lush and corrupted island, a routed and massacred English countryside, the high-rises of the future and the vertiginous landscape of another Earth beyond the stars.

Utopia

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351300385
Total Pages : 118 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (513 download)

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Book Synopsis Utopia by : George Kateb

Download or read book Utopia written by George Kateb and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-29 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amid the twentieth century's seemingly overwhelming problems, some thinkers dared to envisage a world order governed by utopian proposals that would eliminate--or at least alleviate--the evils of society and secure positive advantages for all human beings. Others found this utopian optimism a hopeless fantasy and predicted a utopian order only repressiveness, boredom, and the impoverishment of human experience. The unique gathering of articles in Utopia vividly demonstrates the tension existing between utopian ideas and their proponents and the severe criticism of their adversaries. Among utopia's enthusiastic supporters, B. F. Skinner outlines the educational practices needed to sustain his concept of utopia, while Margaret Mead sets forth a bold defense of utopian vision in her article "Towards More Vivid Utopias." In active opposition to modern utopian idealism, Ralf Dahrendorf, the prominent German sociologist and politician, compares utopia with a cemetery and criticizes its fixed and uneventful life, and J. L. Talmon predicts that, since utopianism postulates absolute social cohesion, there is no escape from dictatorship in the utopian design. Still another alternative is offered by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who bases his futurist ideology on the trends of technology in the advanced countries of the world, especially the United States. He sees in the conscious application of technical-scientific rationality by an intellectual elite the method by which the promises of modern knowledge can be made good. Underscoring the fact that the utopian tradition can make us look at the real world with new eyes, George Kateb, the editor of Utopia, clarifies the terms of this long-standing debate and offers a thorough analysis of the "strong utopian impetus to save the world from as much of its confusion and disorder as possible." The work is an argument neither for utopian or anti-utopian visions. Rather it shows the possibilities of political norms in advancing the human condition in open societies.

The Philosophy of Utopia

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Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 9780714681696
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (816 download)

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Book Synopsis The Philosophy of Utopia by : Barbara Goodwin

Download or read book The Philosophy of Utopia written by Barbara Goodwin and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2001 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study covers the theory, history and future of utopianism (the belief in an ideal society).

Utopian Geographies and the Early English Novel

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Publisher : University of Virginia Press
ISBN 13 : 0813936241
Total Pages : 187 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (139 download)

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Book Synopsis Utopian Geographies and the Early English Novel by : Jason H. Pearl

Download or read book Utopian Geographies and the Early English Novel written by Jason H. Pearl and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians of the Enlightenment have studied the period’s substantial advances in world cartography, as well as the decline of utopia imagined in geographic terms. Literary critics, meanwhile, have assessed the emerging novel’s realism and in particular the genre’s awareness of the wider world beyond Europe. Jason Pearl unites these lines of inquiry in Utopian Geographies and the Early English Novel, arguing that prose fiction from 1660 to 1740 helped demystify blank spaces on the map and make utopia available anywhere. This literature incorporated, debunked, and reformulated utopian conceptions of geography. Reports of ideal societies have always prompted skepticism, and it is now common to imagine them in the future, rather than on some undiscovered island or continent. At precisely the time when novels began turning from the fabulous settings of romance to the actual locations described in contemporaneous travel accounts, a number of writers nevertheless tried to preserve and reconfigure utopia by giving it new coordinates and parameters. Margaret Cavendish, Aphra Behn, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, and others told of adventurous voyages and extraordinary worlds. They engaged critically and creatively with the idea of utopia. If these writers ultimately concede that utopian geographies were nowhere to be found, they also reimagine the essential ideals as new forms of interiority and sociability that could be brought back to England. Questions about geography and utopia drove many of the formal innovations of the early novel. As this book shows, what resulted were new ways of representing both world geography and utopian possibility.

America's Communal Utopias

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Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 080789897X
Total Pages : 560 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis America's Communal Utopias by : Donald E. Pitzer

Download or read book America's Communal Utopias written by Donald E. Pitzer and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2010-01-20 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Shakers to the Branch Davidians, America's communal utopians have captured the popular imagination. Seventeen original essays here demonstrate the relevance of such groups to the mainstream of American social, religious, and economic life. The contributors examine the beliefs and practices of the most prominent utopian communities founded before 1965, including the long-overlooked Catholic monastic communities and Jewish agricultural colonies. Also featured are the Ephrata Baptists, Moravians, Shakers, Harmonists, Hutterites, Inspirationists of Amana, Mormons, Owenites, Fourierists, Icarians, Janssonists, Theosophists, Cyrus Teed's Koreshans, and Father Divine's Peace Mission. Based on a new conceptual framework known as developmental communalism, the book examines these utopian movements throughout the course of their development--before, during, and after their communal period. Each chapter includes a brief chronology, giving basic information about the group discussed. An appendix presents the most complete list of American utopian communities ever published. The contributors are Jonathan G. Andelson, Karl J. R. Arndt, Pearl W. Bartelt, Priscilla J. Brewer, Donald F. Durnbaugh, Lawrence Foster, Carl J. Guarneri, Robert V. Hine, Gertrude E. Huntington, James E. Landing, Dean L. May, Lawrence J. McCrank, J. Gordon Melton, Donald E. Pitzer, Robert P. Sutton, Jon Wagner, and Robert S. Weisbrot.

Fiction and Purpose in Utopia, Rasselas, the Mill on the Floss and Women in Love

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Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 1349077046
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (49 download)

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Book Synopsis Fiction and Purpose in Utopia, Rasselas, the Mill on the Floss and Women in Love by : Peter New

Download or read book Fiction and Purpose in Utopia, Rasselas, the Mill on the Floss and Women in Love written by Peter New and published by Springer. This book was released on 1985-06-18 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Poetics of Utopia

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350293865
Total Pages : 227 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis The Poetics of Utopia by : Stewart Cole

Download or read book The Poetics of Utopia written by Stewart Cole and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-05-18 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the work of two of the 20th-century's most politically engaged poets - W. B. Yeats and W. H. Auden - this book unpacks how they directly confront the concept of “utopia,” how they engage with utopia as a literary genre, and how their work conceives of poetry as a utopian artform capable of uniquely embodying our social aspirations. Despite consistently projecting visions of more ideal futures through both its subject matter and its form, poetry is not often counted among the annals of utopian literature. Through an examination of these two great writers' poems, essays, reviews, and other writings, with a focus on many of their best-known poems, this book highlights both the pervasive presence of a utopian impulse in their work and the importance of their contributions to discussions of utopia's meaning and relevance in both their own politically fraught era and ours.