The Middle Age concept of “Utopia” is completely different from the classic understanding of this term, and the contra-variant comprehension can be ←18 | 19→regarded as the basis of this interpretation. From the ambivalent game of words, the “New Utopists” excluded its meaning of being a “Good place” and gave it the trait of “Non-existing place”. Therefore, it could be argued that the utopia of the Middle Ages and Renaissance not only altered the classic Utopia, but essentially changed the essence of the concept of utopia.
What provoked the decision of Thomas More and his contemporary utopists? Why did utopia emerge as a literary model representing a “non-existing, ideal society”?
Europe in the Middle Ages was actively involved in travelling. Brave sailors fearlessly crossed seas and oceans in the hope of finding new lands, uncovering unknown civilizations and enriching their culture from the experience gained from such voyages. Each new discovery served not only as a source of development for the human mind, but also as a bridgehead for the realization of possibilities. “New Utopia” is the logical result of the “New World”, the child of Europe, which at that time was stepped in Renaissance traditions and reformative politics. The enlargement of boundaries became a good subsistence for utopist and idealist thinkers and that is why many literary-utopian texts emerged at one and the same time: Thomas More – “Utopia”, Tommaso Campanella – “The City of the Sun” and Francis Bacon – “New Atlantis”. These utopias did not exist on geographical maps, but instead they were in the authors’ imagination, and intentionally or unintentionally were compared to real-life models.
As Krishan Kumar puts it, on the one hand, More discusses the wise and holy organizations of the utopians, which is able to govern the state with hardly any laws, but with such success, that even God approves it; on the other I am trying to compare the utopian traditions to other nations, who fail to achieve order; utopia, the powerful island, was able to develop its coarse and savage citizens on such stage of culture and education that everybody envies them (Kumar 1991). The happiness of the island-dwellers lies in their religious faith, care for their souls and love toward God. Thomas More created the ideal model of “non-existing reality” and founded the literary genre of utopia. The tradition of More was successfully continued by the Italian philosopher Tommaso Campanella and the English philosopher Francis Bacon. In Tommaso Campanella’s ‘ideal state’, conscience finds peace, greed is being destroyed – that arises evil, lies, and stealing, poverty, rudeness, extra problems, labor, money, pride, and other destructive habits should be annihilated, that is the result of mind-splitting in human nature. The Sun City of Campanella is a unity of diligent citizens and each person practices the job for which he shows the greatest aptitude. Those workers who are required to expend greater effort, such as artisans and builders, receive more praise. The Sun City of Campanella is governed by a priest and along with ←19 | 20→him power, wisdom and love rule: “The great ruler among them is a priest whom they call by the name Hoh, though we should call him Metaphysic. He is head overall, in temporal and spiritual matters, and all business and lawsuits are settled by him, as the supreme authority” (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2816/2816-h/2816-h.htm). The City represents the embodiment of human intellect, science and art. As Krishan Kumar puts it, Tommaso Campanella added a scope of scientific thought to the religious legacy left by Thomas More, but Francis Bacon suggested an extraordinary synthesis of religion and science:
Francis Bacon had made the necessary adjustment by an extraordinary synthesis of Christianity and science. Drawing on the magical and alchemical tradition, Bacon sought to fuse orthodox Christian conceptions of original sin with decidedly unorthodox views of its overcoming… As ‘the proud knowledge of good and evil’ had brought about the fall of man, so, Bacon argued, ‘the pure knowledge of nature and universality’ would lead to man’s recovery of his original command over the creation. (Kumar 1991: 29)
Bacon developed the idea on the thing how humans should reinforce mankind by their knowledge, not only the chosen ones, but to the whole society in general. The collectivist pathos was caused by the English revolution and by the nostalgic look back in the past, where there was the imaginary Golden Age and paradise that was lost in the present. The scientific theory in utopian work by Bacon – “New Atlantis” brought about changes in the understanding of the term “ ‘Utopia”: The philosophy of Bacon determined the course of the following epoch (17th–18th centuries) when the utopian thinking having scientific or pragmatic nature was brought together with real life. The idea of scientific progress added a scope of practicality and utilitarianism to utopia, transforming it from “non-existing place” to the “good place”.
The continuing progress of scientific revolution made it clear that the ideas discussed by Bacon could be realized. The bound, static and ascetic utopia suggested by Plato and More finds dynamic philosophic-literary transformation, in a literary, artistic or specific artistic-aesthetic form, which shows the significant social, economic and scientific changes of that period. The representatives of the “New World” thought that human abilities were inexhaustible and believed that the attempt of a group of educated and erudite citizens could alter the world. Sooner or later, scientific inspiration would enlighten each individual, and individual genius would integrate with collective thought. The aspiration for scientific progress in utopian thinking, strictly knitted itself with historic progress, “Good place” became united with “Good time”: The new discoveries carried out by travelers or geographers reduced the probability of ←20 | 21→detecting “Ideal land”, the geographical map that was nearly uncovered left not much hope for finding “Terra incognita”. From now on utopian space should be understood in the frames of defined time. This concept was well absorbed by the French social-utopists Henri de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier and the English social-utopist Robert Owen and their radical teachings are an example of this. Social utopists believed that the concept of the enriching or destructing historic periods existed, highlighting the fact that after wrecking periods better times come. Therefore, each historical process is more or less progressive. The idea of continuing progress would strengthen the faith of realizing utopia. The naive social structures depicted in classic or medieval utopian texts are being radically changed by the social diversity that had arisen after the industrial revolution. According to social utopists, the destruction of social classes was believed to be the main condition to attain utopia. Human was considered as a socially active phenomenon, which was able to carry out progress. For Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen and other utopists, history prepared the ground for the realization of utopia: historians and scientists should examine the past, see the feebleness that existed there and only through such kind of analysis was it possible to achieve the future they strived for. Socialism the incorporation of “absolute truth, wisdom and justice” became the new utopia.
The ways of achieving socialism is well depicted in the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marx and Engels termed the doctrine of social-utopists as “eclectic socialism” and stated that the main way of achieving utopia is having “practical grounds”, that means not only testing “real events”, but also creating “real atmosphere”.