As a literary genre, utopia is notably didactic. It seeks to teach desire and to educate hope. As such, utopia provides a unique site to examine the way metaphor and imagination enable one to be convinced, and the way those same elements facilitate misunderstanding. Following the theorization of Ernst Bloch, the goal of critiquing these literary utopias is not to reject hope but, rather, to educate our own daydreams, to learn and move forward. These chapters examine didacticism and the development of colonial metonymy in Thomas More’s Utopia, the way metaphor operates through time in Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward: 2000-1887, and utopian colonialism as a central incoherence in the utopian imaginary. Ultimately, this paper argues for a productive misreading of literary utopias, pointing to the way utopia has escaped and even refashioned its authors and the way readers’ misinterpretations have opened new horizons of radical possibility.
","abstract_html":"<p>As a literary genre, utopia is notably didactic. It seeks to teach desire and to educate hope. As such, utopia provides a unique site to examine the way metaphor and imagination enable one to be convinced, and the way those same elements facilitate misunderstanding. Following the theorization of Ernst Bloch, the goal of critiquing these literary utopias is not to reject hope but, rather, to educate our own daydreams, to learn and move forward. These chapters examine didacticism and the development of colonial metonymy in Thomas More’s <em>Utopia</em>, the way metaphor operates through time in Edward Bellamy’s <em>Looking Backward: 2000-1887</em>, and utopian colonialism as a central incoherence in the utopian imaginary. Ultimately, this paper argues for a productive misreading of literary utopias, pointing to the way utopia has escaped and even refashioned its authors and the way readers’ misinterpretations have opened new horizons of radical possibility.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Bard Gilbert, Sage Rachmiel"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"M.A.","degree_level":"Masters Thesis","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Adam Rovner","Graham Foust","Jennifer Pap"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2023,"date_issued":"2023-11-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2023-11-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:01:39Z","subjects":["Colonialism","Edward Bellamy","Metaphor","Thomas More","Utopia","Arts and Humanities","English Language and Literature","Literature in English, British Isles","Literature in English, North America"],"languages":["English (eng)"],"rights":["Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
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"],"dc:subject":["Colonialism","Edward Bellamy","Metaphor","Thomas More","Utopia","Arts and Humanities","English Language and Literature","Literature in English, British Isles","Literature in English, North America"],"dc:title":["Likeness in Utopia: Situation and Metaphor from Thomas More to Edward Bellamy"],"thesis:degree_level":["Masters Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["M.A."]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:01:39Z"}