Founding fictions
Subtitle: Utopias in early modern England
By: Amy Boesky.
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Athens, Ga
Language: eng
Number of pages: 233
Subjects: English prose literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism.; Utopias in literature.
Description: A cultural history of utopian writing in early modern England, Founding Fictions traces the development of the genre from the publication of Thomas More's Utopia (1516) through Aphra Behn's Oroonoko (1688). Amy Boesky sees utopian literature rising alongside new social institutions that helped shape the modern English nation. While utopian fiction explicitly advocates a reorganization of human activity, which appears liberal or progressive, utopias represent reform in self-critical or qualitative ways.

Early modern utopias, Boesky demonstrates, are less blueprints for reform than they are challenges to the very possibility of improvement.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.