Is there a fixed structure in this narrative genre ?.

According to Martin Gray´s " Dictionary of Literary Terms ", a utopia would be all fictional, philosophical or political works depicting imaginary worlds better than our own. On the other hand, dystopia is an imaginary world even worse than our own. In fact, it works this way because the new unattainable discourses are subordinated to this petrified term.

Satirical, visionary, or a serious attempt to imagine future, this discourse has a particular attribute that differs from other forms of discourse. In its fictional dimension, the literary theory approach to these texts has called it " the monogenetic phenomenon ", and it basically  means that, in a temporal scale, this text is the central point that puts into relation old texts and new ones by means of form and/or content , but the most important consequence is that it is used to define a whole genre.

In Western Literature, the modern meaning of the term utopia appears in 1516, when Sir Thomas More wrote his novel " De optimo reipublicae statu deque nova insula Utopia", and from that moment this term has been used to describe those similar discourses and/or texts. But , it deals with form or it deals with content ?.

In a philosophical or in a political dimension, I´d say that it deals with content, but in a fictional one
I would say that it´s a question of form and content. At this point, I´d like to add  that the dichotomy
( better/worse ) is just a question of polarity because both texts keep this narrative model balanced. Dystopian texts change the value of this polarity, but they respect the form and the content of their antagonists. Bearing in mind this, my idea, or supposition, is that if these utopian and dystopian texts keep a narrative model balanced, their internal structures will keep, too, a minimal number of fixed elements balanced. Therefore, I think that a suittable method for describing these texts would be a
new one which contemplates both form and content as follows : ( available in spanish )
 
 

A Visual Example of this Monogenetic Narrative

I think that a visual example can help us to understand much better this monogenetic phenomenon.  When a writer decides to talk about a better world or about a worse one, s/he cannot avoid to use this fixed model and to be subordinated to this discourse.But, little by little, each new writer has been able to include new dimensions in his/her discourse without changing its macro-structure.

Here you have some stylistic changes that can be found in these texts.
 

1516	Utopia by Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) Originally written in Latin, this is the first modern utopian text. He described an imaginary world in Book II , but he used a faked writing in dialogue form in Book I . He included an elemental figure ( the  visitor or traveller Raphael Hythloday ) and the dramatic dimension in his prose
1905	A Modern Utopia by H.G.Wells (1866-1946)  Wells changed the static meaning of this term for a new kinetic one. Focussed on a particular instant of the evolutionary aspect of universe, he´s able to describe a  fourth dimension. His characters found their equals in that dimension and their stream of consciousness becomes dialogue.
1920	WE by Evgeni I. Zamiatin (1884-1937) This russian writer was the first one who developed the dystopian narrative in a modern context. In 1917, he was living in England and he read Wells´ universes.  The reader is the visitor,dialogue externally faked,and the prose of  his binnacle book is a mix in between poetry and technology.
1932	Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) This author tried to satirize Wells´ Modern Utopia and he creates this funny-strange world. It is the second dystopian text and we can see that literature and science are the axis of  his dystopian narrative.
1949	1984 by George Orwell ( 1903-1950 ) Orwell included the historical and the political dimensions in the dystopian text. This author was clearly influenced by Zamiatin´s WE, but he just change the elements of the prose.

• 16th Century

• 1516 - More, Thomas. De optimo reipublicae statu deque nova insula Utopia.
• 1551 - More , Thomas. Utopia ( English version )

• 17th Century

• 1621 - Burton, Robert. The Anatomy of Melancholy.
• 1627 - Bacon, Francis. Francisci Baconi opera omnia philosophica, moralia et historico-politica.
• 1638 - Godwin, Francis. The man in the Moon.
• 1638 - Wilkins, Peter. The discovery of a world in the Moon.
• 1641 - Hartlib, Samuel. A description of the famous kingdom of Macaria.
• 1644 - Cavendish, Margaret. The description of a new world, called de Blazing world.
• 1648 - Gott, Samuel. Nova Solyma, the ideal city, or Jerusalem regained.
• 1660 - Lord Verulam y R.M. Esq. New Atlantis.
• 1676 - Glanvill, Joseph. Anti Fanatical religion and free philosophy, in continuation of New Atlantis ( in Essays on several important subjects in philosophy and religion )
• 1685 - Barnes, Joshua. Gerania. A new discovery of a little sort of people, anciently discoursed of, call´d Pigmies.
• 1696 - The Free State of Noland.
• 18th Century

• 1714 - Mandelville, Bernard de. The fable of the bees.
• 1726 - Swift, Jonathan . Gulliver´s travels.
• 1733 - Madden, Samuel. Memoirs of the Twentieth Century.
• 19th Century

• 1852 - Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Blithedale Romance.
• 1871 - Bulwer Lytton, Edward. The Coming Race.
• 1872 - Butler, Samuel. Erewhon, or Over the range.
• 1884 - Wise, Conrad. Darkness and Dawn. The peaceful birth of a new age.
• 1887 - Hudson, William Henry. A Crystal Age.
• 1887 - Bellamy, E. Looking Backward 2000 -1887.
• 1890 - Donelly, Henry Ignatius. Caesar´s Column.
• 1890 - Morris, William. News from Nowhere or an Epoch of Rest.
• 1891 - Jérome, K., Jérome. Diary of a pilgrimg and six essays : the new utopia.
• 1895 - Wells, H.G. The time machine.
• 1897 - Bellamy, E. Equality.
• 1899 - Wells, H.G. When the Sleeper wakes.

• 20th Century

• 1901 - Butler, Samuel. Erewhon revisited twenty years later.
• 1905 - Wells, H.G. A Modern Utopia.
• 1907 - Newte, Horace W. The Master beast.
• 1907 - Blatchford, Robert. The Sorcery shop.
• 1908 - London, Jack. The iron heel.
• 1910 - Herbert, E.G. Newaera.
• 1911 - Saunders, W.J. Kalomera.
• 1920 - Zamiatin, E.I. We ( first dystopian text )
• 1921 - Shaw, G.B. Black to Methuselah. A metabiological Pentateuch.
• 1923 - Wells, H.G. Men like Gods.
• 1927 - Haldane, John B.S.  The last judgement ( in Possible worlds ).
• 1930 - Stapledon, W.O. Last and first men. A story of the near and far future.
• 1932 - Huxley, A. Brave New World.
• 1933 - Wells, H.G. The shape of things to come.
• 1945 - Orwell, G. Animal Farm.
• 1949 - Orwell, G. 1984.
• 1949 - Huxley, A. Ape and Essence.
• 1953 - Bradbury, R. Fahrentheit 451.
• 1958 - Huxley, A. Brave New World revisited.
• 1962 - Huxley, A. Island.
• 1970 - Levin, Ira. This perfect day.

• Federico Urales
• Antonio Ocaña
• José Maceira
• Juan López
• Alfonso Martínez Rico ( from Valencia )
  • 1932 - El amor dentro de 200 años.
  • 1933 - 1945, El advenimiento del comunismo libertario.

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Last Updated : 05/11/99