Oscillating Utopias

Abstract

The paper focuses on two literary periods located at opposite ends of the twentieth century and examines the relationship between utopian ideas of Victorian fin de siècle and the re-emergence of utopian desires within a metamodernist context. The two periods discussed, while separated by a century of what is typically understood as progress, are both permeated by impending change and in dire need of alternatives to their respective forms of capitalism, making the appearance of utopian discourse almost inevitable. While their understanding of utopia certainly differs in many aspects, I will argue that they both recognize its oscillatory potential and neither focuses on bare facilitation of escapism or provision of blueprints, instead consciously employing hope-based utopian impulses as a method and a process by means of which various alternatives can be continuously investigated.