Other Spaces: Spatial Alterity in Antipodean Utopia in the Classical Age

Abstract

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were deeply changed by the discovery of the New World and the contact with certain non-European civilizations. This expansion of the ecumene feeds both scientific exploration and fictional invention. Literary representations of space in the classical age explore precisely the large unknown areas of the globe. Utopian narratives build new territorial configurations, which are a mix of real and imaginary geographies. The southern continent in particular, an antipodean landmass which is more a scientific desire than a verified truth, is an enduring myth. This article seeks to characterize the relationship between representation and non-place in three utopian narratives that mobilize the myth of the terra australis incognita (Veiras, Foigny, Tyssot). The description of these imagined worlds is problematic. Utopian narratives negotiate the problem of description in at least three different ways: when the description is interrupted; when it relies on known cultural and textual references and, finally, when loosely imbricating the description into explicit narrative sequences.