A tradição luciânica numa utopia francesa do século XVII

Abstract

In 1516 Thomas More published Utopia, adding to literature a new literary genre, essentially satirical. If many scholars have noticed the depth link of this book with the work of Lucian of Samosata, few, however, analyzed the relation between lucianic tradition and the works belonging to the utopian genre. The aim of this paper is to analyze the presence, in the French utopia published in 1676, The Southern Land Known, written by Gabriel de Foigny, of five elements belonging to the lucianic tradition. They are: 1) the difficulty of genre classification due to the hybrid character of the text; 2) the use of parody or quotations of other texts, contemporary or ancients; 3) the presence of the improbable, that makes the text a fantastic one; 4) the presence of ambiguity, that leads the reader to hesitate about the seriousness or the comic quality of what it is expressed; and, finally, 5) the use of distanced perspective of the narrator, which allows the author to examine more acutely the objects of his critic and, at the same time, acts as an element of persuasion, which has intended to lead the reader to believe in the veracity of the report of the pseudo-traveller.