Text, Image, and the Problem with Perfection in Nineteenth-Century France: Utopia and Its Afterlives

Daniel Sipe focuses on the persistent afterlife of utopias in works by artists and writers who include François-René de Chateaubriand, Etienne Cabet, J.J. Grandville, Charles Barbara, Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, Victor Hugo, Gustave Courbet, and Charles Baudelaire. By juxtaposing these works with those of social scientists such as Charles Fourier, Sipe provides the historical context for comprehending the significance and implications of this phenomenon in nineteenth-century utopian art and literature.

Daniel Sipe is Associate Professor of French at the University of Missouri, USA.