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A utopia is a community or society possessing highly desirable or perfect qualities. It is a common literary theme, especially in speculative fiction and science fiction.
The word "utopia" was coined in Greek language by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia , but the genre has roots dating back to antiquity. One reference has it that 1500 works of fiction that can be characterized as utopian were published between 1516 and 1975. [1]
In general, utopian societies are presented as being either in a different place (eutopia) or a different time in the future (euchronia). Most early utopian novels show a eutopia; many utopian works written after the seventeenth century show an euchronia, set in a future time when advanced technology allows a style of living on a higher plane. The role that science might play in transforming society to he better is seen in Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and Tommaso Campanella's City of the Sun. [2] Time travel is used in some novels to reveal a utopia of the speculative future.
About 30 utopian novels were published in English in the 18th century. [24]
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