How do you interpret the Isle of Pines?
Context
Henry Neville (1620-1694)-Radical Republican politician and theorist. An MP in the Rump Parliament.
Accused of involvement in plots against the Restoration in 1661 and 1663.
Republican Literature
Republicanism: A sovereign state which is organised with a form of government, with power residing
in elected individuals who represent the body.
Implications: Cromwell’s ‘Protectorate’ Title, 1654 and the Restoration of the Monarch 1660.
A literary criticism of the perils of monarchy? Symbolic in Pine’s pure island regressing into a
Hobbesian state of inevitable war.
Critique of Charles II
Liberal sexual behaviour: In the 17th century considered a reflection of civic irresponsibility or marital
insufficiency.
A satire on the libertine age and sexuality of Charles II?
Symbolic erotic interpretation
Merely a tale of sexual liberty and sexual wish-fulfilment?
Susan Bruce ‘Three Early Modern Utopias’: a ‘pornutopia’
Restoration Literature
Colonialist interpretation: Increasing presence of themes of intermarriage, ‘other’, ‘difference’, and
what it means to be English?
A key example of Travel literature? Discussion of the climate, vegetation, resources and the ‘new’.
Contextual Interpretation: Anglo-Dutch Wars (1652-1674)
-Religious tension, conflict over dominance of the spice trade and English anxieties of Dutch
mercantile dominance.
Adam R. Beach ‘A Profound Pessimism about the Empire’: The isle of Pines interpreted as a
representation of English anxieties on labour and idleness
Utopia
‘An imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect’
Characteristics: Abundant necessities, sexual freedom, longevity and good health, adherence to
patriarchal authority.
An ecological, economic, religious, political or feminist utopia?
Arcadian Literature
A vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature, however a vision that is unattainable.
‘The country so very pleasant, being always clothed in green, and full of pleasant fruits, and variety
of birds, ever warm and never colder than England in September; so that this place, had it the
culture that skilful people might bestow on it, would prove a paradise’.
Or a Dystopia?
Illustrating the insufficiency of sexual freedom, polygamy and patriarchy
Pierre Lurbe: ‘une utopia inverse’