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Woman and Arcadia: The Impact of Ancient Utopian Thought on the Early Image of America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Mario Klarer
Mario Klarer
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of American Literature at the University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
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Extract

With the discovery of the new continent in the fifteenth century, a number of existing literary traditions contributed to the creation of the early image of America. In particular, Utopian features were projected onto the terra incognita. The equation of the New World with the earthly paradise and the Promised Land placed America in the tradition of ancient and medieval Utopian texts. The early picture of America is an indirect continuation of an ambivalent gendered view of the world predominant in most Utopias and pastorals. On the one hand, America becomes the positive projection of a benevolent female Mother-Earth who provides for all basic human needs; on the other, a number of intimidating gendered topoi are intricately interwoven with these new territories. The “feminine” appears to be a central issue of literary as well as pictorial imagery in the first narratives on America. As early as Columbus and Vespucci, America was stylized or allegorized through female symbols and metaphors. This paper will try to show how ancient Utopian concepts such as visions of a gendered paradise, myths of Amazons and role reversals, as well as notions of “women communism” were integral components in the creation of America as a myth. They can be traced in the writings of Columbus and Vespucci as well as in the early illustrations of their books. A selection of textual samples and pictures will serve as a basis for the discussion of these inherent gender issues.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , April 1993 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis, ed. Selmer, Carl (University of Notre Dame Press, 1959).Google Scholar

2 “I do not find, nor have ever found, any account by the Romans or Greeks, which fixes in a positive manner the site of the terrestrial paradise … Some pagans pretended to adduce arguments to establish that it was in the Fortunate Islands, now called Canaries, etc” (Third Voyage of Columbus, 136). Columbus, Christopher, Four Voyages to the New World: Letters and Selected Documents, trans, and ed. Major, R. H. (Gloucester, MA.: Corinth Books, 1978)Google Scholar. All further references to this edition are given in the text.

3 Quoted from Todorov, Tzvetan, Die Eroberung Amerikas: Das Problem des Anderen, trans. Böhringer, Wilfried (Frankfurt A.M.: Suhrkamp, 1985), 24Google Scholar; my translation. Columbus's third letter contains a similar reference to the earthly paradise in the East: “St. Isidor, Bede, Strabo, and the masters of scholastic history, with St. Ambrose, and Scotus, and all the learned theologians, agree that the earthly paradise is in the east, etc” (Third Voyage of Columbus, 136).

4 … the other islands of this region, too, are as fertile as they can be. This one is surrounded by harbors, numerous, very safe and broad, and not to be compared with any others that I have seen anywhere; many large wholesome rivers flow through this land;… All these islands are most beautiful and distinguished by various forms; one can travel through them, and they are full of trees of the greatest variety, which … never lose their foliage. At any rate, I found them as green and beautiful as they usually are in the month of May in Spain… Colombo, Christoforo, Epistola de Insulis Nuper Inventis, trans. Robbins, Frank E. (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, INC., 1966), 9–10Google Scholar. All further references to this edition are given in the text. Vespucci introduces a similar topos of the “locus amoenus” to describe the fertility of these islands. “The climate, moreover, is temperate and the land fertile, full of immense forests and groves, which are always green, for the leaves never fall. The fruits are countless and entirely different from ours.” Vespucci, , First Voyage, in Cosmographiae Introductio by Martin Waldseemüller and the English Translation of Joseph Fischer and Franz von Wieser (1507) (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, INC., 1966), 112Google Scholar. All further references to this edition are given in the text. The corresponding passage in the Odyssey describes similar conditions on the Isle of the Phaiacians: Therein grow trees, tall and luxuriant, pears and pomegranates and apple-trees with their bright fruit, and sweet figs, and luxuriant olives. Of these the fruit perishes not nor fails in winter or in summer, but lasts throughout the year; and ever does the west wind, as it blows, quicken to life some fruits, and ripen others: pear upon pear waxes ripe, apple upon apple, cluster upon cluster, and fig upon fig…. There again, by the last row of the vines, grow trim garden beds of every sort, blooming the year through, and therein are two springs…. Homer, , The Odyssey, trans. Murray, A. T., 2 vols. (1919; Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1960), VII, 114–132.Google Scholar

5 Colombo, 1966, 10.Google Scholar

6 Ovid in his description of the Golden Age stresses the fact that a virginal, female Earth provided everything without men's interference: “The earth too, unworked and untouched by the hoe,/and uninjured by any ploughs, gave everything of its own accord,/and, content with foods produced by no one's labour…. Spring was eternal, and gentle Zephyrs with warming breezes soothed the flowers that had sprung up unsown./Soon even the unploughed earth was bearing corn….” (Ovid, , Metam. 101–109)Google Scholar. Translation quoted from Ovid, , Metamorphoses, ed. and trans. Hill, D. E. (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1985).Google Scholar

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8 A literary character who represents this organic world view in a social context is Shakespeare's Cordelia in King Lear. She appears like a Utopian paradigm of innocence and passive virtue in harmony with an equally benevolent Nature. This “organic” female reflects man's Utopian fantasies concerning Nature and the ideal woman in the early modern age. According to Danby, John, Shakespeare's Doctrine of Nature: A Study of King Lear (London: Faber and Faber, 1949)Google Scholar, Cordelia combines “passion and order, innocence and maturity, defencelessness and strength, daughter and mother, maid and wife,” (133) with no evidence of conflict among these characteristics.

9 Columbus was convinced that the islands he had discovered were either the earthly paradise, or very close to it. “I have no doubt, that if I could pass below the equinoctial line, after reaching the highest point of which I have spoken, I should find a milder temperature. … I am convinced that it is the spot of the earthly paradise” (Third Voyage of Columbus, 136)Google Scholar. The main reason Columbus believes he is so close to Paradise is the temperature, which he considers extraordinarily mild for this latitude, but also the enormous quantity of fresh water that flows into the sea. Both these facts, the absence of seasonal changes in climate and the massive rivers which he encounters on his third voyage, seem to conform to biblical and other ancient descriptions of paradise: The Holy Scriptures record, that our Lord made the earthly paradise, and planted the tree of life, and thence there springs a fountain from which the four principal rivers in the world take their source …. There are great indications of this being the terrestrial paradise, for its site coincides with the opinion of the holy and wise theologians whom I have mentioned; and moreover, the other evidences agree with the supposition, for I have never either read or heard of fresh water coming in so large a quantity … the idea is also corroborated by the blandness of the temperature (Third Voyage of Columbus, 155–137).Google Scholar

10 See illustration I, Amerigo Vespucci “discovers” America; late 16th century; Theodor Galle.

11 See for example America; Meissen, 1745Google Scholar; in Honour, Hugh, The New Golden Land: European Images of America from the Discoveries to the Present Time (New York: Pantheon Books, 1975), 110.Google Scholar

12 For medieval Utopian visions of all-women's communities see Klarer, Mario, “Topoi antiker und mittelalterlicher Utopievorstellungen im mittelenglischen The Isle of Ladies,” Germanisch-Romanische Monatsscbrift 42.2 (1992), 162–77.Google Scholar

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14 See Dillon, Myles, Early Irish Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), 128–29.Google Scholar

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16 Mela, Pomponius, De Chorographia, ed. Frick, C. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1935), III, 6, 48; my translation.Google Scholar

17 von Monmouth, Geoffrey, Das Leben des Zauberers Merlin, ed. Vielhauer, Inge (Amsterdam: Castrvum Peregrini Presse, 1964), 908ffGoogle Scholar; my translation. Just like the virgins on the islands of Pomponius, who can change into animals, Morgan knows how to change her appearance (see Vita Merlini, 908ff).Google Scholar

18 The Voiage and Traveyle of Sir John Mandeville Knight, ed. Ashton, John (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1887), 117–118.Google Scholar

19 For a survey of these themes in ancient and modern Utopias see Klarer, Mario, “Frau und Utopie: Zur antiken Tradition moderner Frauen-Utopien,” Arcadia: Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft 26.2 (1991), 113–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 See Log-Book, 4 11 1492 and 9 01 1493.Google Scholar

21 Colombo, 1966, 16.Google Scholar

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23 Plato introduces a similar role model for women in his Republic: “Then, if women are to have the same duties as men, they must have the same nurture and education? Yes. The education assigned to the men was music and gymnastics. Yes. Then women must be taught music and gymnastics and also the art of war, which they must practice like the men? That is the inference, I suppose” (Plat. rep. 451e–452a). Plato, , The Republic and Other Works, trans. Jowett, B. (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1973). All further references to this edition will be given in the text.Google Scholar

24 Plutarch's Lives, trans. Perrin, Bernadotte (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959).Google Scholar

25 Sir John Mandeville, for example, stresses these particular customs in his description of the island of the Amazons. See Mandeville, 117–118.Google Scholar

26 Interestingly enough, this passage is preceded by a report about four young men who were castrated by a hostile tribe. “In the canoe which they had abandoned, there were four youths, who did not belong to the same tribe, but had been captured in another land. The youths had recently had their virile parts removed, a fact which caused us no little astonishment” (Vespucci, , Second Voyage, 122).Google Scholar

27 For a visual rendering of this particular passage see Illustration 2: Vespucci, , Quatuor Navigationes (Straßburg, 1509).Google Scholar

28 See Illustration 3: America: (1581–1600); Philippe Galle.Google Scholar

29 See Illustration I: Amerigo Vespucci “discovers” America; late 16th century; Theodor Galle.

30 For further references to “female communism” see Hdt. 4, 180 and 172.

31 The geographer Strabo also writes of a tribe with similar customs. “They live in perfect harmony with one another and their laws, since they have everything in common: women, children and relatives” (Strabo. 7, 3).

32 Vespucci, Novus, Mundus in Firpo, Luigi, ed., Prime relazioni di navigatori italiani sulla scoperta dell' America (Turin: 1966), 88.Google Scholar

33 Ibid., 88.