The Southern Land, Known

by Gabriel De Foigny, David Fausett (Editor)

Foigny's La Terre Australe connue, published in 1676, is a fantastically engaging and playful example of the "imaginary voyage" genre. It is also a seventeenth-century work with some curiously modern resonances.
Written in the tradition of More's Utopia, and serving itself as a forerunner to Swift's Gulliver's Travels, The Southern Land, Known offered its readers a radical criticism of then prevailing ideologies in the guise of a lively and provocative novel. Knowledge of the vast continent of Australia was, in Foigny's day, still mingled with legends, hearsay, and travelers' tales. It is in this context that the "unknown Southern Land" becomes known to the hero of this short, action-packed, and highly structured story.
The narrator braves a long sea journey, raging storms, shipwrecks, giant whales, and high-flying creatures that try to eat him - all to reach the mysterious Austral utopia. Peopled by hermaphrodites, Foigny's Australia is a society in which distinctions of both class and gender have been abolished. It includes, among other things, an indictment of "the great empire that the male usurped over the female" as "rather a form of tyranny than a just cause."

Genres: Utopia

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1676

Reviews

[Michele · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intriguing but odd book about a race of hyper-rational hermaphrodites who reject all passion, live on fruit, believe they are "victims of a higher cause that takes pleasure in destroying us," rely totally on reason, and cut the ears off their enemies. Is it a critique of over-reliance on reason? A utopian vision of healthy rational super-beings? I imagine everyone will have a different idea. The best parts for me were the philosophical discussions between the European adventurer and his local tutor, Suain, on "The Australian Religion" (ch. 6) and "The Australians' Sentiments About This Life" (ch. 7). The Australians have logicked themselves into belief in a Supreme Being, but they have an absolute prohibition against talking about it, since that leads to disputes and disagreement and passion: "[T]hese differences cause quarrels and wars, one abuses the common father on the very point that should provide unity. How can you imagine that you are pleasing him when you destroy each other on the pretext of doing his will?"

I recommend it. Look forward to seeing others' reviews of it.

[Chris]

I haven't read this yet. I'm a fan of eBooks and unfortunately (as far as English translations) all I've found so far is used copies available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Southern-Land-K...