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This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: • This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. • A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. • This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. • The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. • When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. The Nationality of a World State: (Re)Constructions of England in Utopian Fiction Maxim Shadurski PhD English Literature The University of Edinburgh 2013 Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis, submitted in candidature for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, and the research contained herein is of my own composition, except where explicitly stated in the text, and was not previously submitted for the award of any other degree or professional qualification at this or any other university. __________________________________________________________ Maxim Shadurski, BA, CandPhil, MSc 16 September 2013 Abstract This thesis examines the utopian writings of Robert Hugh Benson, H. G. Wells and Aldous Huxley in the context of contemporary and modern nationally conscious discourses. Focusing on the period of 1910-1939, the present study explores the terms and strategies whereby utopian visions of a World State, premised on religion or universal governance, engage with, and contribute to, constructions of England as a specific topography, with a political culture, social hierarchies, religious sensibilities, and literary tradition. Informed by literary history, utopian theory, studies of national character and nationalism, the thesis argues that the writings of Benson, Wells and Huxley communicate an ascertainable reciprocity between these authors’ utopian imagination and national susceptibilities. The thesis investigates the ways in which the studied fictions endorse visions of a World State, offering a mediated response not only to the contemporary condition of England, but also to England’s topographic, political, and socio-cultural continuity. Of particular interest is a re- invocation of Southern England as either a fictional setting or a liminal environment for the emergence of a World State. The study also investigates the narrative anxieties about the retreat of Liberalism from the national political scene, being superseded by the restrictive regimes of a World State; and a fictional renewal of social hierarchies as nationally conscious models for efficient government. The thesis further accounts for the authorial engagements with continuity, examining Benson’s investment in dynastic rule, Wells’s hostility to revolution, and Huxley’s redefinition of the ‘English poetic mind’ to oppose the dissolution of national literary traditions in a global future. In exploring the extent to which alternative versions of England (Catholic, Cosmopolitan, Alien) dominate the visions of world unity, this thesis contends that the nationality of a World State manifests itself not in the universal ends that such visions seek to achieve, but in the nationally conscious means they press into service. Acknowledgements While working on this thesis, I accumulated many debts, most of which deserve a much finer acknowledgement than can be put into words. This project would never have been accomplished without the financial support I received from the University of Edinburgh (a College of Humanities and Social Science Studentship) and the Scottish Funding Council (a Scottish Overseas Research Scholarship). I am in great debt to my supervisor Professor Randall Stevenson for his genuine interest in my project from the first moments of its inception, and for the intellectual guidance, reassurance, and inspiration that he offered me in the process of writing and completion. I am also grateful to my second supervisor Dr Anna Vaninskaya for her rigorous, yet always insightful, attitude to my work, and for her unfailing support. At an initial stage of my PhD programme, I was privileged to have the assistance and advice of Professor Laura Marcus of the University of Oxford, who played a most pivotal role as referee and mentor. My gratitude needs to be extended to Dr Alex Thomson for his valuable help in developing a conceptual framework for this thesis during an early phase of my research. The help of Dr Olga Taxidou and Dr Simon Malpas was also indispensable, especially at the very start. I was equally fortunate to be supported by Professor Tom Moylan of Limerick University; his critical advice and interest were regular and kind. My further acknowledgement goes to Edinburgh’s English Literature Department for providing an intellectually stimulating environment, especially the Work-in-Progress seminar series, at which sections of this thesis were discussed. I am grateful for the lively interest in the ideas that I presented in my papers at the conferences, which were held at the Birmingham and Midland Institute, Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, the University of Novi Sad, the University of Cambridge, the University of Montenegro, University College Brussels, the University of Tarragona, the New Lanark World Heritage Site, and organized by the Society for Utopian Studies in Toronto. The participants’ questions and comments made a valid contribution to this project’s progress. The use of some of the material in this thesis must also be acknowledged. I would wish to thank Professor Bernfried Nugel, Chairman of the Aldous Huxley Society, for the copies of rarely available articles that he supplied in a timely way; and Dr Nicholas Heap of Eton College for permission to quote from his doctoral thesis on R. H. Benson. Some of the thesis material previously appeared in English Studies: A Journal of English Language and Literature, Modern Language Review, Philologia, Trames: A Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, and Voicing the Alternative: Essays on English Language and Literary Studies, and I am thankful to the editors concerned for permission to incorporate it here. My work would have been barely possible without the generosity, support and kindness of my friends, who have been nearby throughout all these years: Natallia Lameka, Marc Di Sotto, Alexei Stakhavets, Nataliya Sokolova, Tamara Platsitsyna, Brian Mooney, Margarita Malykhina, Thomas Meese, Mark Anderson, Elena Korosteleva-Polglase, Simon Buss. By deeds and words, they helped me. My greatest debt is to my parents, Ivan and Anastasiya, without whose love, patience and faith, my utopian impulse would have been so much more impoverished. Key to Abbreviated Citations Works by Robert Hugh Benson DA – The Dawn of All LW – Lord of the World Works by H. G. Wells AD – After Democracy AV – Ann Veronica EA – Experiment in Autobiography FMM – The First Men in the Moon JP – Joan and Peter MBST – Mr Britling Sees It Through MLG – Men Like Gods MU – A Modern Utopia OC – The Open Conspiracy OH – The Outline of History STC – The Shape of Things to Come TC – Things to Come: A Film Story Based on the Material Contained in His History of the Future The Shape of Things to Come WB – World Brain WWHM – The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind Works by Aldous Huxley AH – Antic Hay AMS – After Many a Summer BMB – Beyond the Mexique Bay BNW – Brave New World BNWR – Brave New World Revisited CY – Crome Yellow DWYW – Do What You Will EG – Eyeless in Gaza EM – Ends and Means MN – Music at Night OM – On the Margin OT – The Olive Tree PCP – Point Counter Point PS – Proper Studies Contents Introduction 1 Chapter One. Robert Hugh Benson’s Catholic England 24 1.1. Continuity and Disruption of England: Memory and Faith 24 1.2. The Fate of Liberal England 43 1.3. Religion and Science 57 Chapter Two. A Cosmopolitan England in H. G. Wells’s Utopias 74 2.1. National Foundations of a World State 74 2.2. England’s Utopian Extension 95 2.3. Raising a Utopian Double 113 Chapter Three. Aldous Huxley’s Alien England 134 3.1. Town and Country 134 3.2. The Future of National Literature: Environment, Will and Imagination 154 3.3. Science and Social Hierarchies 182 Conclusion 206 Works Cited 209 Introduction True genesis is not at the beginning but at the end, and it starts to begin only when society and existence become radical, i.e. grasp their roots. But the root of history is the working, creating human being who reshapes and overhauls the given facts. Once he has grasped himself and established what is his, without expropriation and alienation, in real democracy, there arises in the world something which shines into the childhood of all and in which no one has yet been: homeland. Ernst Bloch. The Principle of Hope. ‘The Nationality of a World State: (Re)Constructions of England in Utopian Fiction’ examines the terms and strategies whereby the utopian imagination interacts with national consciousness. Focusing on the decades between 1910 and 1939, the study explores the ways in which imaginary forms of world unity, premised on religion or universal governance, engage with, and contribute to, contemporary and modern constructions of England. Marked by a continuing renegotiation of nations in the international arena, this period provides numerous occasions that vie to unite the world and at once reinforce its divisions. While the advent of flying and radio broadcasting render national boundaries porous, the First World War redraws them quite provisionally and to more detrimental effects. The flowering of European nationalisms, coupled with the bureaucratization of nationality in the form of passports, occurs simultaneously, as new opportunities for world unity present themselves.

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