FIRST PAPER

Student’s name: AMAIA CRESPO COSTA

Title of the paper: provisional title: The concept of Utopia in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

Author or topic: The concept of Utopia in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

Abstract or summary of the research in not more than 100 to max. 150 words:

Utopia constitutes a highly relevant topic in literature. The word Utopia was first used as the title of a sixteenth-century book by Sir Thomas More, written in Latin; in 1516. It describes an ideal society set in an unknown isle. This meaning of perfection the word carries is one of the strongest desires of humanity.

In the eighteenth century some authors questioned Utopia. We find the best example of it in Gulliver’s Travels, which deals with the dangers of Utopia. Later in time, Utopia was replaced for Ucronia, which meant speaking about a future time when a space where Utopia can be achieved is discovered.

Eighteenth century bet on progress but in the twentieth century we find a radical change, especially from the First World War onwards, when anti-Utopia appears. Some of the works we find are, among many others, Bradbury’s Farenhait 451, Burgess A Clockwork Orange, Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Huxley’s Brave New World; which is the work I will try to analyse in detail in this paper.

Autoevaluation: Since Utopia is one of the main topics in the History of literature, and taking into account its influence in other areas, I consider it to be very important for my academic training. This paper will also serve to help me to acquire the methodology to do a critical work. I will try to do an analysis as detailed as I can, and it will be my aspiration to obtain SB.
 

Academic year 1999/2000.

last update: 18 December 1999