Literary Wonderlands Read online

  But full of fire and greedy hardiment,

  The youthfull knight could not for ought be staide,

  But forth vnto the darksome hole he went,

  And looked in: his glistring armor made

  A litle glooming light, much like a shade,

  By which he saw the vgly monster plaine…

  The Faerie Queene differs from Ariosto in its closer focus and tighter structure, imposed by Spenser’s much more serious purpose. Each book has a single virtue personified by a hero or heroine (or a double hero in the form of Cambell and Triamond in Book IV), and their adventures illustrate that virtue and the potential traps that lie in store. In Book II, Sir Guyon, who personifies temperance, goes to the rescue of a young man being beaten by the lunatic Furor. Guyon struggles in the fight until his adviser, the Palmer, tells him he first has to bridle the old hag, named Occasion, who accompanies Furor. The moral being that one can defeat fury by not giving it an opportunity to grow strong.

  Spenser’s epic is also informed by Classical mythology. The imprisonment of the beauty Florimell beneath the sea by shape-shifting god Proteus resembles the myths of Persephone or Eurydice held in the Underworld. The contemporary philosopher Francis Bacon took Proteus to represent Matter—always ripening, rotting, and returning like fruit on a tree.

  The Faerie Queene is remarkable for its descriptions: of the Bower of Bliss, complete with naked damsels and knights-turned-beasts; the Garden of Adonis, a place of pagan amoral fertility; the Dance of the Graces, with its pastoral setting; and the declamations of Change and Nature in the unfinished Book VII. In such colorful, sensuous settings Spenser adds new psychological and emotional depth to the charm of fantasy found in the Italian Orlando romances, as well as an insistent sense that more is meant than meets the eye.

  WU CHENG’EN

  JOURNEY TO THE WEST (XIYOUJI) (c.1592)

  A late sixteenth-century take on an ancient Chinese legend of dragons, bandits, demons and wizards that adds dazzling layers of comedy and profundity to spiritual wisdom.

  Wu Cheng’en’s (1500–82) sixteenth-century Chinese novel Xiyouji (literally “Journey to the West,” and perhaps better known to many English readers by the title of Arthur Waley’s 1942 abridgment Monkey) is a complex allegorical narrative written for a sophisticated literary audience, based on a long Chinese tradition of oral storytelling and popular drama. The story relates the tribulations of the great seventh-century scholar-monk Xuanzang (or Sanzang, frequently given in its Sanskrit form, Tripitaka), as he perseveres in his pilgrim’s progress through lost kingdoms and trackless wastes, in pursuit of the authentic scriptures of his faith in the Indian cradle of Buddhism. The outlines of such a quest would naturally raise the expectation of fantastic landscapes. The journey on which we embark, however, is directed less toward evoking the exotica of foreign climes, and more to the exploration of the spiritual inscape of a seeker of Buddhist enlightenment.

  If we leap to the conclusion that this allegorization of one of the great peregrinations of human history reflects some sort of cultural blinkers constricting the literary imagination of the “Central Kingdom,” we would be quite far from the truth. From a very early time, Chinese readers have been fascinated by the bizarre lands and creatures cataloged in works such as the “Classic of Mountains and Seas” (Shanhaijing). In more recent centuries of the late-Imperial period, fictionalized accounts of expeditions to the Chinese periphery continued to cast the spell of unknown lands and peoples. Closer to home, one of the more abiding themes of the Chinese poetic imagination has long been the serendipitous discovery of hidden valleys where people live in perfect peace and harmony, far from the injurious pursuit of fame and wealth in the outside world—perhaps the best known example being Tao Yuanming’s “Peach Blossom Spring.”

  In Journey to the West, however, primary literary interest is focused not on the imaginary worlds through which the pilgrims pass, but on the narrative figures that people these lands, both the more “human” inhabitants—from rustic woodcutters to enlightened or benighted kings, and the demonic denizens who typically masquerade as benign rulers in order to ensnare the unsuspecting monk. As for the lost cities or uncharted wilderness through which our heroes move, these are for the most part fully domesticated in line with the pictorial and iconographic conventions of Ming landscape. These worlds are almost always identified as “mountains,” beautiful yet forbidding venues in whose hidden fastnesses and caves there lurk a variety of maleficent forces. With the exception of the topsy-turvy “Kingdom of Women at Xiliang” (where women assume virtually every form of male domination), we get little sense of realms in which alternative modes of existence hold sway, and—with few exceptions—all attention is focused on the evil intentions and bizarre weaponry of their demonic rulers.

  One exception to this observation does materialize, however, in the full-blown literary tableau of a lost world of perfection (initially, at least) that is put before our eyes at the very start of the book. Here the narrative of the Tang monk’s “epic” journey is prefaced by a series of episodes on the pre-history of the “Monkey King,” depicting his spontaneous emergence as the insouciant founder of an enclosed paradise for his monkey-brethren on the “Mountain of Flowers and Fruit,” a land of unfettered freedom and undiminished plenty located, quite pointedly, in the “Land of Burgeoning Pride.” It is only a matter of time, however, before the hubris of self-containment leads him to abandon his circumscribed existence and to rebel against the powers of Heaven, until he is ultimately subdued and subordinated—now in the guise of a simian figure with the monkish name Sun Wukung—to the exalted aims of a quest journey beyond the bounds of Self.

  TOMMASO CAMPANELLA

  THE CITY OF THE SUN (1602)

  A theocratic utopia in which everything is shared. Solarians benefit from free universal education; they work only six hours daily, and live for a minimum of one hundred years.

  Dominican friar and polymath Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639) was in prison (for leading a conspiracy against Spanish rule in Naples) when he put the finishing touches to his 1,100-page utopian manifesto Philosophia Realis in 1602. Buried within it is an appendix entitled La città del Sole (The City of the Sun) that was to become his best-known work. The story appears within the literary frame of a traveler’s tale, a device perhaps drawn from Thomas More’s Utopia (1516, here), although Campanella makes no explicit reference to the English humanist in his text, preferring instead to underline the influence and ideas of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato.

  In the story, a recently returned sea captain is asked by a Grand-Master of the Knights Hospitallers (a Roman Catholic military order) to describe his visit to the faraway “City of the Sun.” The city, explains the captain, is located on the Island of Taprobane (known to the ancient Greeks and thought to be modern-day Sri Lanka or Sumatra) and its inhabitants had fled there from India. The captain reveals an array of intricate detail about the place and its people, the Solarians, and from this we can assume that Campanella wanted his utopia to be less illusory than other examples in the genre. It is somewhere, and therefore not purely speculative, as was Plato’s Republic, nor as brimming with negation as More’s Utopia.

  While some details given by the captain are rather prosaic, the most important elements—governance, education, religion, and personal liberty—reflect Campanella’s own views and his leanings toward astrology and numerology (for instance, we learn that the city is walled by seven, heavily-fortified concentric circles and each circle is dedicated to a planet). At the very center of the city, on top of a hill, is a circular temple around which dwell forty-nine priests. Within the temple is an altar supporting two globes, one terrestrial and one celestial, depicting the heavenly bodies. On the vaulted side of the upper dome hang seven golden lamps, always lit and each bearing the name of a planet. Unsurprisingly, education is a central tenet and crucial in the perfection of the inhabitants. Thus, the inner and outer walls of each circle contain illustrations
of all knowledge, and this is where all children take compulsory classes from the ages of three to ten.

  The city is governed by a supreme leader; a priest called Hoh. He will retain the position for life and must have a greater understanding of metaphysics and theology than anyone else. A triumvirate of three princes, each of whom in turn is assisted by a number of magistrates, aids Hoh in his responsibilities. First, there is Pon (power), who is charged with affairs of war and peace; next, Sin (wisdom) the “ruler of the liberal arts, of mechanics, and of all sciences”; and finally there is Mor (love), who attends “to the charge of the race,” which means he ensures a long life for all and “sees that men and women are so joined together that they bring forth the best offspring.”

  While the seeds of dystopian alternatives lie just beneath the surface in The City of the Sun—ideas of proto-eugenics and totalitarianism come to mind—Campanella’s text reflects important philosophical themes of equality emerging in the late Renaissance period and strives to promote intellectual freedom. The doctrine of state-controlled procreation and the view that fornication was not a sin created much of the sensation surrounding the text on its publication in 1623, and raised allegations of heresy.

  MIGUEL DE CERVANTES

  DON QUIXOTE (1605/15)

  Cervantes paints a subversive portrait of imperial Spain in this epic masterpiece, charting the comic adventures of a knight deluded by legends of chivalry and romance in which the real becomes imaginary and the imaginary in turn symbolizes the real.

  Don Quixote is a book (considered by many to be the very first example of the modern novel) in which contraries coexist, and imaginary and real landscapes merge. And this very complexity is precisely why Cervantes’s (1547–1616) visionary epic has remained as a classic to the present day.

  Cervantes’s writing was highly informed by his own life of travel and adventure. He was variously: a servant of an Italian Cardinal, a soldier of the Spanish empire, a prisoner in Algiers, a playwright, a poet, and a tax collector. He was also detained in several Spanish prisons for financial irregularities and was far from wealthy even after the startling popularity of Don Quixote.

  As the protagonist’s name, “Don Quixote de La Mancha,” implies, the novel takes place in a real Spanish region situated south of Madrid. La Mancha is located in Castile, the area that represented dominant Christian Spain when Don Quixote was written, and also borders Andalusia, a southern region highly influenced by Islamic and Jewish traditions. As such, in Cervantes’s hand, the landscapes of La Mancha can be seen to symbolize the multifarious ethnic identity of Spain itself. Furthermore the novel famously begins in a vague unspecified village, and although many real places are mentioned, they are not described in any detail. La Mancha for Don Quixote is not a place to stay, but a space in which to roam during his adventures, or “sallies.” The descriptions given are not realistic, but symbolic and literary. For example, the caves and sierras where the Don carries out his self-imposed penance are drawn from the chivalric tradition, the beech trees against which shepherds lean as they sing and talk do not grow in La Mancha but in the pastoral poems that Cervantes parodies.

  And while the real world has symbolic association for Cervantes, so does the imaginary. The Don is a character mired in delusion, driven mad by excessive reading of chivalric romances. In imitation of these legendary texts he sets out as a knight-errant seeking valor and adventure. His predicament not only satirizes the impracticality of lofty or extravagant ideals, but his delusions (most famously charging at windmills, mistaking them for giants) can be interpreted as reactions to the very real and traumatic technological transformations that were being implemented in the Castilian landscape by the ruling Habsburgs. The windmills were not at that time a traditional feature of the Castilian landscape. On the contrary, they were monstrous new machines deployed on the windy Manchegan hills in order to drive the economy of the Habsburgs’ global war. The trauma of windmills and what they represent is also powerfully and subtly expressed by the constant repetition of the word molidos (past participle of the verb moler, to grind), used to describe Don Quixote and Sancho’s pitiful state almost every time they are beaten and battered—which they are frequently.

  This powerful strategy of blurring the boundaries between the real and the imaginary enabled Cervantes to express his vision in times of censorship and oppression, when the truth could only circulate underground. Furthermore, his amazing capacity to turn fiction into reality and reality into fiction expanded the limits of literary expression, and showcased the highest powers of his imagination. For these reasons, among many others, Don Quixote is recognized as a masterpiece of literature and continues to inspire millions of writers and readers worldwide.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  THE TEMPEST (1611)

  Shakespeare’s final play centers upon an enchanted island inhabited by magician Prospero, his daughter Miranda, and their servants Ariel, a sprite, and the monstrous Caliban. The drama begins with a powerful storm and a shipwrecked party interrupts the isolated idyll.

  The Tempest begins with a ship struggling on a stormy sea, its inhabitants fearful for their lives. The storm has been conjured by the powerful magician Prospero, who is marooned nearby on a desert island with his daughter, Miranda. Along with Prospero and Miranda, the island has two other inhabitants: Caliban, described as the son of a devil and a witch, and Ariel, a sprite whom Prospero has bound into his service.

  Prospero’s motive is revenge for his deposition and exile at the hands of his brother Antonio, who replaced him as Duke of Milan, and Alonso, King of Naples, who supported Antonio in his coup. He arranges for Alonso’s son Ferdinand to be washed ashore, followed separately by Alonso himself and various crew and companions.

  Although Shakespeare’s (c.1564–1616) island is likely located somewhere in the Mediterranean, not too far from Milan and Naples, the idea of the “deserted” island derives from the discovery of the New World by Columbus in 1492, and in particular from the exploration of the Caribbean islands, which provided an entirely new and exotic location for adventure. Shakespeare was certainly deeply interested in the travelers’ tales from the Caribbean. His description of the shipwreck contains ideas from an event of 1609 in which a ship, en route from England to Virginia, was thought lost in the Bermudas. In fact, all aboard eventually reached Virginia, after living easily for some months on their own “desert island.”

  To sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europeans, the Caribbean was a land of contradictions. It was dangerous, in ways they had never encountered before, yet was fertile beyond anything they knew, and full of exotic novelties. There were other new and shocking dangers, such as hurricanes, which were first reported in English in 1555; sharks were also first mentioned around this time. (When Alonso thinks his son Ferdinand is dead, he wonders “what strange fish Hath made his meal on thee?”) Similarly, early travelers did not know quite what to make of native populations, and the New World was feared most because of its supposedly fierce and unpredictable inhabitants, often seen as devils or devil-worshipers. Furthermore, there were shocking reports of man-eating tribes. (The word “cannibal” is first recorded in English in 1553 and comes from the same root as “Carib,” Shakespeare’s own “Caliban” looks like another deliberate variation.)

  Yet Shakespeare was also aware of accounts describing how European colonists were poor at fishing, and how they had to be helped by native peoples. And as such he plays with the notion of the “native” throughout the play. When Prospero first arrived on the island, Caliban showed the magician the freshwater springs, and later he offers to show the sailors where the berries are and how to catch fish. Prospero and Miranda seem, in return, not to believe Caliban is naturally wicked and to have some kind of “civilizing mission” in mind in teaching him how to talk.

  The Tempest was Shakespeare’s final play, and as in many of his other plays, he not only drew upon contemporary events, but also integrated older stories, history, and fantasy. Th
e Classical gods Juno, Iris, and Ceres are referenced and a famous speech by Prospero invokes Ovid’s Metamorphoses (c.8, here). Other fantastical elements are culled from medieval legend and English folklore. The shipwrecked lords, for example, exclaim that after seeing Prospero’s powerful display of wizardry they can easily believe in unicorns and phoenixes. Ariel functions like the mischievous spirits of English folktales—elves and boggarts and hobgoblins. They pinch Caliban, they lead the sailors into mires and bogs, they turn will-o’-the-wisp, and create fairy rings: All were likely more familiar to Shakespeare’s first audience than Caribbean tales or medieval legends.

  Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,

  Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.

  Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

  Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices

  That, if I then had waked after long sleep

  Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming

  The clouds methought would open and show riches

  Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked

  I cried to dream again. (III.ii.130–8)

  The Tempest may not contain the first “desert island” setting in literature, but it demonstrates its enormous potential as a blank canvas for a freewheeling mix of imagery and imagination, free from the constraints of reality. A potent notion that has inspired a wealth of literature, from Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726, here), R. L. Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883, here), H. G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), and even William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954). In particular, J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan (1911), with its Lost Boys, pirates, Indians, fairies, and mermaids, all brought together in “Never-Never Land,” is particularly indebted to the Tempest.