Machiavel en utopie, ou de l'institution de la loi australe

Abstract

Utopia is the only "ideal society" to be founded on law. It is also the only ideal society to move towards reality. This is probably the reason why, between the 17th and the 18th centuries, when the absolute forms of the modern state strengthen themselves, literary utopias multiply and the concept of utopia itself acquires an autonomous definition. Veiras' Histoire des Sévarambes is exemplary from this point of view: the reflection it carries out on law and on government forms runs through a story which it is difficult to enclose completely within the utopian genre, and guarantees the coherence of its different parts. From a cultural point of view, moreover, this reflection draws a bridge between the abstract and "universal" Classical pessimism and the Enlightenment hopes by analysing reality in order to transform it.