This study examines two &lsquo / socialist&rsquo / utopias of the late 19th century: W. Morris&rsquo / s News from Nowhere and E. Bellamy&rsquo / s Looking Backward. The major concern is to question the validity of title &lsquo / socialist&rsquo / for these two texts. The reference points for such an analysis are: modernity, Marxism of the late 19th century and the practice of discipline. In this context, the intention is to find out ruptures and continuities with respect to the central ideas of socialism and basic premises of modernity. The study explorates that there are serious points of rupture in these two texts with respect to the major premises of modernity, because in Morris&rsquo / s utopia there is a romantic search for restoring communism of the 14th century, in Bellamy&rsquo / s text there are typical reactionary modernist suggestions concerning the nature of typical socialist societies. In that sense, due to the disassociation between socialism and modernity in these two texts, it is very problematic to classify these utopias as socialist. The study also questions whether the sources of such disassociation are embedded in Marxism itself. In response to such question, the study argues that this is the case to a great extent.

It is the purpose of this paper to explore how Morris' novel relates to life in Twin Oaks, primarily as depicted in two books: Living the Dream (1983) by Ingrid Komar, a long-term visitor to the commune and Kinkade's Is It Utopia Yet? (1996). This comparison will demonstrate that the experiences of contemporary intentional communities such as Twin Oaks provide a meaningful context for reading News from Nowhere because of the similarities in goals and philosophy. It will further demonstrate that though Twin Oaks was originally inspired by a utopian novel much more in the tradition of Bellamy's work than Morris', the community's subsequent evolution has brought it much closer in philosophy to News from Nowhere than Looking Backward.

[pt] Esta dissertação tem por objetivo investigar a teoria da revolução socialista de William Morris. Nascido em 1834, Morris produziu muitos trabalhos até o ano de 1896, quando morreu com 62 anos. O recorte temporal sob o qual se assenta minha pesquisa está compreendido entre os anos de 1883 e 1890, quando o autor filiou-se a uma organização revolucionária e decidiu dedicar os seus textos à transformação da sociedade inglesa oitocentista. As fontes que nos permitem visualizar a sua teoria apresentam-se em dois discursos diferentes: o panfletário e o ficcional. Em relação ao primeiro, Morris valeu-se de jornais vinculados às organizações revolucionárias para intervir nos debates públicos ingleses e, em meio a essa intervenção, construiu a sua teoria da revolução. Em 1890 a sua teoria estava completa, mas apareceu sob outra roupagem: atravessando o romance utópico Notícias de lugar nenhum. Diante do que foi exposto, é imperativo para esta dissertação compreender os discursos mobilizados pelo cidadão inglês para demonstrar qual foi o papel que eles exerceram nas suas intervenções políticas. Para alcançar esse objetivo, alguns conceitos se fazem importantes, como, por exemplo, o conceito de propaganda porque permitem que as fontes analisadas sejam compreendidas como um meio de atuar na realidade política da Inglaterra vitoriana. / [en] This dissertation aims to investigate the theory of socialist revolution of William Morris. Born in 1834, he produced many works until 1896, when he died at the age of 62. The time frame on which my research is based is between the years 1883 and 1890, when the author joined a revolutionary organization and decided to dedicate his texts to the transformation of the nineteenth century s English society. The sources that allow us to visualize his theory are presented in two different discourses: the pamphleteer and the fictional. Regarding the first, Morris used newspapers linked to revolutionary organizations to act in English public debates and, in the midst of this intervention, built his theory of revolution. In 1890 his theory was complete, but appeared under another guise: traversing the utopian novel News from Nowhere. Based on what was exposed, it is imperative for this dissertation to understand the discourses mobilized by the English citizen to demonstrate what role they played in their political interventions. To achieve this goal, some concepts are important, such as the concept of propaganda because they allow the sources analyzed to be understood as a means of acting in the political reality of Victorian England.