Historian+and+Biographer+of+Oceana

James Harrington’s //Oceana// is a Renaissance utopia with an island setting. //Oceana// is a fairly complex novel that takes much study to grasp fully the ideas of Harrington. Harrington incorporated detailed criticism that adds to the book's fullness. Some works of others that might help the reader understand this book better are //Ideal Commonwealths// and //The Nature of the Book//.

I//deal Commonwealths// gives readers information on //Oceana// to help them to understand Harrington’s ideas. This book helps explain what Harrington meant by his ideas on society, government, and equality. //Ideal Commonwealths// was written by numerous utopian writers who share their ideas including those on the commonwealth.

//The// //Nature of the Book// helps readers understand Oceana and other utopias. This book, unlike //Ideal Commonwealths,// achieves an in depth analysis of the utopias and their authors. The book helps the reader to understand the Oceana as a whole, its decisions on government, its social standards, and its economy. //The Nature of the Book// also follows Harrington in the process of creating his utopia.

The two books //Ideal Commonwealth// and //The Nature of the Book// compliment each other perfectly. One book explains the ideas in the book while the other helps one to grasp the work that goes into the book from idea gathering to publishing the utopia. Both books help the reader understand what Harrington was trying to point out as the author of this utopia Oceana. After gathering the information from the two sources I have gotten a better grasp of exactly what Harrington was trying to achieve.

The utopian genre is one of the most complex, difficult to comprehend genres of literature. James Harrington’s //Oceana// is no different. With its complex nature and ideas, the book is fairly difficult to comprehend. The two books //Ideal Commonwealths// and //The Nature of the Book// help the reader to get a firmer grasp of Harrington’s ideas in Oceana.

Posted by Robert Earl