Human Nature in Utopia: Zamyatin's We

The first comprehensive study of one of the most important twentieth-century Russian novels, this book is also the first to apply the perspective of biopoetics to a Russian masterwork. As such, Human Nature in Utopia offers a valuable new approach to Evgenii Zamyatin's We while it explores the workings of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology in the conception, reception, and enduring interest of other fictional - especially utopian and dystopian - works. A classic of both Russian literature and science fiction, Zamyatin's 1921 masterpiece depicts a world so "perfected" by social engineering as to be unfit for human habitation. More than a prescient portrayal of the incipient Soviet state (it became the first novel banned in the USSR), We exposes human universals central to social construction in general. Reading the novel as a complex cross-matrix of psychological forces, an engine of narrative force and artistic interest, Brett Cooke identifies a number of the diverse ways in which the text reveals and reaches out to human nature.;His theoretical framework allows him to offer compelling insights into the creation of the novel, its style, content, and genre, and its long-lived fascination for readers. Along the way, Cooke draws numerous comparisons with earlier utopian and dystopian works.