''Mundus alter et idem'' is a
satirical dystopian novel written by
Joseph Hall . The title has been translated into English as ''An Old World and a New'', ''The Discovery of a New World'', and ''Another World and Yet the Same''. Although the text credits "Mercurius Britannicus" as the author,
Thomas Hyde
Thomas Hyde (29 June 163618 February 1703) was an English linguist, historian, librarian, classicist, and orientalist. His chief work was the 1700 'On the Ancient Religion of the Persians'' the first attempt to use Arab and Persian sources ...
ascribed it to Hall in 1674.
Synopsis
The narrator takes a voyage in the ship ''Fantasia'', in the southern seas, visiting the lands of Crapulia, Viraginia, Moronia and Lavernia (populated by gluttons, nags, fools and thieves, respectively). Moronia parodies Roman Catholic customs; in its province Variana is found an antique coin parodying
Justus Lipsius
Justus Lipsius (Joest Lips or Joost Lips; 18 October 1547 – 23 March 1606) was a Flemish Catholic philologist, philosopher, and humanist. Lipsius wrote a series of works designed to revive ancient Stoicism in a form that would be compatible w ...
, a target for Hall's satire which takes the ''ad hominem'' beyond the Menippean model.
Analysis and influence
''Mundus alter'' is a satirical description of London, with some criticism of the Roman Catholic Church, and is said to have furnished
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dubl ...
with hints for ''
Gulliver's Travels''. It is classified as a
Menippean satire
The genre of Menippean satire is a form of satire, usually in prose, that is characterized by attacking mental attitudes rather than specific individuals or entities. It has been broadly described as a mixture of allegory, picaresque narrative, and ...
, and was almost contemporary with another such satire by
John Barclay, ''Euphormionis Satyricon'', with which it shares the features of being written in Latin (Hall generally wrote in English), and a concern for religious commentary.
Publication and translation
Hall wrote it for private circulation, and did not intend for it to distributed widely. The book was published by William Knight (ca. 1573–1617), who wrote a Latin preface, although it is uncertain as to which of the contemporaneous clergymen with that name was responsible.
It was reprinted in 1643, with ''
Civitas Solis'' by
Tommaso Campanella
Tommaso Campanella (; 5 September 1568 – 21 May 1639), baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet.
He was prosecuted by the Roman Inquisition for heresy in 1594 an ...
, and ''
New Atlantis
''New Atlantis'' is an incomplete utopian novel by Sir Francis Bacon, published posthumously in 1626. It appeared unheralded and tucked into the back of a longer work of natural history, ''Sylva Sylvarum'' (forest of materials). In ''New Atlan ...
'' by
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...
.
It was not clearly ascribed to Hall by name until 1674, when
Thomas Hyde
Thomas Hyde (29 June 163618 February 1703) was an English linguist, historian, librarian, classicist, and orientalist. His chief work was the 1700 'On the Ancient Religion of the Persians'' the first attempt to use Arab and Persian sources ...
, the librarian of the
Bodleian
The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the sec ...
, identified "Mercurius Britannicus" with Joseph Hall, as is now accepted. Hall's authorship had been an open secret, however, and in 1642
John Milton used it to attack him during the
Smectymnuus
Smectymnuus was the ''nom de plume'' of a group of Puritan clergymen active in England in 1641. It comprised four leading English churchmen, and one Scottish minister ( Thomas Young). They went on to provide leadership for the anti-episcopal forces ...
controversy, employing the argument that the work lacked the constructive approach taken in
More's ''
Utopia
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book '' Utopia'', describing a fictional island societ ...
'' and
Bacon's
Bacon's was a chain of department stores based in Louisville, Kentucky.
History
Jeremiah Bacon opened a store called Bacon's Dry Goods in 1845 on Market Street near Hancock Street. In 1876 he moved into a structure four times larger than the o ...
''
New Atlantis
''New Atlantis'' is an incomplete utopian novel by Sir Francis Bacon, published posthumously in 1626. It appeared unheralded and tucked into the back of a longer work of natural history, ''Sylva Sylvarum'' (forest of materials). In ''New Atlan ...
''.
The book was first translated into English by
John Healey (1608–9), using the title ''The Discovery of a New World or A Description of the South Indies'', attributed to "English Mercury". It was a free and necessarily unauthorised translation, and involved Hall in controversy. Andrea McCrea describes Hall's interactions with
Robert Dallington
Sir Robert Dallington (1561–1637) was an English courtier, travel writer and translator, and master of the London Charterhouse.
Life
Dallington was born at Geddington, Northamptonshire. He entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and was ther ...
, and then Healey, against the background of a few years of the pace-setting culture of the court of
Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. Dallington advocated travel, indeed the
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tut ...
, while Hall was minatory about its effects; Dallington wrote aphorisms following Lipsius and
Guicciardini, while Hall had moved away from the
Tacitist strand in humanist thought to the more conservative
Seneca
Seneca may refer to:
People and language
* Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname
* Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America
** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people
Places Extrat ...
n tendency with which he was permanently to be associated. Healey embroidered political details into the ''Mundus alter'' translation, and outed Hall as author at least as far as his initials, the emphasis on politics again being a Tacitist one. Healey had noble patronage, and Hall's position with respect to the princely court culture was revealed as close to that of the king, placing him as an outsider rather than in the new group of movers and shakers.
[Adriana McCrea, ''Constant Minds: Political virtue and the Lipsian paradigm in England, 1584–1650'' (1997), pp. 194–196.] On the death of Prince Henry, his patron, Hall did preach the funeral sermon to his household.
[
]
References
{{reflist
Dystopian novels
1605 novels
Satirical books
English science fiction novels
17th-century English novels
17th-century Latin books
Latin-language novels