Patterns of Utopia for the English Commonwealth: John Eliot and Gerrard Winstanley

During the English Interregnum John Eliot and Gerrard Winstanley wrote their utopias in different hemispheres, depicting different patterns of utopias which offered alternative models of code laws for a divine platform of Government they urged the English to emulate. Their radicalism concerning the royalist power, the political order and stability, the improvement of social conditions and religion tolerance, were depicted within their utopian texts: The Christian Commonwealth and The Law of Freedom. A close analysis of these texts which have never been grouped and brought together by scholars, illustrates the range of the political imagination of their authors and provides an opportunity to examine different ways to deal with political and social concerns and different perspectives for ideal solutions by such writers who were so committed in connecting utopia to reality. Within this extraordinary historical and political context, political action and utopian literature enjoy an unparalleled symbiosis.