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We start from the idea that Utopia is a Renaissance alternative to the Medieval Garden of Eden and, consequently, that dystopia, as a failed utopia, continues the theme of Paradise Lost. Inheriting such a rich tradition, the word "utopia" designates a semantic hybrid that encompasses several fields and disciplines. In this paper, we propose a reorganisation of the species of the utopian genre by reusing, with a minimum of violence, the already existing, albeit rather lax terms of (o)utopia, eutopia, dystopia and antiutopia (or counterutopia). The main criteria for distinguishing these species are the moral value, the degree of verisimilitude, the constructing procedures ("electrolysis" of the positive and negative elements, utopian extrapolation, proof by contradiction, etc.) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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During 17th-18th centuries, the pressure exercised by combined critiques due to religious ideology and later on by rationalist mentality rendered utopias suspect to the eyes of many authors. Christian counter-utopists, ranging from Joseph Hall to Jonathan Swift, accepted and adopted the dogmas related to the Lost Earthly Paradise and Man's Cursed City, transforming the utopian space into hell on earth, into monstrous kingdoms that would rival Dante's circles. In turn, humanist counter-utopists, skeptical regarding man's capacity of establishing a perfect society, found other means of expressing their incredulity as well as their sarcasms. They imagined madmen islands and kingdoms of fouls, demonstrating, by reductio ab absurdum, that the application of the ideals of reason to social programs would only led to nightmarish societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]