The Utopian impulse is structurally allegorical because its object can never be imagined directly
Evidence
Faust never really does live the moment in question; rather he imagines it as we imagine the poem itself, and the conditional in which his fatal words are couched stands as a mark of the essentially analogical character of the fable as a whole. The Utopian moment is indeed in one sense quite impossible for us to imagine, except as the unimaginable; thus a kind of allegorical structure is built into the very forward movement of the Utopian impulse itself, which always points to something other, which can never reveal itself directly but must always speak in figures, which always calls out structurally for completion and exegesis. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 274
Categorization
- DEFINE: This defines why the Utopian impulse is inherently allegorical — a principled reason for the oblique, figural register of all hope-oriented thought.
- XREF: Connects to the earlier chapter’s treatment of Benjamin on allegory vs. symbol; this is the payoff of the allegory discussion applied to Bloch. — connects to: The concept of alienation functions as criticism without requiring a Utopian counterpart — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 343; Artistic categories for Bloch become modes of Utopian realization at the ontological level — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 290; Fully describing utopia would betray it because it is a becoming, not a being — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1539 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Fully describing utopia would betray it because it is a becoming, not a being
#corroborates(0.85) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1539 - Artistic categories for Bloch become modes of Utopian realization at the ontological level
#expands(0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 290 - Utopian visions reveal a system’s limits only through failed attempts at transcendence
#expands(0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 470