The New Amorous World by Charles Fourier Remains Untranslated

An English translation of The New Amorous World (Le Nouveau monde amoureux) has never been completed since it was first written in 1816. This surprises me as it was a very influential text. The few parts that were translated into English were integral to the sexual revolution and the Hippie movement as a whole.

The New Amorous World was suppressed by Fourier’s own followers until the mid 20th century. It had prior been sitting as raw manuscripts in France’s government archives. The only publicly translate English portions present a challenge for the reader. They are hard to understand without a full English translation. Fourier uses names and archetypes to describe his various taxonomies. Without a clear definition of these names and archetypes present in the full text, the English fragments are overly subject to individual interpretation and projection.

While LLMs could theoreticall translate the full French source in a relatively short amount of time, Fourier’s use of neologisms would likely render an unsatisfactory translation. As I’m interested in eventually jumpstarting a translation project, here I will go over what I’ve learned about the history of French and partial English publications of the book.

History of publications

1967 French publication

This text was suppressed by his own followers and first published in 1967 as “previously unpublished manuscript, complete text” by Editions Anthropos, 151 years after it first written in 1816. Simone Debout-Oleszkiewicz compiled original Fourier notebooks for the 1967 publication and included their own introduction. They also included a prologue they attribute to Fourier and also presented their own footnotes beneath the original text. This original French Editions Anthropos text is hosted by fr.wikisource, Wikimedia Commons as public domain, and by BnF Gallica in what are essentially untranscribed scans, despite whatever format they use.

This text was reprinted in book form in 1979 by Slatkine Reprints, Genèva and by the French house Stock in 1999.

1971 English excerpts publication

A limited number of English excerpts have previously been widely published in the 1971 book, “The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier: Selected Texts on Work, Love, and Passionate Attraction”. Prior to today, those were so far the only published, translated English portions. In those selected texts, we were given labels by which Fourier assigns certain personalities and archetypes, but they lack the explanation of exactly what they are. So I saw a need to translate and publish the whole text for English readers.

1988 French publication

A subsequent 1998 French publication of Le Nouveau monde amoureux was compiled by Jean-Jacques Pauvert (known for other publications triggering The Public Ministry vs. Jean-Jacques Pauvert censorship trial). Pauvert appears to omit the alleged Fourier prologue published in 1967. The 1967 publication also contains around 2 pages of text at the beginning, and after the alleged Fourier prologue, that the 1998 publication does not contain in that location.

Brief summary of notable portions

Fourier’s “The New Amorous World” describes Fourier’s disdain for civilization and how he would allegedly prefer society to be organized, especially when it comes to love, sex, and romance. Fourier considered romantic relationships within civilization to be overly reproductive (to the mortal detriment of the resulting children who the parents cannot afford), and reduced to a property relation.

Fourier contrasts civilization to his own “Societary Order”. In his Societary Order, people are organized into communal buildings called Phalanxes. In each phalanx there is what appears to be a satire of the Catholic Church and sex in general. Fourier commentator Jonathan Beecher argues it is an inversion of the Catholic Church. A Court of Love is established in each Phalanx, an orgy-regulating organization with pseudo-religious, mostly non-monogamous roles for each member. Participants approach the most attractive (dubbed “Narcisse” and “Psyche”) of the Phalanx like as if receiving Catholic communion. If Narcisse and Psyche pass a number of tests they are promoted to the rank of “Angelic”. The Angelic surrender themselves to their 40 most ardent admirers who strive to equal them in “delicacy and refinement”. As a result of their generosity Narcisse and Psyche become public idols as a result. This inspires their admirers to do the same in a downward triangular fashion.