Editing Utopia (section)

===The Land of Cockaigne===

The Land of [[Cockaigne]] (also Cockaygne, Cokaygne), was an imaginary land of idleness and luxury, famous in medieval stories and the subject of several poems, one of which, an early translation of a 13th-century French work, is given in [[George Ellis (poet)|George Ellis']] ''Specimens of Early English Poets''. In this, "the houses were made of barley sugar and cakes, the streets were paved with pastry and the shops supplied goods for nothing." London has been so called (see [[Cockney#Cockaigne|Cockney]]) but Boileau applies the same to Paris.<ref>Cobham Brewer E. ''Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable'', Odhams, London, 1932</ref> [[Schlaraffenland]] is an analogous German tradition. All these myths also express some hope that the [[idyll]]ic state of affairs they describe is not irretrievably and irrevocably lost to mankind, that it can be regained in some way or other.

One way might be a quest for an "earthly paradise"&nbsp;– a place like [[Shangri-La]], hidden in the [[Tibet]]an mountains and described by [[James Hilton (novelist)|James Hilton]] in his utopian novel ''[[Lost Horizon (novel)|Lost Horizon]]'' (1933). [[Christopher Columbus]] followed directly in this tradition in his belief that he had found the Garden of Eden when, towards the end of the 15th century, he first encountered the [[New World]] and its indigenous inhabitants.{{Citation needed|date=December 2022}}