SOURCE: Brown, James W. “Alimentary Discourse in Nineteenth-Century Social Theory: Pierre Leroux, Etienne Cabet and Charles Fourier.” Dalhousie French Studies 11 (fall-winter 1986): 72-95.

In the following essay, Brown examines the way food is treated as a marker of equality and “collective activity” in the writings of nineteenth-century utopian social theorists and also by some novelists—George Sand, Victor Hugo, and Eugène Sue—who were influenced by them.

The years 1825-1848 witnessed the rise of Socialist thought in France and, concomitantly, many writers and novelists explored social themes in their works. Several influences contributed to the climate of these years, particularly the ideologies of social commentators such as Fourier, Saint-Simon and Lamennais. For the most part, these socialist thinkers expressed their ideas in theoretical works which usually sought a collective approach in attempting to remedy the ills of society. This interest in the collective movement led them to construct...