The New World: An Epic Poem

Set four hundred years in the future, Frederick Turner’s epic poem, The New World, celebrates American culture in A.D. 2376. As the book opens, the nation-state has been fragmented and replaced by new political forms: the Riots, violent anarchistic matriarchies, whose members are addicted to psychedelic joyjuice; the Burbs, populations descended from the old middle classes and now slaves to the Riots; the Mad Counties, religious theocracies dominated by fanatical fundamentalists; and the Free Counties, Jeffersonian democracies where arts and sciences flourish.

Within this setting, Turner’s epic tells the story of a tragic family feud involving Ruth Jefferson, daughter of the political leader, Shaker McCloud; Antony Manse, a handsome aristocrat; Ruth’s half-brother, the  ambitious Simon Raven McCloud, who is under the influence of his grandmother, the witch Faith Raven; and the hero, James George Quincy. When banished from the Free Counties, the vengeful Simon Raven transforms himself into a messianic figure who inspires a league of Mad Counties to launch a holy war to annihilate the Free Counties.

Turner’s epic calls for a cultural commitment to transcend the contemporary choice between blind faith and hedonistic relativism. The New World imagines a future that does not include a nuclear holocaust or cultural nihilism. This bold work challenges many conventional assumptions about modern poetry and its relationship to other literary forms and the culture at large.