Is More's Utopia a Product of Its Time? Essay

The citizens of Utopia are easygoing people who do not take interest in territorial development and do not make alliances with other nations because they believe that those actions are not the way to settle disputes. “They despise war as an activity fit only for beast”, because they solely use war for the protection of the island and its inhabitants (More 77). Thomas More constructed the values and citizens of Utopia to be set apart from that of European values in the 1500s. In Europe, single-minded King Henry VIII did not shy away from any form of conflict. He wanted to increase his territory to gain prominence, and by engaging in

One of the main points More focuses on in Utopia is the kings powers and how he uses them. Kings have the ability to make war, but More questions why anyone would want to go to war in the first place by saying "I don't see how it can be in the public interest to prepare for war, which you needn't have unless you want to, by maintaining innumerable disturbers of the

Although comparing one society to another does not require them to be different in government or human behavior, it does necessarily weight one’s faults against its victories to render it better or worse than the other. This comparative structure, found between Thomas More’s two books of Utopia, poses the country of Utopia opposite the broader communities of world civilization. Despite the comparison of Utopia as distinct from and morally better than widespread society, in truth Utopia is, at best, an extension.

During the next decade, More attracted the attention of King Henry VIII. In 1515 he accompanied a delegation to Flanders to help clear disputes about the wool trade. Utopia opens with a reference to this very delegation. More was also instrumental in quelling a 1517 London uprising against foreigners, portrayed in the play Sir Thomas More, possibly by Shakespeare. More accompanied the King and court to the Field of the Cloth of Gold. In 1518 he became a member of the Privy Council, and was knighted in 1521.

In Thomas More’s Utopia, the elimination of property and money has all citizens working for the commonwealth. It is “where every man has a right to everything. They all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full, no private man can want anything. For among them there is no unequal distribution so that no man is poor, none in necessity and though no man has anything, yet they are all rich” (More 81). More’s Utopia also encourages a balance of power within society. It is where an individual, in a position of power, is not “as idle as drones, that subsist on other men’s labor” (More 7) It is where that individual gives “more regard to the riches of his country than to his wealth” (More 21).

Thomas More’s Utopia is a work of ambiguous dualities that forces the reader to question More’s real view on the concept of a utopian society. However, evidence throughout the novel suggests that More did intend Utopia to be the “best state of the commonwealth.” The detailed description of Utopia acts as Mores mode of expressing his humanistic views, commenting on the fundamentals of human nature and the importance of reason and natural law while gracefully combining the two seemingly conflicting ideals of communism and liberalism.

This change in meaning is thought to have been the result of a deviation from the usage of the expression ‘utopia’ and an emphasis placed on the alternative, ‘eutopia,’ taken from the Greek εὖ, meaning ‘good’ or ‘well’ and τόπος, meaning ‘place’, therefore indicating a positive utopia. In English, of course, both eutopia and utopia are homophonous, therefore creating a sense of confusion, as the two words have been used to describe both an intentional community that attempts to create an ideal society and the imagined societies portrayed in works of fiction. Thus the etymology of the term is crucial to our understanding of its social and political significance, as well as its relation to literary

Sir Thomas More was born in London to Agnes and John More a lawyer in 1477. Tomas after being a page in the Morton Household was sent to Oxford University and became a successful lawyer. After becoming an MP for the Under-Sheriff of London he started writing the book Utopia and finishing it 1516. After writing the book he was appointed as the privy councilor to King Henry VIII in 1518. He was latter executed in 1535 for refusing King Henry VIII to be the head of the church. Utopia is a fictional book about Mores talk with Raphael Nonsenso and his travels to Utopia.

In the Prince, Machiavelli writes that it is "better to be both loved and feared." (The Prince) Machiavelli describes how it is important to be seen as powerful to your subjects, but you should not be so evil that your subjects may actually want to rebel. In Utopia, More wants a government where the leaders try to do their best to bring happiness to all of the country. The Prince comes from the notion that you must have complete psychological control over your people to really be able to have power. In Utopia, the leaders' important goal is for everybody to be happy and satisfied. Only this would bring a peaceful and prosperous society.

“The lesson then would be that those creatures who are the greediest, least scrupulous, and most power-hungry, regardless of whether they are human or animal, are the ones who will rule, no matter what the current political doctrine or theory is” (Firchow). Consequently, the one to rise to power will be the one with most ambition for power, thus less likely to treat the other animals fairly. “All talk about democracy, liberty, equality, fraternity, all revolutionary movements, all visions of utopia, or the classless society, or the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, are humbug covering the ambitions of some new class which is elbowing its way into power” (Brander). In Animal Farm, Squealer was the mouthpiece of the pigs, elaborately presenting Napoleon’s ideas in a beneficial perspective and manipulating the other dumber animals for their own ambitions.

Comparing Margaret Cavendish’s The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World and Sir Thomas More’s Utopia

In his book Utopia, Thomas More utilizes several different rhetorical devices to not only describe Utopia as a place, but also to compare the commonwealth of Utopia to the current state of Europe at the time. One literary device used throughout the novel is tone. While there are several other literary devices that contribute to the reading of Utopia, tone is one of the most useful in determining the views of More as an author. In Utopia, more usually sustains a satirical tone, sometimes accompanied by irony, comedy, and ambiguity. These elements help to convey to the readers what More’s truly intended message is. More utilizes the device of tone in Utopia in order to showcase the fundamental differences between Utopian and European society during that time.

The "Middle" Ages were followed by the Renaissance, a time in which art and literature flourished. Thomas More, the first English humanist of the Renaissance, was born in London during this period. More's style is simple because of its colloquial language but a deeper look into his irony hints at deep dissatisfaction with the current thought and desire for change. "Utopia" (which in Greek means "nowhere") is the name of More's fictional island of perfected society. Thomas More's "Utopia" was the first literary work in which the ideas of Communism appeared and was highly esteemed by all the humanists of Europe in More's time. More uses the main character, Hythlodaeus, as a fictional front to express his own feelings he may have feared to

     Socialist ideals have recurred throughout the history of literature; from Plato to Marx the elusive goal of a perfect state has occupied some of the best minds in political thought manifesting itself in literature. In the midst of this historic tradition is the Utopia of More, a work which links the utopias of the ancient with the utopias of the modern. Hythloday's fantasy island draws heavily on the Greek Republic and yet it influenced the revolutionary world of Marx. What values do the Utopians hold which are in common with other socialist utopian values, and which ideals of theirs are unique?

Throughout Thomas More's Utopia, he is able to successfully criticize many of the political, social, and economic ways of the time. His critique of feudalism and capitalism would eventually come back to haunt him, but would remain etched in stone forever. On July 6, 1535, by demand of King Henry VIII, More was beheaded for treason. His last words stood as his ultimate feeling about royalty in the 15th and 16th centuries, "The King's good servant, but God's first." Throughout his life, More spoke his beliefs about feudalism, capitalism, and his ideals of Utopia; More was a thinker, good friend of Erasmus, and although many critics take Utopia as a blueprint for society, in many instances he encourages thought, a critical part of the