Utopia's Neighbors, Utopia, And Europe

Thomas More’s book, Utopia, was constructed to criticize aspects of European life during the 1500s. One issue that More evaluates is the subject of politics and war. War during this time was used to gain territory or increase the ruler’s power. The Utopians are a peaceful group of citizens that rarely have any altercations occurring upon their island. They have a strict daily schedule that provides a minute amount of time for leisure, resulting in a low rate of problems. So why does More bring up the issue of war, if the people of Utopia infrequently misbehave? More analyzes this issue to exemplify how war was implemented in Europe under the reign of King Henry VIII. In addition, more describes the Utopians’ preparations when they engage in war. More wrote Utopia to provide the citizens of Europe with a source of hope for a new outlook on life.

Although they consider politics of other states to be flawed and corrupted, Utopia is not without its suspicions. Kings of

King Henry VIII’s reign was an awakening for many living in England during the sixteenth century. Thomas More was no exception. As a writer, More had the ability to publish his views about the change in politics, society, and religion. As religious views began to shift, and King Henry VIII separated from the Catholic church, Thomas More held firm to his belief in the Catholicism. His views on humanism thrived off of his standing in the Catholic church. He continued to defend humanism and catholicism relying in the knowledge that “...language is directed out to the social community in the effort to stimulate moral or political response” (Baker-smith 1). More hoped to convince the public eye of King Henry VIII’s misuse of power and moral judgement. This was a common idea he continually used throughout the remainder of the renaissance period.

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.

In Thomas More’s Utopia it is clear that we, the readers, can see that he is a humanist through his fictional civilization. More utilizies the narrator, Raphael, as a toold to explain an alternative reality based on his humanist ideas. There are many examples of humanism throughout his passages, but the ones that stood out were his viewpoints on luxurious clothing, the agricultural economy, and slavery through human essence. These points can all be tied to the idea of leveling during the later middle ages, in Thomas More’s time period.

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

Thomas More inspired many later important renesansie figures to change what they changed, to preach what they preached. More’s different beliefs sparked a fire within others, which with along other embers, started the beautiful fire known as the renesansie. More begun by changing local beliefs, and grew to further beliefs when he became a member of parliament, and when he wrote his book (Utopia), which expressed these unheard beliefs that made sense to many, and changed the way many thought. More was important because of his ability to share, he spread his ideas throughout his time, and even after. More was also sadly a victim of King Henry VIII’s terrible rule, which caused the early end of More, which made others go against King Henry and his despicable ways.

In our lives today, we take advantage of all the luxuries that are presented daily. Freedom alone is one of the greatest luxuries we possess as an American nation. In Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs and Utopia by Thomas Moore, we are presented two life styles, which some might consider very similar in various ways. Both authors focus on a peaceful living lifestyle, to better the people of the nation. Although some of their specific details are different, I believe that Jacobs would definitely approve of the features that More develops in Utopia.

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.

The so-called Utopia – the quasi-perfect society – flourishes in Margaret Cavendish’s “The Description of a New World, Called a Blazing World” and Sir Thomas More’s Utopia. While the former is a dreamlike account of fantasy rule and the latter a pseudo-realistic travelogue, both works paint a picture of worlds that are not so perfect after all. These imperfections glitter like false gemstones in the paths of these Utopians’ religious beliefs, political systems, and philosophical viewpoints.

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?

The time period while Utopia was written was around the ruling of King Henry VIII. King Henry VIII was from the religion of Catholicism but decide to change himself and the kingdom into reform protestant after a divorced with his current wife was denied by the Roman Catholic Pope. Henry wanted to divorce his wife because he wanted a son and she couldn 't give him one. He wanted to get married again so he could have a son that he ended up getting married 6 times. At last henry had a son which was named Edward VI who later died at the age of 15. In 1520 ,Thomas More became King Henry VIII chancellor but in February 1534 more was accused of treason against his country and was ordered by King Henry VIII to be beheaded. Thomas More was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1935

” Most scholars fail to appreciate the significance of Utopian religious freedom because it stands in the shadow of communism, the other great founding principle of More's fictional

Over the past few centuries the word "utopia" has developed a variety of meanings: a perfect state, paradise, heaven on earth, but the original definition of the word means something quite different. "Utopia", coined by Saint Thomas More in his famous work Utopia, written during the English Renaissance, literally means "nowhere". It is ironic that a word meaning nowhere has become a catchall phrase for paradise. More’s work is popular because of its wit, its use of metaphor, and its proposals for the perfect state. The work is claimed by Nicholas Paine Gilman in Socialism and the American Spirit to be: