Utopia: Thomas More | Thomas More

Utopia: Thomas More | Thomas More | Utopia

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Utopia: Thomas More

	Utopia: Thomas More Thomas More Yale University Press, 2001 - 208 pages average customer review:based on 53 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The original Utopia

There were utopias before this book that Thomas More wrote in the early 1500s, including Plato's Republic. This, however, is the book that gives us the word 'Utopia.' The book is brief, barely over 100 pages, and only 60-some describe the place itself. That is enough, and makes me nostalgic for the habit of writing briefly and to the point.

It's easy to sum up More's heaven-on-earth in a few words. It portrays a communal, democratic society. It is paradoxically unregulated and tightly regulated - overwhelmingly, More's citizens just want to do what is best for their society, and that covers a remarkably narrow range of possibilities. There are, of course, some who break the laws of the land, and More deals with them harshly. "Harsh" is a relative term, though, and his punishments were hardly harsh in a day when it was a hanging offense to steal a loaf of bread for your starving family. (That's actually the introductory topic, the one that leads up to the description of Utopia.)

It's also a strongly religious society. Religious tolerance is a matter of law, a novelty by the standards of More's day and the standard of his own behavior. 'Tolerance', however, meant tolerance of any monotheism that wasn't too animistic, and certainly didn't tolerate the unreligious.

This translation from More's original Latin is modern and smoothly readable. Even so, I wonder how another translator would have handled some of More's neologistic names, like the unpleasant 'Venalians' who are the Utopians' neighbors. No answer is right, but other renderings may convey more and grate less. Those are quibbles, though. It's a good book as well as being a Great Book, and casts an interesting shadow into modern communism, theocracy, and ideas of the good life. I recommend it highly.

//wiredweird

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Utopia

As More writes in the last line, "... I readily admit that there are very many features in the Utopian commonwealth which it is easier for me to wish for in our countries than to have any hope of seeing realized." Utopia is a work of fiction, but it has genuine insight in the the fractures in the foundation of contemporary society.

The reader need not be a Christian to appreciate this work, particularly with the wit employed by More. In the first book, St. Thomas More chastises Raphael Hytholdaeus on his reluctance to contribute his ideas of improvement to the service of the corrupt government. More is open in explaining why idle talents are a great injustice to society. In the second book, More goes through each facet of society to explain how it works in the fictionous land Utopia. Among the sections addressed are government, occupations, social relations, travel, slavery, military, and religion. Some suggests like those given about marriage and slavery are clearly outdated, but the bulk of the book is still very relevant.

More is observant in seeing that greed is the root of many societal problems. While we can take action against our own greediness, remedying society as a whole is not possible on this Earth. While Utopia sounds like a wonderful place, it is a fictitious place.

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Comparing editions

The Yale edition (Miller's translation - $6.95) gives a bare list of events in More's life, but the short introduction mostly focuses on the syntax and rhetoric of the book; there's very little in it about the social and historical background. It omits the commendatory letters from various humanists, but includes both the opening letter to Giles from More, and the postscript letter to Giles from the 1517 edition (but not the Busleyden letter about Utopia as a real place that prompted it). (It also has the 1518 woodcut map of Utopia.) The sidenotes that Miller thinks are not mere section markers are placed in the footnotes.

The Hackett edition (Wooton's translation - also $6.95) has a pointed persuasively argued introduction focusing on the translator's own interpretation of the work; he relates it to More's life and the paradoxical double vision of Christian piety and ordinary social life also found in More's friend Erasmus's "The Sileni of Alicbiades," which is included. This edition puts the sidenotes in the margins, and also includes all the introductory and appended material by others, the 1516 map, the Utopian alphabet and the garden woodcut, and black and white illustrations of portraits of More, Erasmus and Gilles.

I haven't seen the other options.

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Utopia is a FORM of perfection, but not one that could be acchieved.

Someome on here used The Prince by Machiavelli as a comparison. I agree with him: the books are completely different...perhaps just as different as the people, although their fates were quite similar...

More writes that, to accieve a social perfection, all men have to both be 1. equal and 2.governed. This I don't understand...perhaps because I was raised in the US. How can men be equal without liberty? Isn't liberty the very essence of life? The very thing that motivates men to be better? To accieve the "utopia" that More speaks of (in ideal) ALL the occupants of the country would have to be able to give for the betterment of all. But how would people THAT INTELLIGENT ever be satisfied with this? How could they ever release their fingers from their life?

Living in this kind of world would be like being a staunch religonist ruled by a visible god. You would never go wrong, on pain of an eternity in hell. You would never question. You would never be your own person....you would give up what you are.

I don't think that when we talk about Utopia we're just talking about happiness. In perfection, justice is expected to be wholesome. But men are STILL men. Utopia still dosn't make you god... even if you believe. I want liberty to say, ME, if I was right or wrong.

"He who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it, may expect to be destroyed by it, for in rebellion it has always the watchword of liberty and its ancient privileges as a rallying point, which neither time nor benefits will ever cause it to forget. In republics there is more vitality, greater hatred, and more desire for vengeance, which will never permit them to allow the memory of their former liberty to rest." (From The Prince)

I guess if having a safe life is your objective, if being taken advantage of is your worst nightmare, if you are prepared to have faith in men JUST THE SAME AS BEING RULED HERE, you may be happy in Utopia. I, personally, have always thought that perfection would be quite dull, aside from the devestation of having my precious liberty ripped from me.

Good, thought provoking book. Fav. quote: "It's a natural instinct to be charmed by one's own productions. That's why raven chicks are such a delight to their parents, and mother apes find their babies exquisitely beautiful." (From, obviously, Utopia.)

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more was a modest genius (hard to find among christians)

thomas more's utopia is a great work of fiction. Using false pen names and creating false places (utopia is actually a fictional land) he escaped severe criminal punishment and still was able to tell an incredible philosophical tale. Its fairly easy to read and its ideas are straight forward and logical. A great work that started utopian literature.

reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

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