Utopia

Utopia

Theme: a journey to an ideal place that is free of all the imperfections that spoil contemporary society

Author: Thomas More

The title: utopia = nowhere. The word utopia is composed of the Greek for "no", ou, and topos, which means place. The term was coined to indicate a new destination for journeys: a non-existent one. This new kind of travel writing would span the centuries and take readers on journeys to many different imagined worlds.

They are the reverse of the world and we make a ison between the utopian society and the society where we live. Utopians visions act like mirrors that show us all the defects of our own social, political, and religious institutions.

If the book is to be useful, it will not encourage men to dream of impossible worlds, but to look at their own and to see its defects more clearly. The utopia we read today is a translation, that had a great influence on the development of the English language and introduced greater elegance and clarity. At the first time it was written in Latin.

Structure: is divided into two books, the first book does not describe a journey of any kind. The narrator is Raphael Hythloday, a Greek name for babbler. He describes the social conditions in England and in Europe at that time. It's a world governed by low instincts and stupidity, were the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Powerful landlords drive out their tenants so that they can use the land for sheep, which are more profitable. The tenant farmers are left with nothing and become thieves in order to survive, finally they are caught and executed.

In the second book the narrator describes an island state that he discovered during a voyage with Amerigo Vespucci. The island of Utopia lies off the coast of north America. It's a new world. Here society guarantees that each member has a happy existence. All property is shared. There is religious intolerance and all religious enjoys equal status.

Amaurote: the capital of Utopia (in Greek "ghost city")

Anemolians: anemos =wind, are "palloni gonfiati".

The text: Initially anemolians tried to impress the Utopians with gold and wealth, and utopians they don't recognize the ambassadors, because they were rich adorned, in fact gold for utopians mean a punishment of bondmen, a reproach of in famed person or toys for young children.

Thomas More

He was an humanist, a believer in reason and the power of the mind, and therefore unlikely to pursue an illusory ideal. He opted for a legal career and rose to the top of his profession, soon becoming one of the king's favourite counselors. He aced as an ambassador. He met also the humanist scholar Erasmus, who supervised the original version of Utopia. He became Lord Chancellor, the third most powerful man in England. He opposed Henry's claim to be the Supreme Head of an English Church, than he was arrested, and beheaded on 1535. He was also a forerunner of the complete renaissance man, who used his intelligence to prove his abilities in the spheres of politics, art and moral philosophy. Was an international writer, because he wrote in Latin. He embodied the humanist attempt to revive the classics of Latin and Greek literature and to replace the corrupt ecclesiastical Latin of the Middle Ages which a polished idiom modeled on classic authors.