16th Century : Sir Thomas More

Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) is most famous for his prose work Utopia (1516). "More coined the word 'utopia,' [no place] a name he gave to an ideal, imaginary island nation whose political system he described" in the work of teh same title (wikipedia) He was executed when he refused to recognize King Henry the VIII as the head of the Church of England. You should know that Utopia was "inspired by Amerigo Vespucci's accounts of the New World discoveries" ("Renaissance Exploration"). Utopia is indebted to Plato's Republic. The structure of Utopia is similar to natural histories and exploration tracts of More's day. The work was originally written in Latin and is a satire.

• Biography
  • W.W.Norton's: "Renaissance Exploration"
• Critical Essay: "A Kindler, Gentler Republic: The Effects of Plato's Republic on Thomas More's Utopia" (H. Solomon Poretsky)
• Works
  • E-text of Utopia (Project Gutenberg)
  • Html marked e-text of Utopia (Marxists.org)
  • Character and Plot Summary for Utopia.

  
  
  

• One day, as I was returning home from mass at St. Mary's, which is the chief church, and the most frequented of any in Antwerp, I saw him, by accident, talking with a stranger, who seemed past the flower of his age; his face was tanned, he had a long beard, and his cloak was hanging carelessly about him, so that, by his looks and habit, I concluded he was a seaman. As soon as Peter saw me, he came and saluted me, and as I was returning his civility, he took me aside, and pointing to him with whom he had been discoursing, he said, "Do you see that man? I was just thinking to bring him to you." I answered, "He should have been very welcome on your account." "And on his own too," replied he, "if you knew the man, for there is none alive that can give so copious an account of unknown nations and countries as he can do, which I know you very much desire." "Then," said I, "I did not guess amiss, for at first sight I took him for a seaman." "But you are much mistaken," said he, "for he has not sailed as a seaman, but as a traveller, or rather a philosopher. This Raphael, who from his family carries the name of Hythloday, is not ignorant of the Latin tongue, but is eminently learned in the Greek, having applied himself more particularly to that than to the former, because he had given himself much to philosophy, in which he knew that the Romans have left us nothing that is valuable, except what is to be found in Seneca and Cicero. He is a Portuguese by birth, and was so desirous of seeing the world, that he divided his estate among his brothers, ran the same hazard as Americus Vesputius, and bore a share in three of his four voyages that are now published; only he did not return with him in his last, but obtained leave of him, almost by force, that he might be one of those twenty-four who were left at the farthest place at which they touched in their last voyage to New Castile. ("Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, Of the Best State of a Commonwealth," Utopia)