Analysis of More's The Prince and Utopia

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Recommended: Machiavelli's principles in The Prince

i. Introduction

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.

Niccolo Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy in 1469 to a middleclass family. The time in which Machiavelli lived Italy as a country was not united but divide and split into little providences and republics. He latter became responsible for the Florentine militia against the Medici government and rule. When the Medici power reclaimed Florence Machiavelli was arrested for conspiracy he was tortured and then banished from Florence. During his banishment he wrote the book The Prince in 1513 which is dedicated to the new prince of Florence Lorenzo De Medici. The book was a discourse to the prince on how to run a country and also a way Machiavelli can get a job working in politics again.

ii. Towns & Local Governments

The local towns and governments in Utopia are split up into 54 separate large towns all equally alike in language, laws, customs, education and is no more than 26 miles apart from the next town. Each town in Utopia has about 30 houses that hold about 40 people each and 2 slave per house. Each house sends 20 members out to country for farming every 2 years the first year is spent training and the...

... middle of paper ...

... instruction manual to run a kingdom and at the same time it?s a resume for a job. The reason in which Machiavelli is writing this is to re-enter a political life and political job for the prince.

vii. Thesis

Sir Thomas Mores Utopia and Niccolo Machiavelli?s The Prince both concern themselves with the basic issues of how a society works and maintains itself. Utopia?s aim is to show and portray of a perfect government and society. The Prince is telling how to run a country successfully and not to be hated or demised in the end. Both of these books deal with the central message of governments and how they should be run from different view and from two very different men. The one issues that they both did agree on is the issue on communism where both said no to the issues both agreeing in the same fact that communism is a government for the lazy.

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