Utopia

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Recommended: Scholarly analysis of Sir Thomas More's utopia

Utopia

In the year 1515, a book in Latin text was published which became the most significant and controversial text ever written in the field of political science. Entitled, ‘DE OPTIMO REIPUBLICATE STATU DEQUE NOVA INSULA UTOPIA, clarissimi disertissimique viri THOMAE MORI inclutae civitatis Londinensis civis et Vicecomitis’, translated into English would read, ‘ON THE BEST STATE OF A COMMONWEALTH AND ON THE NEW ISLAND OF UTOPIA, by the Most Distinguished and Eloquent Author THOMAS MORE Citizen and Undersheriff of the Famous City of London.’.

Utopia (Latin: no-place) is a society of great planning and capability. A community where individuals compromised their rights for the good of the collective and focused on a communal goal. These ideals of an infinitely capable and cooperative. Utopic society have captured the imagination of the greatest minds throughout the centuries. One may find the origin of Utopian thoughts in the Republic and Law conceived by Plato and in The Nicomachean Ethics and Politics created by Aristotle. The two individuals are the founding fathers of western philosophy, and their works are the basis of the western political science. Despite the thoughts on a planned society that preceded More in the field of Utopic philosophy, the first complete Utopia was credited to More and it became the pinnacle of Renaissance humanist thought. In the book, Utopia, More employed the fictional character Ralpheal Hythloday to bring a practical Utopia to the readers. The travelogue of the Island of Utopia from Hythloday would act as the model of many Eutopias (Latin: happy-place) and dystopias (Latin: opposite-place) created from a variety of interpretations by authors such as Karl Marx, revolutionist, and H.G We...

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...niversity Library Online. Nov 1996.

Eurich, Nell. Science in Utopia: A Might Design. Massachusetts: Harvard University

Press, 1967

Fox, Alistair. Utopia: An Elusive Vision. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993

Hertzler, Joyce Oramel Ph.D. The History of Utopian Thought. New York: The

MacMillan Copany, 1926

Kateb, George. Utopia and its Enemies. London: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963

Logan, George M., Adams, Robert M., Miller, Clarence H. Utopia: Thomas More: Latin

Text and English Translation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995

Logan, George M., Adams, Robert M. Utopia: More. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1988

Olin, John C. Interpreting Thomas More’s Utopia. New York: Fordham university

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Russell, Frances Theresa. Touring Utopia: The Realm of Constructive Humanism. New

York: The Vail-ballou Press, 1932

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