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Loading... Utopia (1516)by Thomas More
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Prompted by Becky at Becky's Books, I read Thomas More's Utopia because it seemed relevant to a novel I am currently reading. (More about that soon). 'Utopian' is part of our everyday vocabulary now but when Thomas More wrote his book describing an alternative political system of an imaginary island state, it was a risky venture. In 1515 Henry VIII was on the throne, and in that year Wolsey, Archbishop of York was appointed cardinal by Leo X. Henry VIII then appointed him Lord Chancellor, and, as it says in the Introduction of the Project Gutenberg edition I read: ...from that year until 1523 the King and the Cardinal Wolsey ruled England with absolute authority, and called no parliament. Henry, as we all know, had succession troubles and he didn't need any frisky political opponents making things more complicated. Until his execution in 1535 — Thomas More managed to survive and thrive during his time as a lawyer, judge, and statesman, with deft political nous, which included suppressing Utopia during his life time. (It was More's opposition to the Protestant Reformation that brought him undone. He refused to swear an oath to please the King, and as you know if you read or saw Robert Bolt's 1954 A Man for All Seasons, Henry's reaction was swift and merciless.) Utopia was published in Europe, but not in England until 1551 under the reign of Edward VI, in a translation from the Latin by Ralph Robinson. It was generally acknowledged to be less 'literary' than the subsequent translation in 1684 by Gilbert Burnet, who had his own troubles with disagreeable monarchs. Burnet was drawn to the translation of “Utopia” by the same sense of unreason in high places that caused More to write the book. Well, even if you simply peruse the summary at Wikipedia, you can see how Utopia still applies in our time. Utopia begins with More doing real-life diplomatic things in Antwerp, but moves to his encounter with the traveller Raphael Hythlodaeus, exploring in some depth the knotty problem of how best to counsel a prince when he is not amenable to wise advice, new ideas or anything that contradicts his world view. To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/01/03/utopia-1515-by-sir-thomas-more-translated-by... There are some good concepts here, but the writing is very stilted and unpleasant, and many of the "solutions" presented just pass the buck of doing unpleasant tasks to other people, rather than creating a society that is equitable and pleasant for everyone. Mostly it left a bad taste in my mouth, thinking that there are people who might actually find the society described here utopic. This is a welcome translation of an important book in the history of ideas. It is not an exaggeration to say that our idea of utopia is founded in great part on the presentation of the world in this notable book. It is one of the small number of volumes that had an exponential effect on the way we consider the world around us. DNF: 20% Couldn't get into it, and I don't think I can blame the narrator. It's an awkward lack of rhythm for being fiction told in an almost nonfiction format, so it's distant without the benefit of a barrage of direct knowledge. Normally I force myself to finish, but for some reason I didn't argue when the idea to quit came up. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Publisher SeriesCentopaginemillelire (139) detebe-Klassiker (20420) — 16 more Is contained inThe Harvard Classics [50 Volume Set] by Charles William Eliot (indirect) Has as a student's study guideAwardsNotable Lists
Politics.
Nonfiction.
HTML: Sir Thomas More wrote Utopia in 1516 in Latin. His Utopia is a fictional island, whose society, religion and politics he explores. Critics do not believe that the island depicted More's idea of the perfect society, but rather that he hoped to throw the politics of his own time into a new light by contrasting them with his imagined island society. The work references Plato's Republic. .No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)335.02Social sciences Economics Socialism and related systems Utopian systems and schoolsLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Characters: 3
Setting: 6.5
Prose: 8
As with Well's "A Modern Utopia", the book is not so much a story as a pleasant way to introduce an ideal society. Not entirely what I was looking for. Might I suggest Huxley's "Island" as a more relevant alternative? ( )