Summary:
The
book begins with a short six-line poem, followed by a four-line poem
and a letter of greetings from Thomas More, the author, to his friend
Peter Giles. The two poems, written by Utopians, describe Utopia as
an ideal state.
Thomas
More was the Under-sheriff of the City of London, in the service of
King Henry VIII. More's friend, Peter Giles, was a corrector at a
printing press and a clerk of the city of Antwerp. The prefatory
letter concerns the printing and editing of the manuscript and also
tells a story of how More first learned of the Utopians.
More
recalls his meeting with Raphael Hythloday, for it is Raphael who
relayed the story of Utopia to More. More has simply recorded what he
has heard, striving to be as accurate as possible. In this regard,
Peter Giles can be of use for he was the one who first introduced
More to Hythloday. In his letter, More apologizes for taking such a
long time to send the manuscript to Gilesnearly
a year, when it was expected to take only six weeks. More explains
that his work has kept him very busy and when he comes home very
later he must devote time to his family. As a result, More has hardly
any time left for himself. More is
uncertain about a few small details, for example, the span of a
bridge that crosses the Utopian river of Anyder. More hopes that
Giles might remember the actual dimensions or perhaps for this and a
few other questions, Giles might even make contact with Raphael
Hythloday. Laughably, there is one major question that does need to
be addressed rather urgently: More does not remember "in what
part of that New World Utopia is located." The author confides
that he is rather embarrassed "not to know in which ocean the
island lies," especially since he has devoted so much time and
energy to recounting less significant details.
There
are a few individuals already prepared to go to Utopia including a
theologian who would like to see the island and meet its inhabitants.
He intends to ask the Pope to be made the Bishop of the Utopians.
More concludes his letter expressing his hesitation to publish the
work. Despite the good qualities of the work, Utopia will still be
exposed to the unnecessarily fierce commentary of critics. More
wonders whether it will be worthwhile in the end.
Analysis:
Throughout
Utopia, More alludes to the scholarly and traditional literature of
his period, also referencing earlier Greek and Latin works. Almost
immediately, Utopia presents itself as a book whose form is different
form other works. The full title of the work attests to this: "On
the best form of a Commonwealth and on the New Island of Utopia: a
Truly Precious Book No Less Profitable than Delightful by the most
Distinguished and Learned Gentleman Thomas More, Citizen and
Undersheriff of the Illustrious City of London." This book
includes several things: it presents philosophy as well as a travel
narrative about a foreign place. It poses as history but it is also a
fictional adventure-story. Finally, parts of Utopia read much like a
parable, aiming to improve the reader with a moral education by
giving examples illustrated in stories.
Just
as Utopia is a complex of genres, the Introduction is a "pastiche"
(collage) of different literary forms including the poem, the
pictogram and the epistle. Each of these serves a distinct narrative
purpose.
The
first poem is a six line stanza by Utopia's poet laureate. This poem
creates a pun on the word Utopia as opposed to eutopia. Utopia
actually means no-place, a fantasy. Eutopia means good place. The
poem describes Utopia as a eutopia and compares it to "Plato's
state." In one sense, Utopia is also a response to Plato's work,
The Republic. More presents his political philosophy, albeit in a
very abstracted way.
A
quatrain written about Utopus (the general who founded the eponymous
state) follows the sextet. Neither poem bears any significant
resemblance to the established lyrical forms of More's society.
Indeed, the poem is translated into prose. The poem tells us that
utopia was made into an island by the general, Utopus. It has
subsequently become a "philosophical state." Certainly, the
image of the island parallels More's Britain. Unlike its neighbors on
the continental mainland, the island is militarily secure enough to
forge its own identity and isolated enough to become a unique
philosophical state. Moreover, the security of the island makes it
safe for the citizens to traffic in commerce as participate in the
trade and exchange of ideas. According to the poem, Utopia eagerly
shares its ideas and adopts the best practices of other societies.
More's
letter to Peter Giles combines actual people with fictional
characters. This is what we would expect, considering the mix of
fictional and non-fictional genres incorporated within the work. More
has made himself into a character. Peter Giles is an actual friend of
More's and Giles assists in the publication of Utopia. Neither More
nor Giles had a friend named Raphael Hythloday. The New World
remains, in 1516, largely unexplored by Europeans, but there was no
"Utopia" nor had More traveled to any distant lands.
In
the letter (the "epistle") to Giles, More is actually
writing to the reader indirectly. Details which Giles would already
know are supplied to give the reader context. This is a form of
apostrophe because the speaker is addressing his intended audience
indirectly. The themes of truth and virtue are very important in
Utopia. Narrative accuracy certainly involves issues of truth, but
the definition of truth depends upon what sort of narrative is being
written: in the same way that we can judge the philosophy of the
Utopians as true or false, we can judge the philosophy of Utopia as
true or false. If Utopia as a travelogue, we would look to see
whether its descriptions were true (i.e., accurate). On the other
hand, as a work of history, Utopia would be true if it were
"objective." And if we are reading Utopia as a fictional
work, an adventure story or fantasy, "truth" is more a
matter of consistency and believability: Do the characters sound like
themselves? Is that how Utopians would really act?
The
idea of public service is another major theme of this work. More is
the under-sheriff of London and he serves in several other roles
before he dies. Giles is a clerk for the city of Antwerp. Raphael
Hythloday presents ideas regarding the individual's obligations to
society. To the extent that Utopia was written to enhance the public
debate on the "ideal" state, the book is an act of public
service.
Finally,
the idea of travel to the "New World" is an obvious theme
of Utopia. We cannot travel to Utopia because it does not exist and
furthermore, it is far away and the passage is dangerous. The next
best thing is to receive an account of the New World from Hythloday
and this is what More faithfully presents to us. There were plenty of
travelogues and "accounts of the Indies"mostly
spuriouson the market during More's era. Utopia borrows the idea of
the New World, but More does not argue that Utopia is actually a
location somewhere in the actual New World.
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