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Utopia

Thomas More coined the term "Utopia" in his 1516 book to describe an ideal society. The story is told through conversations between More and a traveler named Raphael Hythloday, who describes visiting the island of Utopia. Utopia is ruled by egalitarian and strict principles - property and work are shared by all, but punishments for minor offenses are severe. While interpreted as a critique of European governance, Utopia also presented ideas that influenced later works exploring ideal and dystopian societies. The themes of property, wealth, and crime and punishment are powerful elements of More's examination of an ideal civilization.

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Diana Sauciuc
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49 views1 page

Utopia

Thomas More coined the term "Utopia" in his 1516 book to describe an ideal society. The story is told through conversations between More and a traveler named Raphael Hythloday, who describes visiting the island of Utopia. Utopia is ruled by egalitarian and strict principles - property and work are shared by all, but punishments for minor offenses are severe. While interpreted as a critique of European governance, Utopia also presented ideas that influenced later works exploring ideal and dystopian societies. The themes of property, wealth, and crime and punishment are powerful elements of More's examination of an ideal civilization.

Uploaded by

Diana Sauciuc
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Utopia

Utopia means a place where everything is perfect. This word was firstly coined by sir Thomas More
and later it bacame a literary genre. thomas More, by this writing, aims to mend and satirize the society that
he was living in.

The author relates how during his residence in the Low Countries on official business, he \
encountered an acquaintance, Peter Giles, who was talking with a man of a quite unusual appearance. Giles
introduced the stranger as Raphael Hythloday, explaining that he had many fascinating experiences to relate
because of his extensive travels to different places.

Therefore, the story is structured as a series of conversations between More and fictional traveler
Raphael Hythloday, who has just returned from a journey during which he visited the titular island. This so
called ideal civilization is ruledd by ideas that are by turns egalitarian and draconian—property and work are
divided equally, but punishments for certain relatively minor offenses are severe.

The novel, interpreted as both a sly critique of European governance and of the notion that society
can be perfected, remains influential in the creation of imaginary worlds. Later authors built on the ideas laid
out in Utopia to write utopian and dystopian books such as 1984, Brave New World, and Walden Two. The
idea of utopia has also influenced the development of such political philosophies as communism and the
cooperative and commune movements.

Sir Thomas More, one of the most famous men in European history, first published Utopia in Latin in
1516. Even though he never describes a particular purpose in writing Utopia, it is thought that the novel is a
combination of social satire and genuine philosophical thinking.

The book contains many powerful themes, such as property and wealth, the perfect place, and crime
and punishment. Symbols include the island representing Utopia’s uniqueness and isolation from the world,
and gold representing greed in a society where everyone’s needs are met.

As it says in the novel, Hythloday believes Utopia to be the greatest social order in the world-
"Everywhere else people talk about the public good but pay attention to their own private interests. In Utopia,
where there is no private property, everyone concerned about pursuing the benefits of the society." In Utopia,
no man worries about food or poverty for themselves or any of their descendants. Unlike the rest of the world,
where men who do nothing worth of it, live in luxury, in Utopia, all people work and all live well. Only this, in
Hythloday's mind, is truly just. Hythloday believes societies other than Utopia are merely conspiracies of the
rich, "whose objective is to increase their own wealth while the government they control claims to be a
commonwealth concerned with the common welfare."

To sum up, these societies are great illustrations of greed and pride. And pride causes men to
measure their well-being not by their „blessings” , but by having things that others lack, which is quite
irrational. Only in Utopia pride and all other human flaws have been eliminated from society.

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