Thomas More: Utopia and the Vision of Ideal Life

Intermediate Diploma Thesis from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: Good, University of Hamburg (Institute for Anglistics/American Studies), course: Thomas More and his Utopia, language: English, abstract: There are strong indications that Utopia is not meant to be an alternative to existing states. More, almost certainly, never intended to write a political program for when he learned that Utopia was used by revolutionary reformist groups as a prescription he declared that, if he had known, he would have 'never written the book at all, or, if the manuscript already existed, he would have had it burned'. Literary critics have even seen Utopia mainly as a 'jeu d'esprit' of an intellectual. However from the contrast of a state, which has banished all the mortal sins and exists on the premises of Christian moral grounds and of intelligence, rather than on passion and ecstasy, a form can be derived on which other states can be judged.