Sir Thomas More's Utopia

Sir Thomas More's Utopia

Thomas More (1478 - 1535)

Born: February 7, 1478

London, England

Died: July 6, 1535

Tower Hill, London, England
 Sir Thomas More's Utopia

• About four centuries before "Star Trek,"

three centuries before Jules Verne and
his Time Machine, and two centuries
before Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's
Travels, there was Sir Thomas More's
Utopia.
 Sir Thomas More's Utopia

• Utopia, which translates roughly as "no

place" in Greek, was published in 1516.
The book played a key role in the
Humanist awakening of the 16th century,
which moved away from Medieval
otherworldliness toward Renaissance
secularism.
 Utopia

• Written in Latin, Utopia

was inspired by Plato's
Republic and the accounts
of explorers such as
Amerigo Vespucci. It is
also largely based on the
voyages of More himself,
specifically to the
Netherlands.
 Utopia

• The term "Utopia" has

come to mean an idyllic,
visionary Shang-ri-la type
of community. However,
when More derived the
term from the Greek, it
literally meant "nowhere."
 Utopia
• Much of More's book was
extracted from and
influenced by the Bible,
especially from the
"Christian Humanists"
biblical interpretations that
formed a vanguard of
social criticism in his time.
 Utopia
• More yearned to change
his world for the better. He
saw that wanton greed
and terrible poverty were
often irrevocably bound to
one another, and he
argued vehemently for the
closing of the separation
between classes.
Sir Thomas More's Utopia
 References
• Thomas More. (2008, February 22). In
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Retrieved 14:16, February 26, 2008,
from http://en.wikipedia.org/