Utopia By Tomas Moore Essay Research Paper — страница 2

  • Просмотров 359
  • Скачиваний 5
  • Размер файла 20
    Кб

is important to get that right so that we may build upon it. To start off this section I would like to quote J.H. Hexter because I cannot put it into any better words than what he has already done. “As its title hints, the essay which follows is not the history but the biographical sketch of an idea, the idea for the book called Utopia. Like all ideas for books it was born and had its whole life span in the mind of an author. Like all such ideas it ceased to be when the printed book Utopia became a black-on-white reality. At that moment the author’s idea for the book no longer controlled its content, and a new, different, and collective biography begins-the biography of other people’s ideas about what Utopia meant (Hexter 3).” In this section that is what I plan to do,

not tell you what other people say More meant, but to actually tell you what More meant. The theme of Thomas More’s Utopia is not a very easy thing to figure out, for Thomas More seems to have a way of being ambiguous about his own thoughts. There is a predominant view that hails More as the predecessor of Karl Marx; whilst there is another group that sees Thomas More more as an idealist who wished for only a few of the things that he wrote to be implemented; yet there are some who claim More as a staunch defender of private property, a.k.a. Capitalism. But it is my opinion that none of these get at the real heart of what Thomas was writing about. I believe that the theme of Utopia is that we must follow the Christian example of living together in peace and harmony. I do not

believe that St. Thomas More really cares about how such an institution would come about, just that it does. The first thing that I think that needs to be done is to disprove the other three prevailing notions of what Thomas More was trying to accomplish. Let us start with the prevailing notion that More was an early Marx. Let us take a look at what More has to say about private property, but let us look at what he is actually saying (Hexter 33). In Utopia More himself only makes two comments concerning private property, and after looking at what More says I think we will have a different view of Thomas More. “In the communitie of theire liffe and liuinge, without anny occupieng of money; by the whyche thynge onelye all nobilitie, magnificence, wourship, honour, and maiestie,

the true ornamentes and honoures, as the common opinion is, of a common wealth, vtterly be ouerthrowen and destroyed (Lupton 308).” “But I am of a contrary opinion ‘ (quod I) ‘for me thynketh that men shal neuer there lyue wealthelye, where all thynges be commen. For how can there be abundaunce of gooddes, or of any thing, where euery man with draweth his hand from labour? Whome the regarde of his owne gaines driueth not to woorke, and the hoope that he hath in other mens trauayles maketh hym slowthfull. Then when they be prycked with pouertye, and yet no man can by any law or right defend that for his owne handes, shall not ther of necessitie be continuall sedition and bloodshede? Specially the authoritie and reuerende of magistrates being taken away; which what place it

maye haue wyth suche men, among whome is no difference, I can not deuise (Lupton 109-110).” Thomas More says nothing in praise, necessarily, concerning the tales of Raphael Hythloday. All that is said comes from the mouth of the traveler that Peter Giles introduces to Thomas. The mysterious Raphael himself never explicitly agrees with the customs and laws of the Utopians, he is merely telling them to Peter Giles and Thomas More: “for we haue taken vpon vs to shewe and declare theyr lores and ordenaunces, and not to defende them” (Lupton 211). At the end of Raphael’s talk with Peter Giles and Thomas More, More had many questions that he wants to ask, but he doesn’t for he sees Raphael tired from his talk and so he merely compliments the Utopian constitution and the

explanation that Raphael had given (Gallagher 68). It clearly demonstrates that there is no forcefulness to Marxism in Thomas More, only that leap that Marxians make to have an authority on their side. Let us now turn our attentions to those who claim that only bits and pieces of what More writes are to be the thoughts of More himself. Let us take their argument with their own elements and a little bit of common sense. We know that More had an exceptional talent in literature and a sharp intellect (Hexter 12). We also know that a person, who would write in such a fashion, only wanting certain things in his writings to become a reality, would have to be a complete fool when it came to writing. Since we know that More was definitely not ignorant in the realms of literature, it must