Almost one month ago, precisely on February 7th, the English writer Thomas Moore would complete 540 years old. So, this post is a tribute to him, he was a pioneer in many areas. He was against the despot monarchy, he advocated for genre equality and for a better education, he was against the explotation and injustice caused by his desire for more democracy. A common feature that all those utopian novels from the 16th and 17th centuries share is a broad and good education as a mean to achieve a better life and society. What we, in the 21th century, are still struggling to achieve. This post is a summary of three articles, the first was published at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_More. The second was published at http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/flawedperfection/stories/more.htm. The third was published at https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/u/utopia-utopian-literature/about-utopia-and-utopian-literature. The fourth was published at https://owlcation.com/humanities/Was-Thomas-Mores-book-Utopia-a-typical-product-of-Renaissance-humanism
Sir Thomas Moore ( 1478-1535 ) venerated in the Cathholic Church as Saint Thomas Moore was an English lawyer, philosopher, author, stateman, and noted Renaissance humanist. Moore opposed the Protestant Reformation. He also opposed the king's separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to acknowledge Henry as Head of the Church of England. After refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, he was convicted of treason and beheaded. He was canonised in 1935 and Pope John Paul II in 2000 declared him the "Patron of Stateman and Politicians." From 1490 to 1492, Moore served the Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of England. Believing that Moore had great potential, the Archbishop nominated him for a place at the University of Oxford. Moore left Oxford after only two years, at his father's insistence, to begin legal training in London. He married Jane Colt in 1505 and he tutored her in music and literature. The couple had three daughters and one son. Moore insisted upon giving his daughters the same classical education as his son, a unusual attitude at the time. His oldest daughter Margaret, attracted much admiration for her fluency in Greek and Latin. Moore 's decision to educate his daughters set an example for other families. Even Erasmus became much more favourable once he witnessed their accomplishments. In 1504 Moore was elected to Parliament to represent Yarmouth, and in 1510 began representing London. He earned a reputation as an honest and effective public servant. In 1514 he was appointed as a Privy Counsellor. In 1521 he became secretary and personal adviser to King Henry VII, Moore became increasingly influential : welcoming diplomats, drafting documents, and serving as a liaison between the King and the Chancellor. In 1525 he became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, with executive and judicial responsibilities over much northern England. Moore's best known and most controversial work, Utopia is a novel written in Latin. Erasmus published the book in 1516, but it was only translated into English and published in his native land in 1551. Utopia contrasts the contentious social life of European states with the perfectly orderly, reasonable social arrangements. Communal ownership supplants private property, men and women are educated alike, and there is religious toleration. Moore may have used the monastic communalism as his model. Utopia gave rise to a literary genre, Utopian and Dystopian fiction, which features ideal societies or their opposite. Having been praised "as a communist hero by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, because of the attitude to property in his book.
Thomas Moore entered Parliament in 1504. He strongly opposed the amount of power the king, then Henry VII, held. After pushing for some type of recession of power, Moore's father was arrested and Moore was forced to withdraw from the public eye and pay a fine. When Henry VII died Moore began to take a serious role in politics. Moore refused to sign the Oath of Supremacy, which gave the king, Henry VIII more power than the pope. Moore resigned his office. A year later the king Henry VIII had Moore imprisioned in the Tower of London. During his times Thomas Moore would have been considered a Renaissance man because he didn't limit himself to one particular arena of life. Moore was a politician and a writer, and held numerous positions besides that. Through the many facets of his life, he greatly altered the world during his time, and for future generations. In his writings and his work in politics, he became an example for others. Moore's Utopia changed the face of literature in many ways. It gave authors a new way to express their ideals. It also spawned, or at least facilitated, the movement of literature from pure entertainment to realistic portrayals of society and social conscious in writers. He had a great impact on historical Europe and our world today. He helped spread Christian humanism. He helped England negotiate peace between the religious conflict of Reformation. He gave many politicians at that time the courage to stand against the authoritarianism of the king Henry VIII. He aided our times by developing a new form of literature.
Utopia has a quality of universality, as revealed by the fact that it has fascinated readers for five centuries, and has influenced countless writers. The Renaissance age has been styled by many historians, viewing it as a brilliant development in Western civilization. The "classical revival" was at the center of the intellectual and artistic agitation of the age. It involved a realization, or rediscovery, that a very great civilization had flourished in ancient Greece and Rome and a conviction that conscientious study and imitation of that civilization offered the key to new greatness. They acquired a sense of the worth of the individual and of the dignity of man. Growing gradually out of these concepts came the philosophy of humanism and the magnificent achievements in the fine arts. Italy was unquestionably the fountainhead of Renaissance civilization. As early as the 14th century, men of enlightenment were introducing renaissance concepts. Through most of the 15th century, the achievements were predominantly Italian, but by the beginning of the 16th century the movement was spreading to other countries of Europe. During the century following Utopia, the utopian vogue flourished, set off by the interest which Moore's book generated and given added impetus through the discoveries of new lands and the fascinating and exotic races encountered in those regions. There is a passage in Rabelais's Gargantua that is cited among the celebrated Renaissance descriptions of an idealized society. The society portrayed is confined to a monastery that is regulated in an original and unconventional manner. All of the member are happy because, being exempt from any kind of restrictions or regimantation, they are at liberty to pursue their inclinations and encouraged to develop their talents to their full potential. But the most unconventional feature is the integration of male and female initiates. The members are free to leave it at will and also to marry. The whole idea, which at first strikes the readers as one Rabelais's jests, is discovered to express a fundamental feature of his philosophy. What he is saying is that people are, by nature, good and, if given free scope and encouraged to live full lives, will develop into healthy and bright creatures, full of grace. The early 17th century marks the appearance of several ambitious accounts of utopian societies, the most successsful being: The City of the Sun (1623) by Tommaso Campanella, Christianopolis (1619) by Johann Andreae, and The New Atlantis (1624) by Francis Bacon. Campanella's City of the Sun, are evident the influence of Moore and Plato at many points. The tale is told by a sea captain who has visited an island called Taprobane. In the treatment of education, Campanella reveals himself as a 17th century thinker, placing great emphasis on the study of the sciences, all of the sciences. He has a plan for spreading information on all branches of knowledge through pictures displayed throughout the city walls and in corridors of public buildings. Their leaders believe that the advancement of scientific knowledge is the principal key to the betterment of the human race. The rulers in the City are men of superior intelligence and probity. The head of the government is called Hoh, what means metaphysics. The requisites for the chief are a familiarity with the history of all kingdoms and their governments, a extensive knowledge of all sciences, and a mastery of metaphysics and theology. H.G.Wells devotes much of his attention to preview of possible future developments of civilization. Among the better known of his publications in that field are: The Time Machine (1895), When the Sleeper Awakes (1899), A Modern Utopia (1905), Men Like Gods (1923), and The Shape of Things to Come (1933). The great society of the future, he believes, will have a worldwide structure, a World State. The entire human race will become one commonwealth and a common language. Equality for all mankind is not a realistic goal in Wells's view. That, he believes, would mean a loss of individuality, and an inherent requirement of human nature. Similarly, competition is necessary to a thriving society. The optimistic views which the author held regarding inevitable progress of human society were somewhat undermined by the events of World War I, as is demonstrated on his later writings. His warnings of the possibility of developing mind control through blatant advertising and through drugs is prophetic.
Thomas Moore's Utopia is in many respects a typical product of Renaissance humanism. It bears all the signs of a humanist interest in the classical languages and forms and like Erasmus de Rotterdam was preoccupied with ancient philosophical views on ethical values. What makes the work even more typical of Renaissance humanism is its concentration on the application of classical ideas to contemporary society and particularly, politics. Behind all their work was the humanist desire for progress. Moore'sw underlying aim, it could be argued, was a concern for public morality and the corruption by mortals of Christian ethics. Moore is an example of such an individual. His writings, his work as both a lawyer and politician and his rise to high office must have created tensions which were peculiar to the era in which he existed.
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