![]() There, Greenblatt argued that More was under the Epicurean influence of Lucretius's On the Nature of Things and the people that live in Utopia were an example of how pleasure has become their guiding principle of life. Quentin Skinner's interpretation of Utopia is consistent with the speculation that Stephen Greenblatt made in The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. But without communism, which he saw no possibility of occurring, it was wiser to take a more pragmatic view. Thus the society Raphael proposes is the ideal More would want. Crucially, Skinner sees Raphael Hythlodaeus as embodying the Platonic view that philosophers should not get involved in politics, while the character of More embodies the more pragmatic Ciceronian view. He has argued that More was taking part in the Renaissance humanist debate over true nobility, and that he was writing to prove the perfect commonwealth could not occur with private property. One highly influential interpretation of Utopia is that of intellectual historian Quentin Skinner. It can be answered, however, that as a pagan society Utopians had the best ethics that could be reached through reason alone, or that More changed from his early life to his later when he was Lord Chancellor. Similarly, the criticism of lawyers comes from a writer who, as Lord Chancellor, was arguably the most influential lawyer in England. Another often cited apparent contradiction is that of the religious tolerance of Utopia contrasted with his persecution of Protestants as Lord Chancellor. Yet, the puzzle is that some of the practices and institutions of the Utopians, such as the ease of divorce, euthanasia and both married priests and female priests, seem to be polar opposites of More's beliefs and the teachings of the Catholic Church of which he was a devout member. Indeed, Utopia has many of the characteristics of satire, and there are many jokes and satirical asides such as how honest people are in Europe, but these are usually contrasted with the simple, uncomplicated society of the Utopians. Most scholars see it as a comment on or criticism of 16th century Catholicism, for the evils of More's day are laid out in Book I and in many ways apparently solved in Book II. One of the most troublesome questions about Utopia is Thomas More's reason for writing it. Many aspects of More's description of Utopia are reminiscent of life in monasteries. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. Utopia (Libellus vere aureus, nec minus salutaris quam festivus, de optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia) is a work of fiction and socio-political satire by Thomas More (1478-1535) published in 1516 in Latin. However, in standard usage, the word's meaning has narrowed and now usually describes a non-existent society that is intended to be viewed as considerably better than contemporary society. The word comes from Greek and strictly describes any non-existent society 'described in considerable detail'. The term utopia was coined from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island society in the south Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South America. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy notice. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Click "Decline" to reject, or "Customise" to make more detailed advertising choices, or learn more. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Cookies store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. Your choice applies to using first-party and third-party advertising cookies on this service. If you agree, we'll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie notice.
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