Thomas More's
On the Best State of a Commonwealth and on the New Island of Utopia(or just
Utopiaas the work is most commonly known) was first published in 1516 at Louvain. A second edition appeared in 1518. It was written in Latin for a relatively small readership of international, humanist scholars and was heavily promoted by More's friend Desiderius Erasmus, the celebrated Dutch humanist.
Utopiatakes the form of a dialogue supposedly held by a group of More's friends and in which a fictionalized version of More himself takes part. Insofar as it is a dialogue, the work is modeled on the dialogues of Cicero rather than on those of Plato (though it glances back to Plato's
Republic); in other words, More's dialogue is not designed to reach a point where the issues and problems under…
1961 words
Citation: Cousins, A. D.. "Utopia". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 October 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8578, accessed 21 November 2024.]
