Thomas More

Utopia is an enlightened pagan community All land and goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed; there is no private property of any kind.
More’s Limitations
1. More had no revolutionary spirit. 2. In More’s works, the system of bondsmen(农奴) still retains the features of class exploitation. 3. More could never find at that time the means to realize socialism.
2. Definition of Utopia

Utopia is an island
Large bay that protects it from the ocean and wind. The bay allows for easy internal shipping and travel, but makes any sort of external attack unlikely
Major Themes
Utopia reveals the ideal conditions of a society and his solution to the many social illness that were pervasive in the 16th C. Europe. Utopia deals primarily with the question of the relation of the State and the individual.
In the second book, an ideal society is presented in the form of Utopia, one that many European countries should emulate.
The second book is an explanation of the many laws and customs of Utopian society.
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Comments on Thomas More:
1. A great humanist and far-sighted thinker. 2. A learned scholar, an expert of Latin. 3. A forceful talker, a lover of music. 4. An honest statesman, a man of nobility. 5. A lover of nature and mankind. 6. A forerunner of socialist theory.
More’s Utopia 《乌托邦》
More’s masterpiece. It is written in the form of a conversation between a returned and experienced voyager, and More himself. It is also a detailed description of the social condition of England. Two parts: Utopia, Book One; Utopia, Book Two.
The definition of Utopia is "no place." A Utopia is an ideal society in which the social, political, and economic evils afflicting human kind have been wiped out.
The first book describes the unacceptable social conditions of English and European society in the 16th C. where the division between the rich and the poor was quite wide and those in power practiced unethical and self-serving politics. Most of Book I is a dialogue between the three men who have gathered to discuss Hythloday's travels
More’s Family
When Henry VIII divorced his wife, and married Anne Boleyn, More refused to attend the coronation of Boleyn and was marked for vengeance. A number of false charges were soon brought against More. More was convicted and executed in 1535.
Utopia (1516)
1. Background information

Plato’s Republic
The recent explorations of the newly discovered countries with their strange customs also provided More with a fresh perspective.
All the citizens are on an equal footing and have the same rights. Every one must engage in physical labor.

Structure
Utopia is divided into two books.
Thomas More （托马斯•莫尔）
1.Thomas More （托马斯•莫尔） 2. Utopia 《乌托邦》 3. Comments on Thomas More
Thomas More (1478—1535)
Life and Career
Born in a middle-class family Spokesman of London merchants Lord Chancellor of England under Henry VIII(1529) He was a prose writer in the English Renaissance. He was one of the best representatives of the English humanists.