Thomas More's Utopia

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Introduction

The following work is intended to examine a classic piece of renaissance of literature titled “Utopia”. Sir Thomas More who was a key exponent of the renaissance humanist movement wrote the work utopia in the 16th century. The approach More used to develop this work was a fictuous approach. It was a brilliant method of getting his views on the political structure of Europe during the 16th century across. You see, because More’s social views were so radical for that period of time, had he came out with simply a non-fiction thesis on the issues at hand he would have been scrutinized. So what Sir Thomas More did in using a fictional approach was combined his inner struggle into two characters; Raphael Hythloday who was brought into the story as a philosopher who had traveled to an island named Utopia and a character with the same name as himself. When meeting the character of More, Hythloday told him about his adventures to this island and his encounters with the people there. This island of Utopia was used in the story to contrast Sir Thomas Mores views on what would make an ideal society. The work “Utopia” compares More’s views with the state of England during the 16th century.

Part 1
Utopia is seen as one of the greatest ideological writings in the history of politics. Sir Thomas More used this work to state his views on the make-up of an ideal society and at the same time examine the problems with European society at the time he was present there. Some of the important issues More discusses as being problems with European society include the use of capital punishment in reference to the crime of theft, “the enclosure movement”, poor political practices and the corruption of European society from Christian values.
In 16th century England to my great surprise the crime of theft was treated as equal to the crime of murder. To imagine stealing a loaf of bread being equal to a homicide is a concept that...