The picture of Europe and England in book I of Thomas More’s Utopia

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1, University of Hannover (Philosophische Fakultat - Englisches Seminar), course: Seminar: Early Modern Utopias, 10 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This paper is supposed to analyse the picture of England and Europe as it is drawn in Book I. The question that rises is, what major points of life in Europe in the beginning of the 16th century are being criticised. It is not possible to do so without taking into account the time of publication. It needs to be answered, what role the transition time of early 16th century played for the author to write such a book which founded a new genre of literature: The Utopia.2 From that point on literary works which described an invented, positive society where named Utopias. Chapter two is giving a short overview of the composition of Book I. It is followed by the main chapter (No. 3) of this paper. It deals with the political and social injustices in England and Europe as they are being characterized in the first Book of More’s Utopia. It focuses on the following major points of criticism: European monarchs, an adequate from of punishment (especially for theft), the important enclosure movement and the role of private property in a society. These different images - I would like to call them pieces of a puzzle - form a general impression (a puzzle so to say) which the reader gets about the contemporary state of Europe if he puts the pieces together. 2 Following important works of that genre are for instance A Modern Utopia by H. G. Wells, Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach, Dinotopia by James Gurney but also The New Atlantis by Francis Bacon.