Sir Thomas Mores Utopia

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Sir Thomas More's Sir Thomas More's Utopia Utopia

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Saint Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), also known as Sir Thomas More, was an English lawyer, author, and statesman. During his lifetime he earned a reputation as a leading humanist scholar and occupied many public offices, including that of Lord Chancellor from 1529 to 1532. More coined the word "utopia", a name he gave to an ideal, imaginary island nation whose political system he described in a book published in 1516. He is chiefly remembered for his principled refusal to accept King Henry VIII's claim to be supreme head of the Church of England, a decision which ended his political career and led to his execution for treason.

Transcript of Sir Thomas Mores Utopia

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Thomas More   (1478 - 1535)

Born:  February 7, 1478London, England

Died:  July 6, 1535Tower Hill, London, England

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• About four centuries before "Star Trek," three centuries before Jules Verne and his Time Machine, and two centuries before Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, there was Sir Thomas More's Utopia.

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• Utopia, which translates roughly as "no place" in Greek, was published in 1516. The book played a key role in the Humanist awakening of the 16th century, which moved away from Medieval otherworldliness toward Renaissance secularism.

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• Written in Latin, Utopia was inspired by Plato's Republic and the accounts of explorers such as Amerigo Vespucci. It is also largely based on the voyages of More himself, specifically to the Netherlands.

                                                                 

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• The term "Utopia" has come to mean an idyllic, visionary Shang-ri-la type of community. However, when More derived the term from the Greek, it literally meant "nowhere."

                                                                 

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• Much of More's book was extracted from and influenced by the Bible, especially from the "Christian Humanists" biblical interpretations that formed a vanguard of social criticism in his time.

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• More yearned to change his world for the better. He saw that wanton greed and terrible poverty were often irrevocably bound to one another, and he argued vehemently for the closing of the separation between classes.

                                                                 

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ReferencesReferences

• Thomas More. (2008, February 22). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 14:16, February 26, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/