Wherever you are, you always have to work. There's never any excuse for idleness. There are also no wine-taverns, no ale-houses, no brothels, no opportunities for seduction, no secret meeting-places. Everyone has his eye on you, so you're practically forced to get on with your job, and make some proper use of your spare time. (p. 84)
- Thomas More's Utopia

Summary Paper One is due

We study renaissance rhetoric, examining new tensions between governance and the emerging "individual" who struggles to reconcile the edicts of church and state with his conscience. Recalling Plato's communist regime, we explore Thomas More's utopian critique of the politics of his day, paying close attention to the physical and social mechanisms through which personal choice is moderated by social consensus.

Reading: More

Notes: Summary of More's Utopia

Off-campus webpages

UK Legal Information Centre, The Trial of Sir Thomas More, 1535

Francis Bacon, New Atlantis - maintained by Art Bin

Jason Hans Kleine, An Island of Socialism in Sixteenth Century Europe; Socialism in the Utopia of Sir Thomas More

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