Humanist study and the exercise of power
Born in London in 1478, More studied at Oxford before training in law at the Inns of Court. Friendship with Erasmus joined his classical studies to an international humanist circle. Legal practice, parliamentary service and diplomatic missions developed alongside poetry, translation and historical writing. He married Jane Colt, and after her death Alice Middleton; education, including that of his daughters, was important within his household.
More became lord chancellor in 1529. His defence of Catholic orthodoxy included active prosecution of religious dissent, and six people convicted of heresy were executed during his chancellorship. Opposition to Henry VIII’s religious policies led to his resignation in 1532. His refusal to accept the required oath brought imprisonment in the Tower, trial and execution in 1535. His subsequent reputation as a martyr and man of conscience exists alongside the record of his own use of coercive religious authority.
An invented commonwealth with several speaking voices
Utopia frames Raphael Hythloday’s account through a letter to Peter Giles and a conversation about government and service to rulers. The writer’s apparent concern with repeating a traveller accurately lends an imagined society the texture of reported testimony. Different speakers advance different positions, complicating the identification of any one speech with More’s personal programme.
The second book examines institutions through work, property, marriage, war and religion. Their connections make the commonwealth a system to consider rather than a collection of isolated inventions. The held 1852 volume also contains Francis Bacon’s separate New Atlantis, J. A. St. John’s analysis of Plato’s Republic and notes, and a preface by Bishop Burnet. These editorial surroundings add further voices to a work already built around dialogue.
