Utopia book 1 summary

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In Book One, Thomas More describes the circumstances surrounding his trip to Flanders where he has the privilege of meeting Raphael Hythloday. This first part of Utopia chronicles the early conversations between More, Peter Giles , and Hythloday. The three men discuss a wide range of civil, religious and philosophical issues. Hythloday is renegade and iconoclastic on certain issues but he is a skilled orator. Both More and Giles think there is considerable merit in much of what Hythloday has to say. Book Two is the continuation of the conversation during which Hythloday explains the details of Utopia in full.

Utopia book 1 summary

More then travels to Antwerp, where he takes up residence and befriends an honest, learned citizen of that city named Peter Giles. More is returning home from church one day when he runs into Giles, who is speaking with an old man called Raphael Hythloday. Hythloday, we learn, sailed the world alongside the great historical explorer Amerigo Vespucci, and he even traveled to the New World by way of Asia. Moreover, it was in the New World that he came into contact with the Utopians, an island people who live in what Hythloday thinks to be the most perfectly organized commonwealth in the world. More and Giles are so impressed with Hythloday that they encourage him to go into the service of a prince as his counselor, but Hythloday has his doubts: princes are too interested chivalry and war to heed wisdom, and his fellow counselors would be proud and corrupt. There a lawyer praised England for severely punishing its thieves with the death penalty. Hythloday counters that the punishment is disproportionate to the crime in such a case; moreover, he argues that, instead of killing its thieves, England should change the social conditions that breed thieves in the first place. Specifically, he indicts the pride and greed of aristocrats and landowners as a great cause of idleness among the lower classes. Idleness, he says, causes poverty and misery. Hythloday instead proposes that thieves be forced to labor as punishment, which would spare them their lives and also serve the public good. At the end of this story, More says that he still believes that if Hythloday were to serve as the counselor of a prince, he would greatly benefit his nation.

While they are on the road they carry no provisions with them, yet they want for nothing, but utopia book 1 summary everywhere treated as if they were at home. The Macarians do not permit their king to have more than a thousand pounds of gold or silver in his treasury, and by this measure they make sure that he enriches his country and not himself. The rich do not breed cattle as they do sheep, but buy them lean and at low prices; and, after they have fattened them on their grounds, utopia book 1 summary, sell them again at high rates.

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Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides. The Utopian Genre. The critic J. Davis advances an influential account in his Utopia and the Ideal Society He argues that, unlike other ideal world narratives, utopias idealize neither people nor nature; that is, people who appear in utopian works can be good or bad, just like in the real world, and nature can be both fruitful and hostile, just like in the real world. Whether this is the case, of course, has yet to be seen. Utopia in the World and in Us.

Utopia book 1 summary

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement. Book 1.

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But the method that I liked best was that which I observed in my travels in Persia, among the Polylerits, who are a considerable and well-governed people: they pay a yearly tribute to the King of Persia, but in all other respects they are a free nation, and governed by their own laws: they lie far from the sea, and are environed with hills; and, being contented with the productions of their own country, which is very fruitful, they have little commerce with any other nation; and as they, according to the genius of their country, have no inclination to enlarge their borders, so their mountains and the pension they pay to the Persian, secure them from all invasions. Hythloday counters that the punishment is disproportionate to the crime in such a case; moreover, he argues that, instead of killing its thieves, England should change the social conditions that breed thieves in the first place. Not until all men are good, More says, can all be well—and some men will be bad a while yet. The Achorian king conquered a new kingdom, but had a harder time keeping it than he did in getting it because of rebellion. Teacher Editions with classroom activities for all titles we cover. The lodestone is a cautionary image for the book as a whole: just as the lodestone can help people navigate the sea, so can Utopia help us navigate the difficulties of governing well; but to become too confident in such a guide is also to court disaster. Log in Sign up Sparknotes. Summary Full Work Summary. On these issues, either More is silent or he takes the traditional position. My Account white. The hospitals are furnished and stored with all things that are convenient for the ease and recovery of the sick; and those that are put in them are looked after with such tender and watchful care, and are so constantly attended by their skilful physicians, that as none is sent to them against their will, so there is scarce one in a whole town that, if he should fall ill, would not choose rather to go thither than lie sick at home. I believe that they were a colony of the Greeks; for though their language comes nearer the Persian, yet they retain many names, both for their towns and magistrates, that are of Greek derivation. And the magistrates of the town take care to see it given them; for they meet generally in the town once a month, upon a festival day.

More tells how, when he was in the Low Countries on government business, he was introduced by his friend Peter Giles to Raphael Hythloday, a veteran traveler.

Utopus, that conquered it whose name it still carries, for Abraxa was its first name , brought the rude and uncivilised inhabitants into such a good government, and to that measure of politeness, that they now far excel all the rest of mankind. After those civilities were past which are usual with strangers upon their first meeting, we all went to my house, and entering into the garden, sat down on a green bank and entertained one another in discourse. Raphael Hythloday is half-sage, half-fool and Book One develops both literary traditions. Yet they do not place happiness in all sorts of pleasures, but only in those that in themselves are good and honest. Yet they do not think themselves a whit the less noble, though their immediate parents have left none of this wealth to them, or though they themselves have squandered it away. In the Biblical tradition, a paradisiacal garden is imagined as surrounding the City of God in Heaven, and it is therefore a fitting location for three virtuous people to contemplate the perfect cities of Utopia. An idea is praised not for its merit but for its maker. To prevent all these inconveniences they have fallen upon an expedient which, as it agrees with their other policy, so is it very different from ours, and will scarce gain belief among us who value gold so much, and lay it up so carefully. Hythloday is not surprised by this question, but says that, had More lived in Utopia as he had for more than five years, More would grant that no people are as well-ordered as the Utopians themselves. Log in Sign up Sparknotes. While in other places four or five upper garments of woollen cloth of different colours, and as many vests of silk, will scarce serve one man, and while those that are nicer think ten too few, every man there is content with one, which very often serves him two years; nor is there anything that can tempt a man to desire more, for if he had them he would neither be the, warmer nor would he make one jot the better appearance for it. They knew little concerning us before our arrival among them.