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Thomas More's Utopia Analysis
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Utopia Notes, Summary and Analysis - Utopian Ideals and Thomas More
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31.01 Characteristics of Utopian Texts- Term 2 Document: 11EX T2 Utopia and Pleasantville
Romance of ideal or perfect world
Set in either ideal opast/point of origin; ideal future/destination; imaginary world
Attempt to regain a lost paradise
Strong sense of humanity ‘starting over’
Associated with faith in progress towards a better future
Some utopias are specific in their focus - e.g ecological, feminist, religious
Usually satires of the society of the composer, rather than blueprint for perfect society
Can be didactic-characters merely mouthpieces for views of composer
Values of the utopian world are contextual to the composer’s values
Involves large-scale or heroic engineering of society (and often condemned for this
reason)
High degree of control over society where individual are discourages from interfering
with the primary goals of the state
May posit the idea that happiness and freedom are mutually exclusive; privileges
freedom from, not freedom to
Problems arise over issues of how power relations, dissent and difference are handled
Critique generally comes from outside-an outsider perspective challenges the utopia
Can appear to be naive, impractical-often deliberately so, such as when the ideal itself is
the subject of the satire (as it often is in recent utopian literature)
Those who oppose utopian thinking believe human beings are not perfectible, and/or
that perfection is not desirable
- (Definitions)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15YaV42W3Eg58onZFYTTBBeKaUd2xbSLL/view?usp=dr
ive_web&authuser=2
- (Utopia Quotes)
https://classroom.google.com/u/2/c/NTgxODIzNjMxOTAy/a/NTgxODIzNjMxOTIy/details
,31.01 Questions on The Concept of Utopia by Fatima Vieira
1. Make sure you understand the following key words and provide definitions:
Key Words
● Literary Utopia: the literary genre based on utopian thought i.e. the “perfect world”
● Utopian Thought: the philosophy of the possibility of creating a utopia (utopianism,
alternate solutions to reality. Came before the genre)
● Neologism: a newly introduced word which may not yet be fully accepted
● Derivation neologism: words created from existing words
● Marxism: a theory created by Karl Marx that analyses the impacts of bourgeois rule over
the proletariat and proposes a classless society/a communist revolution (ideology based
on the principles of Engles and egalitarianism. A facet of literary criticism)
● Renaissance: period in European history of “rebirth” and rediscovering ideas (around
the 15-16th centuries). Rediscovery of classical philosophy
● The Enlightenment: (aka Age of Reason) a period in European history that emphasised
reason and science over superstition and blind faith (around 17-18th centuries)
● Industrial Age: period of history that involved the mass transition from manual to
mechanical labour & changes in economic and social organisation (1760 - 1840)
● The Post War Age: “Considering the post-war era (post-WW2; 1945) as equivalent to the
Cold War era, post-war sometimes includes the 1980s, putting the end on 26 December
1991, with the Dissolution of the Soviet Union.” Its main characteristic consists of rapid
Western expansion and influence on a global scale
2. Comment on the paradoxical nature of the original meaning of the word ‘Utopia’. Why
do you think More deliberately chose this?
More’s creation of the word ‘utopia’ was taken from Greek ‘ou’ and ‘topos,’ meaning ‘no
place. Ironically, the island of Utopia still existed as a perfect place or paradise: a “good
place.” The paradoxical nature of this word thus reveals More’s intentions to portray
utopia as an impossible practical goal that may only be achieved in theory, and allow
readers to philosophise the possibility of such ever occurring. (It was actually aimed at
intellectual members of society as an inside joke because it was a pun (wow, satire)). The
derivative neologism eutopia sustains the same relationship to the original utopia in this
paradoxical way.
3. Draw a detailed timeline, or describe in detail how Utopia evolved into Dystopia.
1516 Thomas More publishes Utopia
Renaissance; Humanism → Utopia, Enlightenment → Euchronia, Realism →
Anti-utopia, Industrialisation → Dystopia, Environmentalism.
1868 First use of the term dystopia by John Stuart Mill in a
parliamentary speech
,4. Describe the relationship between the Utopian genre and its context.
The original utopia was born from Henry 8th’s rule and More’s dissatisfaction with that
time period (unnecessary wars that caused national bankruptcy, the dissolution of
monasteries, excessive show of wealth, etc). All derivations from More’s utopia have
come into being as means of adapting for new concepts, collective experiences and
visions which correspond to human reaction on national or global scales. For example,
the Utopian genre during the Renaissance was based on humanism (individual-centred
experiences) and the perpetuity of time: there is “a beginning but no ending.” There was
no wish for a process of becoming, and rather was “the expression of the utopist’s
wishes, not of his hope.”
Then when Europe entered the Age of Enlightenment (which placed emphasis on reason
and science), the Utopian genre began to move into the future instead of the past or
present. The Renaissance enabled alternative thinking, while the Enlightenment enabled
a hope for a better place or to reach human perfection (this was the birth of euchronia,
an imagined utopian time period set in the current world). Progressive, scientific
discovery and the adoption of logic and reasoning above spirituality realised the idea of
exponential growth into the future, further stemming into a derivative utopian hope.
Other examples of this reflective relationship between the Utopian genre and its context
include:
- British Industrial Age → satirical utopias (post-euchronia emergence, France)
- Opposition to the idealist viewpoint → socialist-communist utopia
- Scepticism of conservative 18th century intellectuals → anti-utopia
- Post-war ages and horrors of war → dystopia (esp. USA)
Utopian literature always critiques its own context. It is a way of reflecting and conveying
a message. Utopian literature is usually layered with satire.
5. Write the definitions of the following sub-types and manifestations of Utopia.
● Eutopia: derivative neologism meaning “good place” in contrast to utopia: “a non-place”
● Dystopia: the opposite of utopia; an imagined world of “great suffering or injustice,”
described as a combination of euchronia and anti-utopia (based on distrust)
● Anti-utopia: an imagined world that proposes ways of utopian thinking while
simultaneously questioning and criticising them (satirically founded; pessimistic)
● Alotopia: the concept of utopia but extended into the afterlife
● Euchronia: a fictional, utopian time period of the current world (not a place), usually set
in the future (utopia → euchronia → SF → dystopia)
● Heterotopia: concept that forwards abnormal, “other” spaces or worlds. It focuses on
the different rather than good versus bad
● Ecotopia: an imagined place of an ideal ecology
● Hyper Utopia: an imagined place where all ideas of humanity exist in peace; a “place
more perfect than perfection”
, 6. How would you describe our contemporary context and what issues would you expect
to be discussed in a modern Utopia? What manifestation of utopia do you think it
would even be called if any?
I think our contemporary context revolves around technological improvements and
global environmental threats (gender inequality is present but only on the horizon).
People of the 20th century had always envisaged a utopian future that connotes
innovation with convenience, i.e. with flying cars and domestic robots, but in the 21st
century there is now an abundance of future dystopias that counter those past beliefs
because of how close (technologically yet not temporally) to the pre-envisioned timeline
is to the contemporary world. In my perspective, there is the interrelated idea of the
overuse of social media that writers can criticise on the invasion of privacy. The
manifestation of ecotopia as it is, on the other hand, has a more linear evolution from
when global warming became a large environmental issue; we already see eco-dystopias
exponentially growing in popular media from films like Blade Runner (1982) to Don’t
Look Up (2021) and The Wandering Earth (2019). Gender inequality is similar to the peak
of eco-dystopia: a steady linear flow of ideas that we see in works like The Handmaid’s
Tale (which is essentially an anti-utopia) that take interesting perspectives on what
womens’ liberation truly means, especially through the male gaze (which I think is a
huge contemporary problem). (A gender equality utopia is unimaginable for me but it
would probably be called materutopia(?)/matopia(?) after mater, greek for mother).
7. What are the differences between utopian thought, utopia as a concept and the
utopian genre?
Utopia as a concept is a perfect world/place/period (essentially made by the people, for
the people). Utopian thought refers to the ideology, philosophy, and desire to build a
perfect society, as well as optimistic beliefs relating to the possibility of a perfect society.
The utopian genre is the literary genre that started with Thomas More’s seminal work,
and expresses utopian thought using literary form. It has, throughout the centuries,
been tailored by contextual values and desires into derivative pedagogies on the nature
of utopia as a concept, i.e. through subgenres.
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