Abstract
Thomas More was born in 1478 at a time when England was in transition between Feudalism and the early Renaissance. More was a lawyer, a historian, a philosopher and became Henry VIII's chancellor in 1529. When Thomas More refused to convert himself to Protestantism, he was accused of being a traitor and executed in 1535. More was a very learned man as well as a humanist who rediscovered ancient texts such as Plato's Republic, which highly influenced him for the writing of Utopia in 1516. In his work, Thomas More opposes the Society of his time to that of a wonderful and imaginary one: the ideal society of Utopia. The title comes from the Greek ou topos that means "no where", which is not a coincidence and reflects More's idea that such a society is impossible to set up. Thomas More's Utopia is divided into two books: in book one; he indirectly criticizes the English society under the Tudor Dynasty and the settlement of the enclosures system which starved peasantry and has therefore dramatic social consequences. Book two contrasts from book one, in the sense that it describes the Utopian society as an egalitarian one based on common property.
