Thomas More

=== ''Utopia'' ===
{{Main|Utopia (More book)}}
[[File:Insel Utopia.png|thumb|A 1516 illustration of Utopia]]
More's best known and most controversial work, ''[[Utopia (More book)|Utopia]]'', is a [[frame narrative]] written in Latin.<ref>{{cite book |last1=More |first1=Thomas |editor1-last=Lumby |editor1-first=J Rawson |title=More's Utopia |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=vii |edition=1952 |chapter=Introduction|date=31 October 2013 |translator-last1=Robynson|translator-first1=Raphe|translator-link1=Ralph Robinson (humanist)|isbn=978-1-107-64515-8}}</ref> More completed the book, and theologian [[Erasmus]] published it in [[Leuven]] in 1516. It was only translated into English and published in his native land in 1551 (16 years after his execution), and the 1684 translation became the most commonly cited. More (who is also a character in the book) and the narrator/traveller, Raphael Hythlodaeus (whose name alludes both to the healer archangel [[Raphael (archangel)|Raphael]], and 'speaker of nonsense', the surname's Greek meaning), discuss modern ills in [[Antwerp]], as well as describe the political arrangements of the imaginary island country of Utopia (a Greek pun on 'ou-topos' [no place] and 'eu-topos' [good place]) among themselves as well as to [[Pieter Gillis]] and [[Hieronymus van Busleyden]].<ref>Logan (2011) pp 39, 142, 144</ref> Utopia's original edition included a symmetrical "[[Utopian language#Writing system|Utopian alphabet]]" omitted by later editions, but which may have been an early attempt or precursor of [[shorthand]].

''Utopia'' is structured into two parts, both with much [[irony]]: Book I has conversations between friends on various European political issues: the treatment of criminals, the [[enclosure movement]], etc.; Book II is a remembered discourse by Raphael Hythlodaeus on his supposed travels, in which the earlier issues are revisited in fantastical but concrete forms that has been called ''mythical  idealism''. For example, the proposition in the Book I "no republic can be prosperous or justly governed where there is private property and money is the measure of everything."<ref name=nyers>{{cite journal |last1=Nyers |first1=Peter |title=The Politics of Enclosure in Thomas More's Utopia |journal=Problematique |date=2000 |volume=6 |url=http://www.yorku.ca/problema/issue06.html}}</ref>

''Utopia'' contrasts the contentious social life of European states with the perfectly orderly, reasonable social arrangements of Utopia and its environs (Tallstoria, Nolandia, and Aircastle). In Utopia, there are no lawyers because of the laws' simplicity and because social gatherings are in public view (encouraging participants to behave well), communal ownership supplants private property, men and women are educated alike, and there is almost complete religious toleration (except for atheists, who are allowed but despised).

More may have used [[Monasticism|monastic communalism]] as his model, although other concepts he presents such as legalising [[euthanasia]] remain far outside Church doctrine. Hythlodaeus asserts that a man who refuses to believe in a god or an afterlife could never be trusted, because he would not acknowledge any authority or principle outside himself. A scholar has suggested that More is most interested in the type of citizen Utopia produces.<ref name=nyers/>

Some take the novel's principal message to be the social need for order and discipline rather than liberty. Ironically, Hythlodaeus, who believes philosophers should not get involved in politics, addresses More's ultimate conflict between his humanistic beliefs and courtly duties as the King's servant, pointing out that one day those morals will come into conflict with the political reality.

''Utopia'' gave rise to a literary genre, [[Utopian and dystopian fiction]], which features ideal societies or perfect cities, or their opposite. Works influenced by ''Utopia'' included ''[[New Atlantis]]'' by [[Francis Bacon]], ''[[Erewhon]]'' by [[Samuel Butler (novelist)|Samuel Butler]], and ''[[Candide]]'' by [[Voltaire]]. Although [[Utopianism]] combined classical concepts of perfect societies ([[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]]) with Roman rhetorical finesse (cf. [[Cicero]], [[Quintilian]], [[epideictic]] oratory), the Renaissance genre continued into the [[Age of Enlightenment]] and survives in modern science fiction.