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Most Recent Articles
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- Utopian Society Is Not Ideal
Among the ‘discoveries’ that occurred then was that of the New World by European explorers, and the curiosity concerning these voyages of exploration plus the advent of the printing press meant that ‘printed records of the Renaissance explorations were [soon] everywhere available’, and thus Utopia as ‘a product of this exploratory context’ is ‘undeniable’. This is apparent in that its central character is a sailor and that his impressions of the imaginary island of Utopia constitute most of More’s text, which is a cross between travel narrative and social satire. The above quotation from Utopia depicts the Utopian lifestyle, one that has benefits and drawbacks, and the references to work, corruption, and poverty highlight key aspects of any debate considering whether or not one would like to live in More’s Utopia. - Utopian World Has Problems
The confusion one might experience in approaching such a question is mirrored in the centuries of scholastic debate the text has aroused; since its very first appearance in print Utopia has succeeded in functioning primarily to provoke uncertainty and disagreement amongst its readers and interpreters. The problem, of course, is that it is extremely difficult, even on close analysis of the text, to discern the degree to which the vision of the supposedly ‘perfect’ society Utopia paints is intended to be taken seriously. While on the one hand the book overtly works to present us with a technically flawless plan for the organisation of society, on the other, it seems simultaneously to strive to make us aware of certain dubious features of that plan, which cannot help but limit reader enthusiasm in the approach to the whole.
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