More Thomas - Three Early Modern Utopias

OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

UTOPIAS have existed almost since the beginnings of literature, but some eras have produced more utopian literature than others. The early modern period was one such time. The geographical and scientific discoveries of the age, as well as its profound social conflicts, provided a context in which the fusion of ideas about the ideal with representations of other fictitious communities became a natural mode of conceiving how things might be different in a world elsewhere. But early modern utopias rarely offered simple solutions to the problems that they confronted. Their writers frequently offered representations of other worlds not in order to answer questions about the social, cultural, and political mores of their own times, but rather to raise the issues in their readers minds. In other words very few early modern utopias are merely blueprints for ideal societies: their meanings emerge only through the juxtaposition of the utopia represented with the writers own world. In different ways this is true of all three of the utopias reprinted in this volume: Thomas Mores Utopia (1516), which addresses the social problems of early sixteenth-century England; Francis Bacons New Atlantis (1627), which foregrounds Englands shortcomings in the nurture of scientific endeavour; and Henry Nevilles The Isle of Pines (1668), which engages with issues of colonialism and sexual propriety. These three texts illustrate the range of the utopian imagination in the early modern period, and the different uses to which it could be put.

SUSAN BRUCE is Lecturer in the English Department of Keele University. She is the author of articles on More, Bacon, Rochester, and Swift, and the editor of The Icon Critical Guide to King Lear.

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THE WORLDS CLASSICS

THOMAS MORE

FRANCIS BACON New Atlantis

HENRY NEVILLE The Isle of Pines

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by

SUSAN BRUCE

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Introduction, Note on the Texts, Select Bibliographies, Chronologies Susan Bruce 1999
Chronology of Francis Bacon Brian Vickers 1996

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First published as an Oxford Worlds Classics paperback 1999

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ISBN 0192838857

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THOMAS MORE, UTOPIA
translated by Ralph Robinson

Like other editors, I have consulted other editions of the texts in producing my own. I am especially indebted to J. H. Luptons and to J. Churton Collinss editions of Utopia, to J. Weinbergers and Brian Vickerss editions of New Atlantis and to Worthington Chauncey Fords edition of The Isle of Pines for the Club of Odd Volumes. Many individuals have assisted more directly in the production of this volume, and to all of them I am very grateful. Neil Rhodes encouraged me, some years ago now, to propose the anthology to Oxford Worlds Classics. John Rogers assisted me with one of the explanatory notes to Utopian attitudes to the more obscure aspects of medieval philosophy. Dima Abdulrahim helped me on those occasions where expertise in Arabic was required; Marguerite Palmer helped me to ascertain the meaning of a Dutch sentence. Sue Wiseman was kind enough to help me to track down early versions of Nevilles pamphlets; Mishtooni Bose helped me to find a translation of a letter. Tim Lustig has been supportive in many different ways throughout the time I have been working on this anthology, as have Daniel and Luke Lustig-Bruce, in their inimitable and much appreciated fashions. Both Sue and Tim also read and commented on my introduction to The Isle Of Pines, as did Roger Pooley and Julie Sanders; Bridget Orr was kind enough to listen to some early ideas. I should also like to thank Judith Luna of Oxford University Press for her efficiency and helpfulness, the copy-editor, Jeff New, for his careful reading of the typescript, and for his excellent suggestions for improvements, some of which I have incorporated in the notes on the texts, and Brian Vickers, editor of the Oxford Authors Francis Bacon, for allowing me to base the text of the New Atlantis, and the chronology of Francis Bacon, on his edition. Perhaps my greatest debt of gratitude is due to Alison Sharrock of the Classics Department of Keele University, who extended her time (with extraordinary generosity) in helping me with classical allusions in the