User:CJ1414/sandbox

Working Bibliography-

• Kincaid, Paul. "Utopia in Context." Foundation 45.124 (2016): 5-18. ProQuest. Web. 1 Apr. 2025
  • Interesting Quote, "In the summer of 1499, still only a twenty one-year-old law student, he met the Dutch churchman, Erasmus, who was already on the verge of being the most renowned scholar in Europe. Both were phenomenally well-read and quick-witted, with the same sceptical approach to the ways of the world. The two struck up a friendship that would lastthe rest of More’s life. In 1506 they produced a joint translation (from Greek into Latin) of a selection of the Dialogues of the Gods and Dialogues of the Dead by the second-century satirist Lucian of Samosata"
    • This translation of Lucian (a satirist) often mentioned as a key product of More's friendship with Erasmus. It is likely that his work translating Lucian's satire was influential in his writing, Utopia included.
  • Another Interesting Quote, "More showed this portion of the book to a number of his humanist friends who ‘were so enthusiastic about the modern parallel that nine of them, with Erasmus most prominent, contributed letters poems for inclusion at some convenient point in the story’ (Barzun 2001: 118). Some or all of these additions, including a Utopian alphabet devised by Gilles,tend to be omitted from modern translations of the book, but they do show a prototypical science-fictional intent to make the imaginary world as real as possible."
• Hexter, J. H. More's "Utopia": The Biography of an Idea. Princeton UP, 1952.
  • This is an important work in regard to the questions surrounding More's intention for writing Utopia as it contains one of the main arguments for the notion that More used Utopia to criticize many of the Christian humanist ideas that Erasmus had previously promoted.
  • This is the work that Giulia Sissa and Han van Ruler elaborate
• van Ruler, Han. “Bodies, Morals, and Religion: Utopia and the Erasmian Idea of Human Progress.” Utopia 1516-2016: More’s Eccentric Essay and Its Activist Aftermath, edited by Han van Ruler and Giulia Sissa, Amsterdam University Press, 2017, pp. 71–106.
  • Contains great a more recent discussion of More's intentions with Utopia and the ways in which it can be seen as a parody of Erasmus' "Praise of Folly". Most notably suggesting that Hythloday is a parody of Erasmus himself.
  • Also, this mentioning of his friendship and work with Erasmus, which had barely been mentioned toward the end of the article, is important. I feel the article more commentary about this relationship as it clearly impacted More's work on Utopia and should therefore impact the interpretation of the work.
    • (Has been added) Working Edit: "One of the most troublesome questions about Utopia is Thomas More's reason for writing it. Most scholars see it as a comment on or criticism of 16th-century Catholicism,since the evils of More's day are laid out in Book I and in many ways apparently solved in Book II. Recent scholarship has also found the debate around More's suggested criticism of some of the humanist principles advanced by his contemporary and friend, Erasmus, as a new way in which to explore the questions surrounding More's intent with the novel. Some scholars go as far as to argue that More was actually using Utopia as a means of parodying Erasmus' Praise of Folly. Indeed, Utopia has many of the characteristics of satire, and there are many jokes and satirical asides such as how honest people are in Europe, but these are usually contrasted with the simple, uncomplicated society of the Utopians.
• Bonner, Laura. "St Thomas More : Utopia and the World Today." Moreana 25.98 (1988): 5,8,265. ProQuest. Web. 5 Apr. 2025.
  • This source makes note of the fact that Erasmus was a humanist friend that More maintained a relationship with. It also shows a disconnect between the views of the Utopians as described by Hythloday and those likely help my humanists of the time.
    • (Has been added) Working Edit: One of the most troublesome questions about Utopia is Thomas More's reason for writing it. Most scholars see it as a comment on or criticism of 16th-century Catholicism since the evils of More's day are laid out in Book I and in many ways apparently solved in Book II. However, other scholars point to the fact that many of the solutions of Book II contradict those beliefs actually held by More the author, who never advocated for the truth of a perfect Utopian society. Instead, it is likely that the fictional island was simply a progressive step away from the world in which he lived.
• Nobus, Dany. "How to Grow a Nose: The Education of Desire in More's Utopia and Sade's Libertine Republic." College Literature 45.2 (2018): 278. ProQuest. Web. 3 Apr. 202
  • This contains a thought on Utopian war that would add another aspect to the paragraph on war under the heading for Book 2.
    • (Has been added) working edit: "Utopians do not like to engage in war. If they feel countries friendly to them have been wronged, they will send military aid, but they try to capture, rather than kill, enemies. They are upset if they achieve victory through bloodshed. The main purpose of war is to achieve what over which, if they had achieved already, they would not have gone to war." However, other scholars point to an apparent inconsistency of Utopian principles of war by considering their willingness to take neighboring territory when the Utopian population is in need of geographical expansion.[1]

SUMMARY OF CHANGES:

My the main goal of my edits was to mention the more modern discussions surrounding the satirical aspects of Utopia, especially the newer notion that the work could actually be read as a parody of Erasmus. I found that the one mention of Erasmus toward the end of the article was in no way substantive enough as Erasmus, and his work "In Praise of Folly" are now centerpieces for the modern arguments for the reading of Utopia as a satire.

Also, I noticed that the articles mentioning of war was incomplete as there do seem to be exceptions to the Utopian society's anti-war rhetoric. While there was already a substantial amount written about the Utopian's anti-war attitude, I wanted to add a portion about the fact that they would take more land by force when they deemed it necessary as I felt that this added contextual element for readers to consider.