Thomas more biography

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Given the dramatic character of classical dialogues, these comparisons of settings are an important part of Utopia’s literary and philosophic design, as Dominic Baker-Smith has indicated (1991 [2000: 94]).

The dialectical challenge posed by the conversation between Hythloday and Morus is playfully but seriously seen even in the names chosen, as Morus himself says at EW 215.50–61: Utopia is Greek for “no place”, and other Greek names negate what they express: the river Anyder means “no water”; the ruler ademos means “no people”.

Therefore, More advised Henry to consult the counselors most fit to help “understand the truth” of his case: “Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine, and diverse other old holy doctors, both Greeks and Latins” (Roper’s Life of More [EW 1399]). Pico’s nephew and heir, Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, published in 1496 a 496–page biography of his uncle and anthology of his works.

  • Lakowski, R.I. “A Bibliography of Thomas More’s Utopia”, Early Modern Literary Studies, 1.2 (1995)
  • National Portrait Gallery, London, Portraits of Thomas More

    • Thomas More

    (1478-1535)

    Who Was Thomas More?

    Thomas More wrote Utopia in 1516, which was the forerunner of the utopian literary genre.

    Introduction

    According to Erasmus, the young Thomas More “devoted himself to the study of Greek literature and philosophy”, and

    [a]s a youth even worked on a dialogue in which he supported Plato’s doctrine of communalism, extending it even to wives. This dialectical game-playing is especially pointed in the oxymoron that is formed by Hythloday’s full name: Raphael is Hebrew for “healer from God”, and Hythloday is Greek for “speaker of nonsense”—but if so, which is he really, and when?

    Gallagher, Ligeia. Throughout his writings, More also frequently drew attention to the distortions in perception caused by the senses and the undisciplined passions, but his incarnational view consistently caused him to acknowledge that the body and soul are “so knit and joined together” as to “make between them one person”, able to act harmoniously with proper education, diligent training, and recourse to grace (1534 Dialogue of Comfort [EW 1176.59–60]; also c.

    He gives one of his clearest explanations of law after quoting a long defense of law by Henry VIII, who invoked Scripture, the Church Fathers, and history to prove that “the people without law drifts to and fro like a ship without a rudder” (1523 Response to Luther [EW 508–9], quoting Henry’s Defense of the Seven Sacraments).

    1557). He spent his mid-twenties in close touch with London's strict Carthusian monks and almost became one. And therefore are, in mine opinion, these Lutherans in a mad mind, that would now have all learning save Scripture only clean cast away, which things (if the time will serve) be as methinketh to be taken and had, and with reason brought, as I said before, into the service of divinity”.

    This is

    especially problematic in that it encourages pride in others, telling them that they too have the power to interpret scripture according to their own judgement…. After doing so, he suggested to Henry that More himself and Henry’s other advisors might not give the king the best advice because “being all your Grace’s own servants” and because of “your manifold benefits daily bestowed on us”, they could be “inclined to deceive you”.

    And in February 1496, More was admitted to Lincoln's Inn, one of England's four legal societies, to prepare for admission to the bar, and in 1501 he became a full member of the profession. He attacked those who most clearly threatened its unity; once convinced that Henry VIII was among their number, More withdrew his service and resisted to his death the effort to remove his loyalty.

    “True dialectic and true philosophy, especially Aristotelian”

    In his 1515 controversy with Martin Dorp and the scholastic theologians at the University of Louvain, More defended “true dialectic and true philosophy, especially Aristotelian” (21 October <1515> letter to Dorp [EW 395.73–74]).

    1518), More pointed out that the “most learned” of the philosophers serve usefully as “guides of human life” (EW 289.4–6), and that wisdom is an important objective of education, depending, as he believed, “on the inner knowledge of what is right [recti conscientia]”—or, in a more accurate translation, “on a right conscience” (EW 288.75–77).

    thomas more biography

    He was close to the radical catholic theologian Erasmus, but wrote polemics against Martin Luther and the protestant reformation.