The work begins with written correspondence between Thomas More and several people he had met on the continent. The book tells of a seaman who has discovered an island called Utopia. 'The same education which makes a man a good guardian will make a woman a good guardian for their original nature is the same.' (16) For example, all girls are to have exactly the same education as boys, learning music, gymnastics, and the art of war along with the boys. One way of dealing with this problem is for women to have complete equality with men. He admits that this presents difficulties, but thinks them not insuperable. Friends, he says, should have all things in common, including women and children.

Plato applies his communism to the family.

Both wealth and poverty are harmful, and in Plato's city neither will exist.' (15) Though not rich, there is no reason why they should not be happy but the purpose of the city is the good of the whole, not the happiness of one class. The guardians are to have small houses and simple food they are to live as in a camp, dining together in companies they are to have no private property beyond what is absolutely necessary. 'Plato proposes a thoroughgoing communism. In the book he attempts to describe the ideal society. More's book had been influenced by the writings of Plato, especially his book, The Republic(c.

Certainly you know that I was relieved of all the labour of gathering materials for the work and that I that I had to give no thought at all to their arrangement.' (14) The following year he sent the novel to Gillis: 'I am almost ashamed, my dear Peter Giles, to send you this little book about the state of Utopia after almost a year, when I am sure you looked for it within a month and a half. More's Utopia established the genre of philosophical utopias much the way in which Montaigne and Bacon established the essay as a philosophical form.In 1515 Thomas More had a meeting with his good friend, Pieter Gillis, secretary to the city of Antwerp, and discussed the content of a novel he was writing called Utopia ('Utopia' is Greek for 'nowhere'). From the Stoics More gets the notions that mankind form a natural commnnity and the assumed existance of natural law. The new emphasis on the philosophy of pleasure comes from More's understanding of Epicureanism. In contrast to the Platonic Republic, More's society is a communistic democracy and not an aristocracy with communism confined to the ruling elite. Plato's Republic and the Laws provide models for More's reflections on the good citizen and the good state, but More's Utopia is significantly different from these models and blends a variety of philosophical influences. It is thus one of the first books to invoke the analogy between the great voyages of discovery and discoveries of the mind. More coined the term 'utopia' which is a pun meaning both 'good place' and 'no place.' More's Utopia is discovered on a voyage to the newly discovered Americas. This process was to be continued by Pierre Gassendi. Epicureanism was being Christianized by Lorenzo Valla and Erasmus. Christianity and Stoicism had many close connections from early on. Aristotle had been Christianized by St Thoma Aquinas. The alliance between Platonism and Christianity was as old as Saint Augustine, but had been revived in the Renaissance by Marsilio Ficino. Renaisance thinkers were mainly concerned with four ancient schools - Aristotelianism, Platonism, Stoicism and Epicureanism. He was friends with such humanists as Erasmus, John Colet, Thomas Linacre and others. More is an excellent example of the early English Renaissance. This drama was made into a play and an excellent (though not historically accurate) film - A Man of for All Seasons. As Chancellor to Henry VIII he refused to sanction Henry's divorce of Queen Catherine. Thomas More) is famous for his book Utopia (1515) and for his martyrdom.

Utopia thomas more lesson