This thesis investigates four utopias, Plato’s Republic, Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, and H. G. Wells’s A Modern Utopia, in relation to postcolonial criticisms that present them as outlining ostensibly ‘universal’ values and as being inherently colonial, expansionist, and imperialist. This critique is often applied to the utopian genre as a whole, yet while widespread and popular, it is often in contrast with the ideas contained and measures proposed within the texts. In fact, a close reading shows that they resist such generalisations. The key themes investigated in each of these texts are: how they characterise their utopian people; how they construct their utopias physically; how they manage them in terms of education, law, family, and economics; how they imagine and map their boundaries; and, finally, how they view and interact with the ‘other’ – the non-utopian. These four canonical texts often outline philosophies and proposals intended for the benefit of humanity as a whole, which might be misinterpreted by some as imperialist in intent. It will be argued, however, that there is also a strong but under-recognised tendency within them not to expand, conquer, and incorporate, as commonly thought, but instead to withdraw and contract, a dynamic of non-interference. Along the way, it will be necessary to negotiate the difficult, slippery status of these texts, about which the reader is never fully clear whether they were intended to be taken as literal blueprints for real future societies, as non-committal thought-experiments, or as ‘mere’ literary entertainments.

Utopia’s quest from somewhere to everywhere: Humanitarian thought-experiment or expansionist blueprint?

STRANGE’ LANDS OF OPPORTUNITY – REPRESENTATIONS OF MORAL, SOCIAL, AND ECONOMIC PROFIT IN LATE MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN LITERATURE by LISA KANNIAINEN May 2017 Advisor: Dr. Jaime Goodrich Major: English (British Literature) Degree: Doctor of Philosophy This dissertation pursues the link between late medieval and early modern texts and the thoughts of the developing middling class and the New Men. Adding to scholarship regarding travel literature, colonization, and propaganda, I claim that the selected texts offer insight into medieval and early modern concerns regarding moral, social, and economic profit. Employing contemporary economic constructs as a base, this enterprise investigates the genre of travel literature, fictional and nonfictional, as an agent to convey middling and New Man preoccupations with spirituality and good works, social and political influence, and financial gain. Through my research, I have uncovered the means by which travel literature and the New World promoted profit and a fledgling sense of nationhood. This dissertation examines the nature of travel literature as a convenient and popular medium to express growing interest in exploration, colonization, and England's opportunity for growth. Further, this project demonstrates the role that New Men envisioned for themselves in New World ventures, imagining the potential for spiritual, societal, and financial gain both as individuals and members of the English nation. Therefore, the works analyzed in this dissertation evidence travel

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'strange' Lands Of Opportunity - Representations Of Moral, Social, And Economic Profit In Late Medieval And Early Modern Literature

J.H. Hexter and the text of Utopia: A Reappraisal

It is well known that the developing circumstances of the Reformation led Thomas More to some second thoughts about his Utopia: "yf any man wolde now translate [Erasmus's] Moria in to Englyshe, or some workes eyther that I haue my selfe wryten ere this, all be yt there be none harme therin / folke yet beynge (as they be) geuen to take harme of that that is good / I wolde not onely my derlynges bokes but myne owne also, helpe to burne them both wyth myne owne hands."1 Short of burning the whole thing, More seems also to have had second thoughts (and even initial misgivings) about the appropriateness of including a particular section of the text. I refer to that portion of book 1 which, in the Latin editions, carries the marginal label "Festiuus dialogus fratris & morionis," translated in the Yale edition as "A Merry Dialogue between a Friar and a Hanger-On. "2 More's ambivalence toward the passage is attested in a letter to Erasmus, the subject of which is the attack on More's writings waged in the Antimorus of the French humanist Germain de Brie (Germanus Brixius). This vitriolic controversy, which scholars rightly characterize as an unfortunate episode serving mainly to reveal the worst sides of both men, nevertheless produces a few points of interest in connection with Utopia.3 First is More's defense of the passage. He tells Erasmus that Brixius laughs at the dialogue between the friar and the fool, ironically claiming that in it More displays the sharpness of his wit, the strength of his diction, and the soundness of his judgement ("Ridet in Vtopia mea dialogum in quo fraterculus cum morione disceptat: 'in quo' inquit

Of Sites and Parasites: The Centrality of the Marginal Anecdote in book 1 of More's Utopia

Prologue: Humanism and Political Thought before the Reformation, 1500–30

De l'utilite d'une analyse textuelle exhaustive en cas d'ambiguite referentielle. Les mots n'ont pas toujours le meme referent semantique et hierarchique selon la societe et le contexte. Pour lever l'ambiguite, il faut selon l'A. faire une analyse statistique des mots et de leur contexte. Il illustre sa methodologie par l'examen des elements d'une phrase d'Utopia a propos de l'inexistence de l'argent.

J H Hexter

Papers

Intention, Words, and Meaning: The Case of More's Utopia