For thousands of years, philosophers and thinkers of one hue or another have attempted to conceptualise the ‘ideal state’. Whether in the form of a futuristic novel such as H.G. Wells’s The Shape of Things to Come, or as a philosophical dialogue like Plato’s Republic, whether longing to return to a ‘golden age’ in the remote past or to a mythical land in space, countless descriptions have been written of an earthly paradise. The word commonly used to describe such a state is ‘utopia’, a word which entered the English lexicon via the most influential exemplar of this genre: Concerning the Best State of a Commonwealth and the New Island of Utopia — first published in Latin in 1516, and written by Sir Thomas More: a scholar, lawyer, and advisor to England’s King Henry VIII until his refusal to acknowledge the king as a greater authority than the Catholic Church led to his imprisonment and execution.

More’s Utopia is divided into two parts. The first part features a conversation in which More and his friend Peter Giles, along with the traveller Raphael Hythloday, diagnose the political and social ills of Europe. The second part is dominated by Hythloday’s gushing description of the island of Utopia, a disciplined and communal society where such ills have long ago been medicated.

What is ironic about More’s Utopia is that the society it depicts is arguably more of a dystopian than a utopian one. For on the island of Utopia virtually all human endeavour is tightly controlled — from the way the citizens eat, dress, and travel, to the way they die. Punishments for infractions are severe: private discussions of political affairs can lead to the death penalty, as can persistent adultery. And while there are elements of Utopian society which many today would consider admirable (the contempt for gold and the absence of poverty, for example) few would agree to sacrificing so many liberties and fostering slavery in exchange for a six-hour work day. As R.W. Chambers rhetorically asks in his biography of More: “Has any state, at any time, carried terrorism quite so far?” Here, one is reminded of a footnote in the Penguin translation of Herodotus’s Histories describing the ancient Spartan policy towards their slaves as “state-sponsored terrorism”.

Utopia is not merely a work of fantastical fiction; it is one of the most influential and prophetic books ever written

But how much of the book reflects More’s own views? And to what extent is the work satirical? Was More’s description of the Utopian approach to war and colonisation a critique of European warfare, or an apology for imperialism? Did he later regret the publication of this work? During the five centuries since it was first published, a great number of puzzled commentators have raised questions as to the book’s meanings and More’s intentions in writing it. Many have also pointed out apparent discrepancies between the programme of Utopia, and the attitudes and practices of its author.

More was a devout Catholic (later canonised by the Church as a saint), but he did not include Christianity as one of the Utopian virtues. The Utopians are described as a religiously tolerant people, but More himself launched tirades full of invective at his Protestant opponents and was associated with the burning of heretics. Many other seeming contradictions exist; some scholars have explained them away by delineating between More the young humanist and More the old inquisitor. Others have posited that there are no conflicts between More’s life and art, and that any perceived inconsistencies result from a limited reading of Utopia or an ignorance of More himself. So it is argued that the Utopians are tolerant of diverse forms of religious expression, but only up to a point: the penalty for atheism is death. Similarly, More was in private helpful and tolerant of Lutherans, but publicly did his best to stop the import of Lutheran books to England and the spread of Protestant doctrine. In the final analysis one should not ignore the possibility that what an author writes does not necessarily conform in all particulars to what he or she believes, or that an author can entertain more than one possibility at a time — but the multiple interpretations of Utopia and diverse views on More are a testament to the complexity of the work and the fascination with the man.

More was a student and translator of Greek and Latin literature, so the influence on Utopia by classical writers such as Lucian and Plato is clear. The scholar Desiderius Erasmus, a lifelong friend of More’s, was also an influence on his thought. Furthermore, accounts of travels to South America and descriptions of the indigenous peoples there by explorers such as Amerigo Vespucci inspired More to set the island of Utopia in a similar locale. It has even been theorised, by Arthur E. Morgan in Nowhere was Somewhere: How History Makes Utopias and How Utopias Make History, that Utopia was nothing less than a faithful description of the Inca civilisation of Peru, related to More by a member of an expedition to South America.

More’s Utopia is divided into two parts. The first part features a conversation in which More and his friend Peter Giles, along with the traveller Raphael Hythloday, diagnose the political and social ills of Europe. The second part is dominated by Hythloday’s gushing description of the island of Utopia, a disciplined and communal society where such ills have long ago been medicated.

Utopia has had a powerful effect on subsequent thought. More’s contemporary, Rowland Philips, the vicar of Croydon, wanted to travel to Utopia to spread the Gospel (he thought it was a real place). Two decades after Utopia was published, the bishop Vasco de Quiroga actually tried to organise indigenous tribes in Mexico according to principles laid down in the book. In later centuries, socialists and communists such as William Morris and Karl Kautsky would hail More as a prophet. Lenin even had his name engraved on an obelisk also inscribed with the names of Communist luminaries. But while More is often regarded as ‘modern’, many aspects of his work reflect medieval traditions. The stark life of the citizens of Utopia harks back to medieval monasticism, for instance. The views espoused in Utopia are a reaction against the ideas and trends that were proliferating in More’s time, such as the immoral type of statecraft which was to be codified a few years later in Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince. More habitually wore an uncomfortable hair-shirt to tame his bodily passions, and was given to whipping himself with a knotted cord — austere behaviour that is not usually associated with Renaissance humanists. Rather than compartmentalise More into one artificially constructed era or another, it seems more logical to consider the man and his work as inhabiting a critical period of economic, political, and religious transition.

More has sometimes been compared to another martyred philosopher: Socrates, and indeed there are similarities between these two iconic men. Both of them paid the price for resistance to tyranny. Both of them regarded their trial and execution as experiences not to be feared. More’s statement to his interrogators that “a man may [...] lose his head and have no harm” is reminiscent of Socrates’ declaration to his prosecutors that “Anytus and Meletus can kill me, but they cannot harm me”. Both men went to their deaths with fortitude and good cheer. Like Socrates, More in his last days was comforting others rather being comforted himself. He embraced his own executioner; “pluck up thy spirits, man”, he told him.

Utopias are no longer fashionable; the very word utopia is often used in a pejorative context to describe something impractical or unrealisable. Utopian tracts are rarely composed today, but their opposite — dystopias — are much more prominent. One of the most famous dystopias of recent times for instance — Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World — is far better known than the same author’s utopian novel The Island. The reasons for this literary trend may be several.

Firstly, the rapidity and unpredictability of social change brought about by the development of modern science and technology makes prognostications all but foolhardy. Secondly, massive experiments in the 20th century by supporters of totalitarian ideologies led to genocidal disaster many countries, souring the taste for rigidly-planned societies. And thirdly, we live in a world in which natural, economic, technological, and military disasters are frequently and believably represented in a seemingly endless array of popular science-fiction books and films.

This is not to say that utopian thought has disappeared, for every person who is desirous of a better society must necessarily possess some utopian tendencies, and every election campaign possesses an element of the utopian. It could also be argued that utopianism of the religious kind is on the rise. Even at the present time there exist communities — such as some Mennonite groups — which could be described as ‘utopias’. But on a planet of multicultural megacities, in which the very definition of utopia is fraught with irreconcilable opinions, the vision of Utopia is a distant one. This was understood by the Roman emperor and philosopher-king Marcus Aurelius, who wrote in his Meditations: “Don’t hope for Plato’s Utopia, but be content to make a very small step forward and reflect that the result even of this is no trifle. How cheap are these mere men with their policies and their philosophic practice, as they suppose; they are full of drivel. For who will change men’s convictions? And without a change of conviction what else is there save a bondage of men who groan and pretend to obey?”

The writer is an antiquarian.