Seite - 5 - in Utopia
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Usurpation of Richard III.â The book, which seems to contain the knowledge
and opinions of Moreâs patron, Morton, was not printed until 1557, when its
writer had been twenty-two years dead. It was then printed from a MS. in
Moreâs handwriting.
In the year 1515 Wolsey, Archbishop of York, was made Cardinal by Leo
X.; Henry VIII. made him Lord Chancellor, and from that year until 1523 the
King and the Cardinal ruled England with absolute authority, and called no
parliament. In May of the year 1515 Thomas Moreânot knighted yetâwas
joined in a commission to the Low Countries with Cuthbert Tunstal and
others to confer with the ambassadors of Charles V., then only Archduke of
Austria, upon a renewal of alliance. On that embassy More, aged about thirty-
seven, was absent from England for six months, and while at Antwerp he
established friendship with Peter Giles (Latinised Ăgidius), a scholarly and
courteous young man, who was secretary to the municipality of Antwerp.
Cuthbert Tunstal was a rising churchman, chancellor to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, who in that year (1515) was made Archdeacon of Chester, and in
May of the next year (1516) Master of the Rolls. In 1516 he was sent again to
the Low Countries, and More then went with him to Brussels, where they
were in close companionship with Erasmus.
Moreâs âUtopiaâ was written in Latin, and is in two parts, of which the
second, describing the place (???????âor Nusquama, as he called it
sometimes in his lettersââNowhereâ), was probably written towards the
close of 1515; the first part, introductory, early in 1516. The book was first
printed at Louvain, late in 1516, under the editorship of Erasmus, Peter Giles,
and other of Moreâs friends in Flanders. It was then revised by More, and
printed by Frobenius at Basle in November, 1518. It was reprinted at Paris
and Vienna, but was not printed in England during Moreâs lifetime. Its first
publication in this country was in the English translation, made in Edwardâs
VI.âs reign (1551) by Ralph Robinson. It was translated with more literary
skill by Gilbert Burnet, in 1684, soon after he had conducted the defence of
his friend Lord William Russell, attended his execution, vindicated his
memory, and been spitefully deprived by James II. of his lectureship at St.
Clementâs. Burnet was drawn to the translation of âUtopiaâ by the same sense
of unreason in high places that caused More to write the book. Burnetâs is the
translation given in this volume.
The name of the book has given an adjective to our languageâwe call an
impracticable scheme Utopian. Yet, under the veil of a playful fiction, the talk
is intensely earnest, and abounds in practical suggestion. It is the work of a
scholarly and witty Englishman, who attacks in his own way the chief
political and social evils of his time. Beginning with fact, More tells how he
5
zurĂŒck zum
Buch Utopia"
Utopia
- Titel
- Utopia
- Autor
- Thomas Morus
- Datum
- 1516
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- PD
- Abmessungen
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Seiten
- 86
- Schlagwörter
- Utopia, State, Religion, English
- Kategorien
- International
- Weiteres Belletristik