Is Thomas More's "splendid few book?"

Résumé du document

Some critics view Utopia as a program or manifesto where as some urge that the mistake lies with those readers who consider the book as "au grand sérieux". Indeed, how seriously should we take Utopia? In Lewis' point of view, the reader of Utopia is the victim of a joke: "Erasmus speaks of it as if it were primarily a comic book; for Harpsfield it is a "iollye intention", which is pleasantly set forth. Lewis asserts that "this is not the language in which a friend or an enemy or an author refers to a serious philosophical treatise". Therefore, it all sounds as if we had to do with a book "whose real place is not in the history of political thought so much as in that of fiction and satire". Is Utopia just entertaining or also instructive? Is it an exercise in humor with a philosophical and political purpose? Is it a schizophrenic work?

Extraits

[...] The book has a serious purpose but argued through an ironic structure. In his article, R.J. Schoeck asserts that “there is no conflict between the jeu d'esprit and the sense of urgency, provided that we do not exaggerate either or insist on the one to the exclusion of the other”. For the sense of crisis in Book I is unmistakable. But that does not prevent More “from having his fun, from allowing his rich sense of festivitas its full play. [...]

[...] R. Trousson, Voyages aux pays de nulle-part - Histoire littéraire de la pensée utopique, Université de Bruxelles, Bruxelles 1975. C.S. Lewis, English literature in the sixteenth century excluding drama, Oxford University Press p.167. Erasmus, Epp T. More, Utopia, Everyman's Library, New York 1978, p.3. D. Baker-Smith, More's Utopia, General Editor Claude Rawson, Unwin Critical Library, Harper Collins Academic, London 1991, p.81. T. More, Utopia, p.10. [...]

[...] In this respect, we can establish a parallel between Utopia and Erasmus' Praise of Folly. Dedicated to More, this work is considered by the author himself as a fancy, but it doesn't call into question its strength and virulent critic. At the beginning of his work, Erasmus writes that nothing is sillier than to speak with seriousness of frivolous things, but that nothing is wittier than to serve serious things with frivolities.[15] In this text, where folly pronounces its own praise, Erasmus actually elaborates a serious critic of his society. [...]

[...] He is not even offended by professional jesters”[2] . This is a characteristic that we should find in Utopia's narrative, even if the narrator and character Morus is not to be confounded with the writer. In the opening letter to William Cecil, Ralph Robinson underlines the “great pleasure and delight” that the reader should take “both in the sweet eloquence of the writer and also in the witty invention and fine conveyance or disposition of the matter”. He describes Utopia as a work only for the matter that it containeth fruitful and profitable, but also for the writer's eloquent Latin style so pleasant and delectable”[3] . [...]

[...] Morgan's Le sixième continent: l'Utopie de Thomas More, Editions J. Vrin, Paris 1995: L'Utopie devient intelligible et savoureuse dès qu'on la prend pour ce qu'elle est, à savoir une oeuvre de vacances, le débordement spontané d'un grand intellect, une orgie de débats, de paradoxes, d'effets comiques et plus que tout, d'inventions qui partent en tous sens p.22. T. More, Utopia, p.87 to 93. A. Prévost, Thomas More et la crise de la pensée européenne, Mame, Tours 1969 : Lorsque la pièce s'achève, le spectateur reste un instant muet, interdit. [...]