The first created original name was even longer: Libellus vere aureus, nec minus salutaris quam festivus, de optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia. ![]() About the Best State of a Commonwealth and the New Island of Utopia.On the Best Kind of a Republic and About the New Island of Utopia.Concerning the Best Condition of the Commonwealth and the New Island of Utopia.On the Best State of a Commonwealth and on the New Island of Utopia.Concerning the Highest State of the Republic and the New Island Utopia.On the Best State of a Republic and on the New Island of Utopia.It is variously rendered as any of the following: The title De optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia literally translates, "Of a republic's best state and of the new island Utopia". Many aspects of More's description of Utopia are reminiscent of life in monasteries. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. Utopia ( Latin: Libellus vere aureus, nec minus salutaris quam festivus, de optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia, "A truly golden little book, not less beneficial than enjoyable, about how things should be in a state and about the new island Utopia") is a work of fiction and socio- political satire by Thomas More (1478–1535), written in Latin and published in 1516. Students will be able to explain how utopian writing was shaped by – and in turn helped to shape – the major processes of transformation that define the early modern period, ranging from religious reform and political revolutions over geographic discoveries and the beginnings of transatlantic colonialism to visions of social levelling and re-assessments of received gender roles.Libellus vere aureus, nec minus salutaris quam festivus, de optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia at Latin Wikisource On completion of the lecture, Students will have become familiar with key texts of early modern utopian writing and will be able to situate them in their literary and historical contexts. Topics to be discussed in more detail include the relationship between utopian writing and other genres and modes of writing such as travel writing and satire, the relationship between utopian writing and early colonialism, or utopian writing as a form of social and political critique and philosophical speculation more generally. selections from John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667). We will also read drama that engages with utopian ideas, such as William Shakespeare’s Tempest (c. In this lecture, we will consider such questions in utopian prose fiction from Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) over Margaret Cavendish’s Blazing World (1666) and others up to Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726). Can perfect worlds and societies ever exist? And what price is to be paid for attempting to bring them into being? When Thomas More coined the term ‘utopia’ in 1516 in order to describe an ideal commonwealth, he captured this fundamental ambivalence of utopian thinking with a characteristic pun: ’utopia’ means ‘good place’ (gr. ![]() Some of their visions did indeed come true – but the outcome rarely ever met their expectations. ![]() They dreamt of worlds in which tyrants and warmongers would be brought to heel, where God would be worshiped purely and without idolatry, and where humanist learning and eloquence would overcome ignorance and superstition. While the twenty-first century has been rather sceptical about utopian thinking in the face of overwhelming global challenges such as climate change and shortage of resources, the early moderns vividly imagined and desperately hoped for better worlds. The early modern period was not only an age of discoveries, in which Europeans became aware of a whole “new world” in the Americas, it was also an age of imagining better worlds – an age of utopian fiction. Wednesday 08:15 - 10:00, Hebdomadaire (Autumn semester)
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