Abstract: The author More, a devout Catholic humanist who did not argue, but gave both sides of the debate and, therefore, indirectly pushes the reader towards political activism, called for the improvement of the flawed commonwealth of England with the mixed usage of utilitas and honestas. He uses the interplay of real vs. imaginary to downplay his radical ideas and present them to his audience in an indirect way so that they will except his reform on contemporary issues facing 16th century England.
Sir Thomas More created the word "utopia" and the genre of modern utopian literature. Significantly, he named his book Utopia which are two words fused together to mean "nowhere" to play off of the word eutopia which is the Greek word for "happy place." Throughout the book this type of cleverness and wordplay prevails as More interweaves Christian and classical antiquity into the slippery text of Utopia to further his reforming efforts. The author More, a devout Catholic humanist who did not argue, but gave both sides of the debate and, therefore, indirectly pushes the reader towards political activism, called for the improvement of the flawed commonwealth of England with the mixed usage of utilitas and honestas.
Throughout More's Utopia the reader is questioning More's intentions. It is a literary game with the playful combination of the real and the imaginary. He starts out by basing all the characters and settings on actual fact, but then he slips in fiction with the character Raphael Hythloday. By adding fiction to his story, More stirs the imagination and opens the minds of his readers. It allows them to consider the radical ideas purported by Hythloday. Hythloday is an extensive traveler and as a result of his extensive travels he has new ideas about government and the state of the commonwealth. Throughout the book the author-More plays him off as a real person. In his letter to Peter Giles at the beginning of the book, he points out the fact that in Utopia he has "taken particular pains to avoid untruths in the book" (Utopia, 5), but in fact the whole book is centered around a fictitious character and a fictitious place.
