Take-Aways Preface on an Allegedly True Story from the Island of Utopia What It’s About Ideal Society and Ideal State

Reviews and Legacy

More coined the neologism “Utopia” using the Greek terms ou (not) and tópos (place) – therefore “Utopia” literally means no place or nowhere – and gave many languages a new word for an imaginary place where everything is perfect. More’s classic work also put a name to modern utopian thinking and the literary genre of the utopian novel.

However, the blueprint of a utopian state is considered to be Plato’s Politeia (The Republic), which More references in his Utopia. More’s innovation inspired other thinkers to explore utopian socialism, including The City of the Sun by Tommaso Campanella (1602), which features communist ideas similar to the English model, and New Atlantis by Francis Bacon (1626), which focuses on the exploration of nature. All those works were inspired by the critique of the prevailing social order and the search for a better one, often involving the return to a natural state. Many more followed, for example, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels in 1726, which combines scathing political satire with utopian ideas. In the 19th century, the genre made the leap toward science-fiction by Jules Verne and toward dystopian fiction such as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World in the 20th century. Utopian elements can also be found in 18th-century French social philosophy, historical materialism and even anarchism.

Each of these utopias draws from the tension between the ideal and reality: How is the world, and how could it be? In his work, More touches on the basics: happiness and providing for the individual, harmony in society, sensible rule, and private versus communal property. Utopia, in particular, reveals the disparate goals a writer can pursue with a utopian text: Does More simply dream of a better society, or is he trying to make fun of it? Is he intent on rousing the people to revolutionary action or giving advice to the rulers – similar to his contemporary Niccolò Machiavelli in The Prince? These different possibilities unite all aspects of utopian fiction.