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Authors: Peter Ackroyd
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others. One of More’s favourite grammatical manoeuvres in
Utopia
is that of litotes when (to quote from the
Oxford English Dictionary
) ‘an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary’; it is not inconceivable that such a device contributes to the spell of ambivalence and confusion which the entire narrative seems to cast. Many of the Utopian customs extolled by Hythlodaeus are impractical; no doubt following Plato’s suggestion in
The Republic
that both men and women should be recruited as combatantson the battlefield, for example, Hythlodaeus describes how in Utopian warfare each citizen-soldier is accompanied by his entire family and blood relations. No greater opportunity for confusion and mass slaughter can be conceived. Even the map of Utopia, which acts as the book’s frontispiece, is woefully inconsistent with the succeeding narrative; Hythlodaeus insisted that the buildings were all alike, where the map shows a variety of majestic edifices not unlike those depicted by Van Eyck. The prefatory material to this treatise, complete with letters of commendation and celebratory verses, is an elaborate parody of the learned volumes of the late fifteenth century; even More’s Latin narrative, with its divisions and subdivisions, has been characterised as a satire upon scholastic prose.
One further ambiguity must be mentioned here. More’s subsequent works, which were generally polemical in intent, also display signs of highly formalised constraint and an almost scholastic sense of method. His own life of discipline, and his devotion to the Catholic Church, suggest that he was naturally inclined to the imposed order of authority. That is why
Utopia
, despite More’s own ironic negations and reservations, remains a powerful vision of existence; it radiates from the centre of More’s being and there are aspects of Utopian worship and custom, for example, which are strongly evocative of his own experience in the Charterhouse. In his dream of being appointed king of Utopia, as he told Erasmus, he was arrayed in the habit of a Franciscan. There is perhaps even some intimation that he would like to be subjugated and controlled within such a state. It is significant that both the treatment of the sick and the slaughtering of animals are described as taking place beyond the city walls: all forms of threatening disorder and decay have to be expelled from the ordered centre.
This may, at least in part, explain why
Utopia
has frequently been interpreted as a serious attempt to construct an ideal republic; no wonder John Ruskin described it as ‘perhaps the most really mischievous book ever written’. 25 Certainly it is one of the most elaborate and successful exercises in satire ever to have been composed and it confirms More’s contemporary reputation as a master of humour. That humour was inevitably also directed against his own day, and in
Utopia
he takes advantage of the freedom of fable to mock some of the abuses and follies which he saw around him. In particular he berates the currentpractices of diplomacy and treaty-making, at the precise time when he himself was involved in just such activities. He also rids Utopia of lawyers, with a marginal annotation from Gillis that they are all ‘useless’. 26
The central fact is clear. It is very difficult in
Utopia
to gauge or determine More’s own opinion upon any particular matter. Irony was the most powerful and complicated literary tone in a society where formal appearances were becoming less and less appropriate to the actual realities of power, and where traditional beliefs and authoritative customs were beginning to decay. It is the tone of Erasmus, and of Rabelais, as the cultures of the Middle Ages were gradually being displaced. It may also help to account for the popularity of dialogues in the period, where ambiguity can be sustained indefinitely. More himself remained a master of ambivalence; his written texts seem to offer both public and
Utopia
is that of litotes when (to quote from the
Oxford English Dictionary
) ‘an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary’; it is not inconceivable that such a device contributes to the spell of ambivalence and confusion which the entire narrative seems to cast. Many of the Utopian customs extolled by Hythlodaeus are impractical; no doubt following Plato’s suggestion in
The Republic
that both men and women should be recruited as combatantson the battlefield, for example, Hythlodaeus describes how in Utopian warfare each citizen-soldier is accompanied by his entire family and blood relations. No greater opportunity for confusion and mass slaughter can be conceived. Even the map of Utopia, which acts as the book’s frontispiece, is woefully inconsistent with the succeeding narrative; Hythlodaeus insisted that the buildings were all alike, where the map shows a variety of majestic edifices not unlike those depicted by Van Eyck. The prefatory material to this treatise, complete with letters of commendation and celebratory verses, is an elaborate parody of the learned volumes of the late fifteenth century; even More’s Latin narrative, with its divisions and subdivisions, has been characterised as a satire upon scholastic prose.
One further ambiguity must be mentioned here. More’s subsequent works, which were generally polemical in intent, also display signs of highly formalised constraint and an almost scholastic sense of method. His own life of discipline, and his devotion to the Catholic Church, suggest that he was naturally inclined to the imposed order of authority. That is why
Utopia
, despite More’s own ironic negations and reservations, remains a powerful vision of existence; it radiates from the centre of More’s being and there are aspects of Utopian worship and custom, for example, which are strongly evocative of his own experience in the Charterhouse. In his dream of being appointed king of Utopia, as he told Erasmus, he was arrayed in the habit of a Franciscan. There is perhaps even some intimation that he would like to be subjugated and controlled within such a state. It is significant that both the treatment of the sick and the slaughtering of animals are described as taking place beyond the city walls: all forms of threatening disorder and decay have to be expelled from the ordered centre.
This may, at least in part, explain why
Utopia
has frequently been interpreted as a serious attempt to construct an ideal republic; no wonder John Ruskin described it as ‘perhaps the most really mischievous book ever written’. 25 Certainly it is one of the most elaborate and successful exercises in satire ever to have been composed and it confirms More’s contemporary reputation as a master of humour. That humour was inevitably also directed against his own day, and in
Utopia
he takes advantage of the freedom of fable to mock some of the abuses and follies which he saw around him. In particular he berates the currentpractices of diplomacy and treaty-making, at the precise time when he himself was involved in just such activities. He also rids Utopia of lawyers, with a marginal annotation from Gillis that they are all ‘useless’. 26
The central fact is clear. It is very difficult in
Utopia
to gauge or determine More’s own opinion upon any particular matter. Irony was the most powerful and complicated literary tone in a society where formal appearances were becoming less and less appropriate to the actual realities of power, and where traditional beliefs and authoritative customs were beginning to decay. It is the tone of Erasmus, and of Rabelais, as the cultures of the Middle Ages were gradually being displaced. It may also help to account for the popularity of dialogues in the period, where ambiguity can be sustained indefinitely. More himself remained a master of ambivalence; his written texts seem to offer both public and
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