See also: Utopia
Utopia is one of the works of Thomas More, which had a particular success in France at the 17th century and the 18th century.
Although Thomas More was not economist, but Juriste, Historien, Théologien and Politician, utopia , which was not a treaty of economy, but rather a Satire of the company of its time, was taken again at the 19th century, undoubtedly by an effect of Biais, to build economic theories (see Histoire of the economic thinking).
Historical context
In 1516, appears in Latin in the editor Thierry Martens of Leuwen in Flanders, a strange book whose author Thomas More ( Morus in Latin), lawyer of the middle-class men of London and recently passed to the service of the Diplomatie of the new king d' Angleterre Henri VIII, was famous the friend of Érasme.
This book carried a title built according to a double Greek root meaning “place which is not nowhere” ( or-topos in Greek), but also “place of happiness” ( have-topos in Greek), it was an immediate success. Other editors undertook to publish the book:
One translated Utopia into Italian, in Venice in 1548, in French, in Paris in 1550, but it is only in 1551, that is to say sixteen years after the death of Thomas More, whom in London at Ralph Robinson the English translation of a work appeared which had already made the round the world tour.
The humanistic , these scientists who opened the new page of modernity by devoting to the redécouverte Antiquity and of his knowledge, the clerks which wondered about the present and the future of the Roman Eglise, the magistrates with the service of the right and the States, the middle-class men educated of the commercial towns, ensured the reputation of Utopia . Blow, the Flemish editor who had had early product of it drew from them eight editions between 1516 and 1520; famous Frober of Basle - for which Érasme worked - published two editions of them.
The Utopie of Thomas More had in France a repercussion particular to the 17th century and the 18th century: in 1643, 1715, 1730, 1741, 1780: editions, new translations, republications, did not cease following one another, thus making this work one of most read the books modern European literature during the Lights.
The originality as the success of this novel led to imitations and this work finds thus at the origin of a new literary kind to which one gives precisely the name of Utopie.
At the 19th century, the word Utopia was used with construction as socialist systems , with other ideological sources more that the initial intention of Thomas More:
- Saint-Simon (count of): to see the article on the Saint-Simonism, and the analysis that makes Pierre Musso of it,
- Charles Fourier,
- Pierre Leroux,
- Pierre Joseph Proudhon.
Account
Utopus seized Abraxa a ground which was due to the continent and its name gave him. It " humanized a coarse and wild population, and to train people which exceed today all the others in civilization". Then, it made cut an isthmus and " the ground of Abraxa became thus the island of Utopie". Genesis of the island east symbolic system: Utopus wanted to make the territory difficult of access to make a reserved place of it; claiming of the traveller some effort to go there. Such natural barriers guarantee the protection of the external influences. Later, Voltaire will imagine the Eldorado (another Utopia celebrates) in Candide . As for the term of Abraxa, it is not unimportant: it indicates the city of insane in the Praise of the Madness of his friend Érasme. Thus, the Utopia is governed by mathematics, pure manifestation of the understandable one. In the island, all is measurable because the number alone guarantees the equality. For example, all the streets of the town of Amaurote measure 6,5 m of width. On the island, the private Propriété is unknown, the Utopians work 6 hours per day and take their joint meal. The spare time is devoted to the leisures like the failures or the training of the beautiful letters.
Comments
Such a company points out those created respectively by Aldous Huxley and George Orwell in Brave New World and 1984 . Wouldn't the price to pay to live in peace and the equality in the island of Utopia be a total destruction to be it?More imagined an island where the life of the inhabitants at this point would be regulated by the State that it would be possible for him to escape the inevitable injustices and violences even in the company best developed. Thus, the fact of qualifying the Marxism or the Liberalism and especially the Anarchisme of utopian can seem to be an abuse language insofar as More invented a company characterized by a total influence of the State.
Undoubtedly should not one exaggerate or deform the initial intention of Thomas More, who was to criticize the abuses the company of his time. More was conscious of the imaginary character of the Utopia.
Characters
Utopus , died since years, remains the brilliant originator of all that is on the island. The streets, the sewers, the ramparts, the dwellings, the laws, the social rules… All these things are the result of its work in Utopia.
Extracts
“The island of Utopia has two hundred and thousand steps in its greater width, located at the average part. This width narrows gradually and symmetrically center at the two ends, so that the whole island swells in a half-circle of five hundred miles turn, and presents the shape of a crescent, from which the horns are distant from eleven thousand steps approximately.
The sea fills this immense basin; the adjacent grounds which develop in amphitheater break the fury of the winds there, there maintain the flood calm and peaceful and give to this great mass water the appearance of a quiet lake. This concave part of the island east like only one and vast port accessible to the ships on all the points.
The entry of the gulf is dangerous, because of the sand banks of a side, and shelves of the other. In the medium rises a visible rock by far, and which for that does not offer any danger. Utopiens built there a fort, defended by a good garrison. Other rocks, hidden under water, tighten inevitable traps with the navigators. The inhabitants alone know the navigable passages, and it is with reason that one cannot penetrate in this strait, without having a pilot utopien on his board. Still this precaution would be it insufficient, so headlights spread out on the coast did not indicate the route to follow. The simple transposition of these headlights would be enough to destroy the most fleet, by giving him a false direction.
With the opposite part of the island, one finds ports frequent, and art and nature strengthened the coasts so much, that a handle of men could prevent the unloading of an large army.
If it is necessary to believe about it of the traditions, fully confirmed, of the remainder, by the configuration of the country, this ground was not always an island. It was called formerly Abraxa, and was due to the continent; Utopus seized some and its name gave him.
This conqueror had enough genius to humanize a coarse and wild population, and to train of it people which exceed today all the others in civilization. As soon as the victory had made it main of this country, it made cut an isthmus of fifteen thousand steps, which united it in the continent; and the ground of Abraxa became thus the island of Utopia. Utopus as well as employed with the completion of this gigantic work the soldiers of its army the natives, so that those did not look at the work imposed by the winner like a humiliation and an insult. Thousands of arm were thus put moving, and success crowned soon the company. The close people were struck by it of astonishment and terror, them which at the beginning had treated this work of vanity and madness.
The island of Utopia contains fifty four roomy and splendid cities. The language, manners, the institutions, the laws are perfectly identical there. The fifty four cities are built on the same plan, and have the same establishments, the same public edifices, modified according to the requirements of the localities. The short distance between these east cities of twenty-four miles, longest is one day of walking.
Every year, three experienced and able old men are named appointed by each city, and gather in Amaurote, in order to treat the businesses of the country with it. Amaurote is the capital of the island; its central position reviews most suitable the meeting of it for all the deputies.
A minimum of twenty thousand steps of ground is assigned at each city for consumption and the culture. In the extent of the territory generates is proportional to the distance of the cities. These happy cities do not seek to move back the limits fixed by the law. The inhabitants look themselves like the farmers, rather than like the owners of the ground.
There is, in the middle of the fields, of the houses conveniently built, furnished with any species of instruments of agriculture, and which are used as dwellings with the armies of workers that the city periodically sends to the countryside.
The agricultural family is composed at least of forty individuals, men and women, and of two slaves. She is under the direction of a father and a mother, serious and careful people.”
See too
External bonds
- Utopia and the dedicated Utopias, pages and catalogs on the site of the National library of France
- " Humor, Utopia, science" , of Gilbert Boss
- integral Book in English
- integral Book in French
- work
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