More and the Republics of Plato

More explicitly situates both Utopia and the Utopia it describes at least partly in relation to, and in playful competition with, Plato’s Republic. However, it is the main contention of this chapter that More’s knowledge of Greek, and understanding of Greek thought and methodologies, allows him to engage much more deeply with the Republic—and Plato’s corpus overall—than is immediately obvious from the surface resemblances, and that it richly repays the reader to consider afresh Plato’s not one but two imagined communities in the Republic, in order better to understand More’s own deliberately elliptical approach. Such a perspective enables the reader to see how the uses of serio-comedy and dialogue interconnect in Utopia to form an exploratory pedagogic work which is More’s deepest debt to Plato of all. Adapting Plato’s model, More converses with all those who have speculated and will continue to speculate on the nature of the ideally organized community, and the extent to which such communities either can or should be put into practice.

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