Thomas More’s Utopia, written in 1516, gave the name to the corresponding genre in literature. The influence of this book in the following centuries cannot be overestimated. A whole series of works dedicated to the image of a perfect society followed Utopia (Wilde 27). Its legacy can be traced in many social and moral-aesthetic utopias and dystopias of the subsequent centuries. One of the most famous ones is Tommaso Campanella’s The City of the Sun which occupies a significant place in the history of social ideas. It is perhaps the most totalitarian of all utopias, according to which, all troubles and crimes are from private property and the family (Wilde 36). More’s ideas can be traced in the works of Karl Marx as well. In 1848, Marx and Engels published The Communist Manifesto, an utopian program that had a decisive influence on the fate of the 20th century (Olkusz et al. 20). It ended the two-thousand-year history of utopian projects and began its new stage, offering an accurate plan for rebuilding the world.
Traces of More’s Utopia can be found in the books of some later dystopian writers such as Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. Their works are associated with the conflict between the personality and the social environment, which tends to erase individuality in a person. Utopia’s legacy can be also found in the works of modern writers such as Margaret Atwood (Olkusz et al. 20). In her novel The Handmaid’s Tale, the dystopian tradition of depicting violence against a person is further embodied and developed: the main character is deprived of all rights and property, and her existence is reduced to reproductive function (Olkusz et al. 20). Thus, the authors of all projects of an ideal society proceeded from a person’s ability to self-improvement, but they always involved coercion, with the help of which the resistance of a person should be overcome.
Works Cited
Olkusz, Ksenia, Michał Kłosiński, and Krzysztof M. Maj, eds. More After More: Essays Commemorating the Five-Hundredth Anniversary of Thomas More’s Utopia. Vol. 1. Ośrodek Badawczy Facta Ficta, 2017.
Wilde, Lawrence. Thomas More’s Utopia: Arguing for Social Justice. Taylor & Francis, 2016.