Читать книгу Utopia - Sir Thomas More, Thomas More, William Roper - Страница 17

With its author one of the most famous figures in English history, it may come as a surprise to new readers of Utopia that the work was written in Latin. The first English translation was not made until after More's death.

Research on Thomas More remains lively and there have been multiple translations of Utopia, continuing into the twenty‐first century.

In this Capstone edition we use an early translation, that of Gilbert Burnet of 1684. The Burnet text is the original, but we have revised the paragraph layout slightly to increase readability.

Burnet was instrumental in overhauling More's reputation for Anglican Britain, claiming that because More wanted church reform and was highly critical of England's clerics – themes that appear in Utopia – he was in fact a forerunner of England's Protestants. Burnet emphasized the religious aspects of Utopia at the expense of those social ones that more recent scholars have placed at the centre of their interpretations. He hailed More as a man full of ‘justice, contempt for money, humility, and a true generosity of mind’.