More's Utopia and Utopian Literature (Cliffs Notes)

Rating:
Summary: Wow! Who would have thought!
Review: I wrote my senior thesis on Utopia and The Republic, illustrating the common theme of what makes a Utopian culture. Believe it or not, the Cliffs Notes had the most original and best thought out analysis that I read, AND BELIEVE ME I read a lot on Utopian Literature. If you are reading Utopia, I suggest the Cliffs Notes.

Rating:
Summary: Wow! Who would have thought!
Review: I wrote my senior thesis on Utopia and The Republic, illustrating the common theme of what makes a Utopian culture. Believe it or not, the Cliffs Notes had the most original and best thought out analysis that I read, AND BELIEVE ME I read a lot on Utopian Literature. If you are reading Utopia, I suggest the Cliffs Notes.

Rating:
Summary: Great Survey of Utopian Literature & Ideals
Review: Why in the world am I reviewing a set of Cliff notes? Mainly because I was intrigued & impressed by the sections devoted to the history of the utopian literature genre. Those sections, which gave a historical and literary context to More's work, made reading these notes very worthwhile. Of course these notes also cover the standard topics you'd expect from the Cliff Notes series, such as the chapter-by-chapter summary of "Utopia" and a biography of Sir Thomas More. But I think the notes' broader survey of utopian ideals that makes them interesting. They show us how the theme appears in everything from Plato's Republic to Gulliver's Travels to Russian Communism and elsewhere. And of course, since they're Cliff notes, they're a quick read.

Two-thirds of the notes are devoted to analyzing More's book, which was first published in 1516. More was the first to coin the term "utopia", which literally means nowhere. He describes a fictional society where people work 5 hour workdays, mostly in the trades. They relax with reading, lectures, and parlor games. They are under benevolent rule by carefully selected officials of superior intelligence and integrity. They use uniform, unpretentious clothing and housing, and dine in communal dining halls. There is no money or private property; every man works for the good of the community, rather than just himself. Each is free from anxieties, knowing he is rich in the sense he owns his share of everything.

The notes go on to discuss how some have tried to bring utopian ideals to the real world. For example, the Fourierism movement 1830's and 1840's created many experimental communities in the US. These communities had emphasized joint labor, the communal raising of children, simplicity, uniformity of dress, pacifism, rigid codes of behavior, and rule by wise elders as officials. There's also a section in the notes on the relationship of Utopia to Communism; the two are of course similar, but definitely not identical.

The notes also cover the anti-utopias described in 1984 and Brave New World. The societies in both these novels are dysfunctional, though in different ways. In 1984, as you probably remember, the population is ruled by force - a totalitarian political party controls the masses through propaganda, surveillance cameras, secret police, and torture. There are historical parallels here to Stalinist Russia, or WWII Germany. In contrast, Brave New World is about ruling the population through pleasures; universal happiness is provided through elaborate sports, entertainment, and ritualized social activities as well as happiness-inducing drugs. Social stability is maintained through a class system created through selective artificial gestation & elaborate psychological conditioning so people accept their roles and get along with others. Some say that the "Brave New World" reflects some features that are found in today's capitalistic societies.

Overall, though, I thought the sections of these notes about the literary history of the Utopian theme, as well as the real-world examples of utopian communities, were even more interesting than the sections devoted to More's Utopia itself. If those themes seem interesting to you, then by all means pick up a copy of these notes & read the ~25 pages devoted to those topics.