Before Utopia : the making of Thomas More's mind /

This original, densely written study seeks to understand how Thomas More (1478--1535) came "to embrace and represent a particular way of thinking" (p. 3). Dealy (ret., St. John's Univ., NY) argues that More had wrestled with the claims of contemplative life, urged on by the religiously minded and the active life that attracted him, but that his doubts were resolved by the Stoic philosophy expressed in the works of his friend Erasmus and in Cicero's Paradoxa Stoicorum. More ultimately embraced a Christianity that was both worldly and nonworldly, a both/and rather than an either/or. In this view More's great book, Utopia, was not an exercise in humanist rhetoric but a "programmatic" work of philosophy. The debate between More and the fictional character Hythloday in Utopia is thus understood as a confrontation that requires reconciliation. In the conclusion Dealy writes that by 1516 "More had come to see Christianity in terms of the unitary two-dimensional outlook at the heart of ancient Stoicism." In the final chapter, he reinvents the very meaning of Utopia: it was a way of solving problems rather than a "conglomeration of more of less ideal practices, customs and institutions." Dealy skillfully disposes of interpretations presented by other scholars. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty. --Douglas R. Bisson, Belmont University