Moore, Thomas

Thomas Moore was born in London in 1478, he studied at Oxford and he became a lawyer. He met Erasmus, who introduced him to Humanism. He was a scholar, witty and catholic man. After the schism he refused to acknowledge Henry VIII as Supreme Head of the Church of England. So he was imprisoned into the tower of London and beheaded. He wrote many pamphlets and letters, but he is remembered as the author of Utopia, which was published in Latin and then translated into English. It is in the form of dialogue between Moore and an imaginary traveler. It is divided into two books: the first one tells about England before the reformation; it is a form of denunciation of the corruption of the country and of the power of the nobles and abbots who go on converting theirs fields into pastures, thus causing unemployment and poverty. The second one describes the imaginary island of Utopia which is quite the opposite of England. In fact in Utopia private property has disappeared, the laws are clean and easy to understand, there is religious tolerance, war and luxury are despised, nobody need work longer than 9 hours a day.