The New Republic: A Commentary on Book I of More’s Utopia Showing Its Relation to Plato’s Republic

Preface

PREFACE This little book began in some lectures on the Utopia which I was giving to first­year students in the Foundation Year Programme at the Univer­ sity of King's College. The programme had been started as an alterna­ tive to the ordinary unstructured selection of five first­year courses which became the norm after North American universities had generally abandoned the curriculum in the late 1960s. This four­credit course sought to provide a coherent account of the development of Western civilization from Homer to the twentieth century. By late November, when I was to lecture on More, I had either taught, or tutored and sat through, a series of classes on Homer, Sophocles, the Republic, the Aeneid, some of Augustine,the Song of Roland and allthree parts of the Divine Comedy. In preparing my lecture I happened to look up a note in the text we were using (Paul Turner's translation in the Penguin edition) on More's use of the title "Bencheater" for the second highest set of officials in Utopia. This appeared to be one of the many names he had concocted from Greek roots.1 I found the following explanation: BENCHEATER: Traniborus, possibly from thranos (bench) and bora (food). If so, the name may have been suggested by memories of Lincoln's Inn, where More's grandfatherand father had both held the post of butler, and he himself had been a Reader; where communal meals were eaten by members sitting on benches; and where Senior Members were known as Benchers. (Glossary, p. 153) Further research revealed more in the same vein (see for example the note in the Yale ed., p. 398, 122/10­13), but the explanation seemed lame. In the case of all the other made­up names, More did so because their objects were fictional: thus Anemolius, Utopia, the Polylerites, Achorians, Macarians, Amaurotum, Abraxa, Anydrus, etc. When he Reference notes to the Preface appear on pp. xi­xiii. vii viii THE NEW REPUBLIC: A COMMENTARY refers to real places or characters he uses their proper names—as in Antwerp, England, France, Plato and Aristotle. Why would he make up a name to refer to a real situation in this case and, if it did refer to the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn, what would this have to do with his argu­ ment? Likewise, in our text, the lower officials were called "Stywards"—with the following note: STYWARD: Syphograntus, possibly from suephos (pig­sty) and kran­ tor (ruler). Like Traniborus, this name may have some connexion with Lincoln's Inn, where More's grandfather was not only butler but also steward (which was sometimes spelt sty ward). (Glossary,p. 154) Only a month earlier I had been discussing with students the difficult questions about the beginning of Book II of the Republic and, perhaps because I had also been considering the development of Western thought from Plato to More in the interveningperiod, I suddenly thought I sawwhat More intended. These terms had nothing to do with Lincoln's Inn! Rather, they were intended as a playful reference, for his learned humanist readers, to Plato's Republic.2 There, in Book II, where Soc­ rates begins by constructing a state in thought, he first gives us what he calls the "true... healthy state" (372e). This is a simple Arcadian paradise that aims at nothing beyond the bare necessities of food, clothing and shelter (see 369a­372d) sought in a rational manner in a settled agricultural community. Glaucon, his interlocutor, spurns this rustic simplicity in these words: ... if you were founding a city of pigs, Socrates, what other fodder than this would you provide? Why, what would you have, Glaucon? said I [Socrates]. What is customary, he replied. They must recline on couches, I presume, ifthey are not to be uncomfortable, and dine from tables and have dishes and sweetmeats such as are now in use. (372d­e) From this point on Socrates turns his attention, through the rest of the Republic, to the demands of the "luxurious city" (372e) that can pro­ vide for such refined wants. He never returns to the Arcadian paradise. For Plato it was lost beyond recovery in the simpler and purer past of man's original innocence. But was not this "city ofpigs" what More was referring to in the titles he playfully invented for the officials of Utopia? If the correct derivation of syphogrant was ''the ruler ofa pig­sty'' —as seemed beyond dispute if only...