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Aspects of More's Latin Style in Utopia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2019

Edward Surtz S.J.
Edward Surtz S.J.*
Affiliation:
Loyola University of Chicago
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Extract

Without entering into controversy over the term, we might recall that style in its most comprehensive sense (that is, inasmuch as distinguished and distinguishable from content) would include (i) More's conception of Utopia as both useful and entertaining, (2) his formulation of the theme and its structurization, so to speak, by use of a frame and other devices, (3) his choice of dramatic dialogue as his special medium and its consequent effect upon characterization and setting, and (4) his adaptation of the various elements, especially the comic, to the audience. These broader aspects of style have been treated recently in the Yale Utopia. The present article proposes to supplement—and to complement—the discussion by analyzing More's style in the more usual and narrow sense: the selection and the arrangement of words and phrases which betray the intellectual, emotional, and artistic cast of the author.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in the Renaissance , Volume 14 , 1967 , pp. 93 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1967

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References

1 See ‘Utopia as a Work of Literary Art', The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, iv: Utopia, ed.E.SurtzandJ.H.Hexter (New Haven andLondon.Yale University Press, 1965), introd., cxxv-cliii. In the text of the present article, reference to this edition will be made by page and line: e.g., 46/8-12 means page 46, lines 8-12. The Yale edition purposes to treat the Utopia as the Latin classic that it is. As far as possible, it attempts to sever itself from the tradition which tends to confound the text with the English versions. Ralph Robinson's translation (1551) in particular prejudices the whole conception of the work. The antique English style falsifies the maturity and contemporaneity of the Latin original. To eliminate the archaic savor, even the names in the Yale translation appear in forms which, it is hoped, will strike the modern English reader as the names in Latin do the Latin reader, whether of the sixteenth or twentieth century.

2 Additional indication of More's independence and adaptability is to be found in M. R. Sullivan, A Study of the Cursus in the Works of St. Thomas More (Washington, Catholic University of America Press, 1943); e.g., ‘Utopia offers evidence of his tendency to use the cursus forms, without, however, limiting his rhythms by a set formula dictating wordlength and the placing of caesurae’ (p. 67).

3 For this article the paginal references are to the edition: Lugduni apud Seb. Gryphium, 1541. Book and chapter (or heading) are cited for readers who wish to use the version in Opera omnia (Lugduni Batavorum, P. vander Aa, 1703-1706), Vol. I, which has no significant differences.

4 See appendix B, ‘Vocabulary and Diction in Utopia', Utopia, pp. 577-582.

5 M. C. Colbert, The Syntax of the ‘De Civitate Dei’ of St. Augustine (Washington, Catholic University of America Press, 1923), p. 11.

6 See the brief treatment in Utopia, introd., pp. cli-clii.

7 Appendix B, ibid., pp. 577-582. After the acceptance of this article for publication in Studies in the Renaissance, M. l'Abbe Germain Marc'hadour, editor of Moreana, called the author's attention to R. Monsuez, ‘Le Latin de Thomas More dans “Utopia” ‘, Annales publiees par la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de Toulouse, Nouvelle Série, Tome 11, Fasc. 1 (Janvier 1966), Caliban 5, 35-78. The present study, which focuses on More's rhetoric in the light of Renaissance theory and practice, particularly as epitomized in Erasmus’ Copia, is almost entirely complementary to that by Professor Monsuez, who offers an excellent discussion, full and detailed, of More's vocabulary and grammar in relation to the ancient Latin classics. In regard to die liberties taken by More, Professor Monsuez concludes: ‘J'inclinerais volontiers à croire que la plupart d'entre elles cherchent a rendre le laisser-aller d'une conversation entre gens cultives. Pour moi, en effet, Thomas More a poursuivi deux buts: d'abord dormer à son exposé le ton, Failure d'un entretien et non d'un ouvrage dogmatique: de la I'emploi de la langue usuelle, sinon familière, avec tout ce qu'elle comporte de banalites, d'a peu près, de laisser-aller; ensuite il a tenu á montrer qu'il pouvait rivaliser avec ses amis humanistes et les plus érudits de ses lecteurs' (Caliban 3,78).

8 Already in October 1523, in response to Catherine of Aragon's request for a program of study for Princess Mary, Vives was recommending the Utopia for both style and content: 'Auctores in quibus versabitur, ii erunt qui pariter et linguam et mores excolant, atque instituant; quique non modo bene scire doceant, sed bene vivere; hujusmodi sunt Cicero, Seneca, Plutarchi opera … , aliquot Platonis opera, praesertim qui ad rempublicam gubernandam spectant,… Erasmi institutio principis,… Thomae Mori Utopia.'— 'De ratione studii puerilis', Opera omnia (Valencia, 1782-90), 1, 256, 269.