Interesting blog entry from Tyler Cowen’s “Marginal Revolution” blog on Thomas More’s Utopia, a work that in C. S. Lewis’s phrase “starts many hares but catches none.” I’m not sure Lewis was absolutely right, but it is fascinating to see how many perspectives More’s justly famous piece rewards. I’m neck-deep in John Donne right now, and loving it, but next term my sixteenth-century lit. class will give me a chance to talk about More again. I’ll clip Cowen’s entry in my Bloglines account and have another conversation- or paper-starter for my class.
Cool.
I’ve always wanted to teach the More-Machiavelli pairing, but haven’t gotten around to it.
The Machiavelli-Marxist revolutionary one is fun, too; ta to Gramsci.
But More’s so much smarter than Machiavelli. It’d hardly be fair.