ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Utopia, book by Thomas More, published in 1516.

Detailed explanation-2: -In 1516 the statesman and scholar Thomas More published a work describing an ideal island state – he called it Utopia. The name derives from the Greek but has a double meaning ‘eutopia’ (good place) or ‘outopia’ (no place).

Detailed explanation-3: -Most of the original utopias were created for religious purposes. One of the earliest was devised by George Rapp, a German zealot, who took 600 followers to western Pennsylvania in 1804.

Detailed explanation-4: -The early modern genre of utopian writing was born in 1516 with the publication of one brilliant book: Thomas More’s Utopia. The title (a Greek pun) means both ‘no place’ and ‘good place’.

Detailed explanation-5: -The first edition, edited by Erasmus, was published in Leuven in 1516, followed by a second edition in Paris in 1517, embellished with supportive letters between leading humanists to whom Erasmus had sent copies of the manuscript.