Music and Otherness in More’s Utopia

Abstract

In several passages of his Utopia, Thomas More evokes a cultural milieu quite different from the current European one. Education and the arts are distinct features of Utopia’s “Otherness”, suggesting radical reforms and a much more advanced degree of civilization, based on the absence of greed and the presence of Christian charity. Students are motivated by an environment that excludes discrimination of sexes and encourages pursuing one’s vocation. Teachers are required to give an example of rectitude and justice. The resulting windfall of this system is a highly original class of educators, scientists and inventors, raising the standard of living of Utopians to levels unknown by the contemporary Europeans. What is particularly striking is the musical achievements of the Utopians. At the time when, at the beginning of the sixteenth-century, the most musically advanced countries in Europe are still playing monophonic music, we read in Utopia a description of musical performances that sound decidedly polyphonic.