A Man for All Seasons (Play)

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_for_All_Seasons

 

A Man for All Seasons
Programme from the original London production (1960)
Written by	Robert Bolt
Characters	The Common Man Sir Thomas More The Duke of Norfolk Thomas Cromwell King Henry VIII Margaret More William Roper Cardinal Thomas Wolsey Alice More Thomas Cranmer Richard Rich Signor Chapuys
Date premiered	1 July 1960 (London)
Place premiered	Globe Theatre
Original language	English
Setting	Sixteenth century England

A Man for All Seasons is a play by Robert Bolt based on the life of Sir Thomas More. An early form of the play had been written for BBC Radio in 1954, and a one-hour live television version starring Bernard Hepton was produced in 1957 by the BBC, but after Bolt's success with The Flowering Cherry, he reworked it for the stage.

It was first performed in London opening at the Globe Theatre (now Gielgud Theatre) on 1 July 1960. It later found its way to Broadway, enjoying a critically and commercially successful run of over a year. It has had several revivals, and was subsequently made into a multi-Academy Award-winning 1966 feature film and a 1988 television movie.

The plot is based on the historical events leading up to the execution of Sir Thomas More, the 16th-century Chancellor of England, who refused to endorse King Henry VIII's wish to divorce his wife Catherine of Aragon, who did not bear him a son, so that he could marry Anne Boleyn, the sister of his former mistress. The play portrays More as a man of principle, envied by rivals such as Thomas Cromwell and loved by the common people and by his family.

Title

The title reflects 20th century agnostic playwright Robert Bolt’s portrayal of More as the ultimate man of conscience. As one who remains true to himself and his beliefs while adapting to all circumstances and times, despite external pressure or influence, More represents "a man for all seasons." Bolt borrowed the title from Robert Whittington, a contemporary of More, who in 1520 wrote of him:

"More is a man of an angel's wit and singular learning. I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity. A man for all seasons."

Themes

Sir Thomas More, one of the most famous early Lord Chancellors, served and was executed under King Henry VIII.

 

A Man for All Seasons struggles with ideas of identity and conscience. More argues repeatedly that a person is defined by his conscience. His own position is depicted as almost indefensible; the Pope is described as a "bad" and corrupt individual, forced by the Emperor Charles V to act according to his will. But as More says to Norfolk, "What matters is not that it's true, but that I believe it; or no, not that I believe it, but that I believe it." More fears that if he breaks with his conscience, he will be damned to hell, while his associates and friends are more concerned with holding onto their own temporal power.

At another key point of the play, More testifies before an inquiry committee and Norfolk attempts to persuade him to sign the Succession to the Crown Act 1534 (pp. 78, Heinemann edition):

Norfolk:

Oh, confound all this. ... I'm not a scholar, as Master Cromwell never tires of pointing out, and frankly, I don't know whether the marriage was lawful or not. But damn it, Thomas, look at those names. ... You know those men! Can't you do what I did, and come with us, for fellowship?

More:

And when we stand before God, and you are sent to Paradise for doing according to your conscience, and I am damned for not doing according to mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?

More's persecution is made to seem even more unjust by the inclusion of Eustace Chapuys, the long-time Imperial ambassador to England, in the story. Chapuys recognizes More as a stout man of the church, and in Act II, after More's resignation from the Chancellorship, he informs More of a planned rebellion along the Scottish border, expecting More to be sympathetic. Instead, More informs Norfolk of the plot, showing him to be patriotic and loyal to the King. This, along with More's refusal to speak out against the King, shows him to be a loyal subject, and thus Cromwell appears to prosecute him out of personal spite and because he disagrees with the King's divorce.

Bolt also establishes an anti-authoritarian theme which recurs throughout his works. All people in positions of power – King Henry, Cromwell, Wolsey, Cranmer, Chapuys, even Norfolk – are depicted as being either corrupt, evil, or at best expedient and power-hungry. Bolt's later plays and film screenplays also delve into this theme. The theme of corruption is also illustrated, in Rich's rise to power, the Common Man being drawn into the events of the storyline, and in the (deliberately) anachronistic portrayal of Henry as a younger, athletic man (in 1530 he would have been almost forty and already putting on weight).

Although it is the law that eventually forces More's execution, the play also makes several powerful statements in support of the rule of law. At one point More's future son-in-law, Roper, urges him to arrest Richard Rich, whose perjury will eventually lead to More's execution. More answers that Rich has broken no law, "And go he should if he were the Devil himself until he broke the law!" Roper is appalled at the idea of granting the Devil the benefit of law, but More is adamant.

"What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? ... And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you – where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's, and if you cut them down – and you're just the man to do it – do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!"

The character of the Common Man serves as a narrator and framing device. A Brechtian character, he plays various small parts – More's servant, a publican, a boatman, More's jailer, jury foreman and executioner—who appear throughout the play, both taking part in and commenting on the action. Several sequences involving this character break the fourth wall—most notably, a sequence where the Common Man attempts to exit the stage and is addressed by Cromwell, who identifies him as a jury foreman. (Indeed, the "jury" consists of sticks or poles with the hats of the Common Man's various characters put on top.) The place of the Common Man in history is emphasized when he says in his opening speech,  "the sixteenth century was the century of the Common Man-like all the other centuries." 

Bolt created the Common Man for two main reasons: to illustrate the place and influence of the average person in history, even though they are usually overlooked, and to try to prevent the audience from sympathising with the more titled characters such as More, realising that the audience is more closely related to him—a classic case of Brechtian alienation. The character's role in the story has been interpreted in many different ways by different critics, from being a positive to a negative character. Bolt's own view (expressed in the preface to the play) was that he was intended to draw the audience into the play and that "common" denoted "that which is common to us all." Several of Bolt's subsequent works feature similar characters (e.g. The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew, State of Revolution). 

Endings

Two different endings were written by Bolt. The original ending, performed during the show's preliminary run in England, had Cromwell and Chapuys confront each other after More's execution and then exit the stage, hand in hand, chuckling with "the self-mocking, self-indulgent, rather rueful laughter of the men who know what the world is and how to be comfortable in it". 

This particular ending is exemplary of Bolt's notion of "riding with the current", as is demonstrated by "men who know what the world is and how to be comfortable in it", forsaking one's conscience in exchange of a life of "convenience". For the show's London production – and most, if not all, subsequent runs of the show – the Common Man sheds his executioner's garb and addresses the audience one final time:

"... It isn't difficult to keep alive, friends – just don't make trouble – or if you must make trouble, make the sort of trouble that's expected... If we should bump into one another, recognize me."

The film version of the play ends with More's execution, followed by a narrator reading off the fates of the various characters involved (originally, this was dialogue spoken by the Common Man prior to the Tower of London Inquiry). 

Stage productions

Paul Scofield, who played the leading role in the West End premiere, reprised it on Broadway in 1961, winning a Tony Award. Both productions were directed by Noel Willman.

The original West End cast, playing at the Globe Theatre (now Gielgud Theatre), included:

• The Common Man – Leo McKern
• Sir Thomas More – Paul Scofield
• Richard Rich – John Brown
• Duke of Norfolk – Alexander Gauge
• Alice More – Wynne Clark
• Margaret – Pat Keen
• Cardinal Wolsey – Willoughby Goddard
• Thomas Cromwell – Andrew Keir
• Chapuys – Geoffrey Dunn
• Attendant – Brian Harrison
• Will Roper – John Carson
• Henry VIII – Richard Leech
• Woman – Beryl Andrews
• Archbishop Cranmer – William Roderick

In London, Man ran simultaneously to another of Bolt's plays, The Tiger and the Horse. Both plays were major hits, although Horse was the more successful of the two. British critical reaction was largely positive, albeit reservedly so; few reviews at the time regarded the play as a classic. The show ran for 320 performances. 

In the USA, the play was first performed on Broadway on 22 November 1961, at the ANTA Playhouse

 

Original Broadway cast

• The Common Man – George Rose
• Sir Thomas More – Paul Scofield
• The Duke of Norfolk – Albert Dekker
• Thomas Cromwell – Leo McKern (later Thomas Gomez)
• King Henry VIII – Keith Baxter
• Margaret More – Olga Bellin
• William Roper – Peter Brandon
• Catherine Anger – Sarah Burton
• Attendant – John Colenback
• Cardinal Wolsey – Jack Creley
• Alice More- Carol Goodner
• Thomas Cranmer – Lester Rawlins
• Richard Rich – William Redfield
• Signor Chapuys – David J. Stewart

The Broadway production was a huge hit, running for 620 performances. While the play had drawn mixed critical reviews in London, it was almost unanimously praised by the New York critics, who showered it with plaudits and awards.

Leo McKern played the Common Man in the West End version of the show, but was shifted to the role of Cromwell for the Broadway production – a role he later reprised in the film. While playing Cromwell, he appeared with one brown and one blue eye (McKern of course had lost an eye in an accident and wore a glass one) to accentuate his character's evil nature.

Charlton Heston played More in several versions of the play-off-Broadway in the 1970s and 1980s, eventually playing it in the West End. The play was a success and the West End production was taken to Aberdeen, Scotland, for a week where it was staged at His Majesty's Theatre. Heston considered it among his favourite roles. He also produced, directed, and starred in a film version of it (see below). The production gained a sort of notoriety when Dustin Hoffman spread the story that Heston, who was bald, was so vain that he wore a wig over his hairpiece, rather than let the public view his actual bald pate. 

Another famous graduate of the play is Ian McKellen, whose first theatrical role was as Will Roper in a revival production in the late 1960s. He would go on to play More in a later run of the show. Faye Dunaway also made her stage debut as a replacement Margaret in the original Broadway run.

An acclaimed Canadian production starring William Hutt and directed by Walter Learning was presented at the Vancouver Playhouse and the Stratford Festival in 1986. At Stratford the production was paired with a production of Shakespeare's Henry VIII, with both plays sharing many actors, and showing two perspectives on historical events.

The play was staged in London's West End at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket starring Martin Shaw and produced by Bill Kenwright. It closed on 1 April 2006.

A Broadway revival of the show, produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company, starring Frank Langella as More and directed by Doug Hughes, played at the American Airlines Theatre through December 2008. In this production, the character of The Common Man was deleted by the director (as Bolt had done when adapting his play for the first film version).

In 2008, Thomas More was also portrayed on stage in Hong Kong as an allegorical symbol of the Pan-democracy camp resisting Chinese Communism when Hardy Tsoi, after translating A Man for All Seasons, mainly into Cantonese, but also with some parts in Mandarin, Spanish, Latin, and English, produced it as a play within a play. Similarities were noted between More and contemporary pro-democracy politicians in Hong Kong such as Martin Lee and Szeto Wah, with the Vatican being seen as representing British colonialism while Henry VIII and his regime were seen as representing Communist China "suppressing democracy and freedom" in Hong Kong. According to Chapman Chen, Hardy Tsoi's version of the play is one of a number of Hong Kong works that suggest that mainstream postcolonial theories which invariably portray European colonialism as oppressive need to be "modified or balanced" to reflect the different experience of places like Hong Kong.

Film and TV movies

1966 film

Paul Scofield, who played the leading role in the West End and Broadway stage premieres, played More again in the first of two film versions (1966), winning an Oscar in the process. The film also stars Robert Shaw as Henry VIII, Orson Welles as Wolsey, Corin Redgrave as Will Roper, Nigel Davenport as Norfolk, a young John Hurt as Richard Rich, and an older Wendy Hiller as Lady Alice, More's second wife. It was directed by Fred Zinnemann. In addition to the Best Actor Oscar won by Scofield, the film won Academy Awards for screenplay, cinematography, costume design, Best Director, and Best Picture.

1988 film

The 1988 version starred Charlton Heston (who also directed it) as More, Vanessa Redgrave (who appeared briefly and mutely in the 1966 version as Anne Boleyn) as More's wife, and Sir John Gielgud as Cardinal Wolsey. By coincidence, Gielgud's name now graces the former Globe Theatre, where the original play premiered in 1960.

Radio productions

The play was produced, with the following cast, as the Saturday Night Theatre on BBC Radio 4 on 28 February 1959:

• Sir Thomas More — John Franklyn-Robbins
• Master Richard Rich — Michael Cox
• Master Thomas Cromwell — David Mahlowe
• Cardinal Wolsey — Ralph Hallett
• King Henry VIII — David Scase
• Duke of Norfolk — David Sumner
• Dame Alice More — Cynthia Grenville
• Mistress Margaret (Meg) More — Marah Stohl
• Archbishop Thomas Cranmer — Stephen MacDonald
• The Bishop of Bath — Christopher Benjamin
• The Bishop of Durham — Bernard Kay

The play was produced, with the following cast, as the Saturday Play on BBC Radio 4 on 7 October 2006, as part of its Betrayal season:

• Sir Thomas More — Charles Dance
• Master Richard Rich — Julian Rhind Tutt
• Master Thomas Cromwell — Kenneth Cranham
• Cardinal Wolsey — Timothy Bateson
• King Henry VIII — Brian Cox
• Duke of Norfolk — Nicholas le Prevost
• Master William Roper — Martin Freeman
• Alice More — Kika Markham
• Mistress Margaret (Meg) More — Romola Garai
• Boatman/Steward (aka Matthew) /Jailer — Dan Chyutin
• Archbishop Thomas Cranmer/Headsman — Peter Tate
• Catherine of Aragon — Adjoa Andoh

Utopia (book)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)

 

Utopia

Illustration for the 1516 first edition of Utopia.
Author	Thomas More
Original title	Libellus vere aureus, nec minus salutaris quam festivus, de optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia
Translator	Ralph Robinson Gilbert Burnet
Illustrator	Ambrosius Holbein
Country	Habsburg Netherlands
Language	Latin
Genre	political philosophy, satire
Publisher	More
Publication date	1516
Published in English	1551
Media type	Print
Pages	359
OCLC	863744174
Dewey Decimal	335.02
LC Class	HX810.5 .E54
Preceded by	A Merry Jest
Followed by	Latin Poems

Utopia (Libellus vere aureus, nec minus salutaris quam festivus, de optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia, "A little, true book, both beneficial and enjoyable, about how things should be in the new island Utopia") is a work of fiction and socio-political satire by Thomas More (1478–1535), written in Latin and published in 1516. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social, and political customs. Many aspects of More's description of Utopia are reminiscent of life in monasteries.

Title

The title De optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia literally translates, "Of a republic's best state and of the new island Utopia".

It is variously rendered as any of the following: 

De optimo rei publicæ deque nova insula Utopia

Standard English Translations

On the Best State of a Republic and on the New Island of Utopia

Concerning the Highest State of the Republic and the New Island Utopia

On the Best State of a Commonwealth and on the New Island of Utopia

Concerning the Best Condition of the Commonwealth and the New Island of Utopia

On the Best Kind of a Republic and About the New Island of Utopia

About the Best State of a Commonwealth and the New Island of Utopia

The original name was even longer: Libellus vere aureus, nec minus salutaris quam festivus, de optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia. This translates, "A truly golden little book, no less beneficial than entertaining, of a republic's best state and of the new island Utopia".

"Utopia" is derived from the Greek prefix "ou-" (οὐ), meaning "not", and topos (τόπος), "place", with the suffix -iā (-ία) that is typical of toponyms; hence the name literally means "nowhere", emphasizing its fictionality. In early modern English, Utopia was spelled "Utopie", which is today rendered Utopy in some editions.

In English, Utopia is pronounced exactly as Eutopia (the latter word, in Greek Εὐτοπία [Eutopiā], meaning “good place,” contains the prefix εὐ- [eu-], "good", with which the οὐ of Utopia has come to be confused in the English pronunciation). This is something that More himself addresses in an addendum to his book Wherfore not Utopie, but rather rightely my name is Eutopie, a place of felicitie.

Preliminary matter

The first edition contained a woodcut map of the island of Utopia, the Utopian alphabet, verses by Pieter Gillis, Gerard Geldenhouwer, and Cornelius Grapheus, and Thomas More's epistle dedicating the work to Gillis.

Book 1: Dialogue of Counsel

A woodcut by Ambrosius Holbein, illustrating a 1518 edition. In the lower left, Raphael describes the island Utopia.

The work begins with written correspondence between Thomas More and several people he had met on the continent: Peter Gilles, town clerk of Antwerp, and Hieronymus van Busleyden, counselor to Charles V. More chose these letters, which are communications between actual people, to further the plausibility of his fictional land. In the same spirit, these letters also include a specimen of the Utopian alphabet and its poetry. The letters also explain the lack of widespread travel to Utopia; during the first mention of the land, someone had coughed during announcement of the exact longitude and latitude. The first book tells of the traveller Raphael Hythlodaeus, to whom More is introduced in Antwerp, and it also explores the subject of how best to counsel a prince, a popular topic at the time.

The first discussions with Raphael allow him to discuss some of the modern ills affecting Europe such as the tendency of kings to start wars and the subsequent loss of money on fruitless endeavours. He also criticises the use of execution to punish theft, saying thieves might as well murder whom they rob, to remove witnesses, if the punishment is going to be the same. He lays most of the problems of theft on the practice of enclosure—the enclosing of common land—and the subsequent poverty and starvation of people who are denied access to land because of sheep farming.

More tries to convince Raphael that he could find a good job in a royal court, advising monarchs, but Raphael says that his views are too radical and would not be listened to. Raphael sees himself in the tradition of Plato: he knows that for good governance, kings must act philosophically. He, however, points out that: 

“

Plato doubtless did well foresee, unless kings themselves would apply their minds to the study of philosophy, that else they would never thoroughly allow the council of philosophers, being themselves before, even from their tender age, infected and corrupt with perverse and evil opinions.

”

More seems to contemplate the duty of philosophers to work around and in real situations and, for the sake of political expediency, work within flawed systems to make them better, rather than hoping to start again from first principles. 

“

... for in courts they will not bear with a man's holding his peace or conniving at what others do: a man must barefacedly approve of the worst counsels and consent to the blackest designs, so that he would pass for a spy, or, possibly, for a traitor, that did but coldly approve of such wicked practices

”

Book 2: Discourse on Utopia

Utopia
Utopia location
Map by Ortelius, ca. 1595.
Created by	Thomas More
Genre	Utopian fiction
Information
Type	Republic/elective monarchy
Ruler	Prince (a.k.a. ademus)
Location	New World
Notable locations	Amaurot (capital), Anyder River
Other name(s)	Abraxa (former name)

Utopia is placed in the New World and More links Raphael's travels in with Amerigo Vespucci's real life voyages of discovery. He suggests that Raphael is one of the 24 men Vespucci, in his Four Voyages of 1507, says he left for six months at Cabo Frio, Brazil. Raphael then travels farther and finds the island of Utopia, where he spends five years observing the customs of the natives.

According to More, the island of Utopia is

“

…two hundred miles across in the middle part, where it is widest, and nowhere much narrower than this except towards the two ends, where it gradually tapers. These ends, curved round as if completing a circle five hundred miles in circumference, make the island crescent-shaped, like a new moon.

”

The island was originally a peninsula but a 15-mile wide channel was dug by the community's founder King Utopos to separate it from the mainland. The island contains 54 cities. Each city is divided into four equal parts. The capital city, Amaurot, is located directly in the middle of the crescent island.

Each city has not more than 6000 households, each family consisting of between 10 and 16 adults. Thirty households are grouped together and elect a Syphograntus (whom More says is now called a phylarchus). Every ten Syphogranti have an elected Traniborus (more recently called a protophylarchus) ruling over them. The 200 Syphogranti of a city elect a Prince in a secret ballot. The Prince stays for life unless he is deposed or removed for suspicion of tyranny.

People are re-distributed around the households and towns to keep numbers even. If the island suffers from overpopulation, colonies are set up on the mainland. Alternatively, the natives of the mainland are invited to be part of these Utopian colonies, but if they dislike them and no longer wish to stay they may return. In the case of under-population the colonists are re-called.

There is no private property on Utopia, with goods being stored in warehouses and people requesting what they need. There are also no locks on the doors of the houses, and the houses are rotated between the citizens every ten years. Agriculture provides the most important occupation on the island. Every person is taught it and must live in the countryside, farming for two years at a time, with women doing the same work as men. Parallel to this, every citizen must learn at least one of the other essential trades: weaving (mainly done by the women), carpentry, metalsmithing and masonry. There is deliberate simplicity about these trades; for instance, all people wear the same types of simple clothes and there are no dressmakers making fine apparel. All able-bodied citizens must work; thus unemployment is eradicated, and the length of the working day can be minimized: the people only have to work six hours a day (although many willingly work for longer). More does allow scholars in his society to become the ruling officials or priests, people picked during their primary education for their ability to learn. All other citizens, however, are encouraged to apply themselves to learning in their leisure time.

Slavery is a feature of Utopian life and it is reported that every household has two slaves. The slaves are either from other countries (prisoners of war, people condemned to die, or poor people) or are the Utopian criminals. These criminals are weighed down with chains made out of gold. The gold is part of the community wealth of the country, and fettering criminals with it or using it for shameful things like chamber pots gives the citizens a healthy dislike of it. It also makes it difficult to steal as it is in plain view. The wealth, though, is of little importance and is only good for buying commodities from foreign nations or bribing these nations to fight each other. Slaves are periodically released for good behaviour. Jewels are worn by children, who finally give them up as they mature.

Other significant innovations of Utopia include: a welfare state with free hospitals, euthanasia permissible by the state, priests being allowed to marry, divorce permitted, premarital sex punished by a lifetime of enforced celibacy and adultery being punished by enslavement. Meals are taken in community dining halls and the job of feeding the population is given to a different household in turn. Although all are fed the same, Raphael explains that the old and the administrators are given the best of the food. Travel on the island is only permitted with an internal passport and any people found without a passport are, on a first occasion, returned in disgrace, but after a second offence they are placed in slavery. In addition, there are no lawyers and the law is made deliberately simple, as all should understand it and not leave people in any doubt of what is right and wrong.

There are several religions on the island: moon-worshipers, sun-worshipers, planet-worshipers, ancestor-worshipers and monotheists, but each is tolerant of the others. Only atheists are despised (but allowed) in Utopia, as they are seen as representing a danger to the state: since they do not believe in any punishment or reward after this life, they have no reason to share the communistic life of Utopia, and will break the laws for their own gain. They are not banished, but are encouraged to talk out their erroneous beliefs with the priests until they are convinced of their error. Raphael says that through his teachings Christianity was beginning to take hold in Utopia. The toleration of all other religious ideas is enshrined in a universal prayer all the Utopians recite.

“

...but, if they are mistaken, and if there is either a better government, or a religion more acceptable to God, they implore His goodness to let them know it.

”

Wives are subject to their husbands and husbands are subject to their wives although women are restricted to conducting household tasks for the most part. Only few widowed women become priests. While all are trained in military arts, women confess their sins to their husbands once a month. Gambling, hunting, makeup and astrology are all discouraged in Utopia. The role allocated to women in Utopia might, however, have been seen as being more liberal from a contemporary point of view.

Utopians do not like to engage in war. If they feel countries friendly to them have been wronged, they will send military aid, but they try to capture, rather than kill, enemies. They are upset if they achieve victory through bloodshed. The main purpose of war is to achieve that which, if they had achieved already, they would not have gone to war over. 

Privacy is not regarded as freedom in Utopia; taverns, ale-houses and places for private gatherings are non-existent for the effect of keeping all men in full view, so that they are obliged to behave well.

Framework

The story is written from the perspective of More himself. This was common at the time, and More uses his own name and background to create the narrator. The book is written in two parts: “Book one: Dialogue of Council,” and “Book two: Discourse on Utopia.”

The first book is told from the perspective of More, the narrator, who is introduced by his friend Peter Giles to a fellow traveller named Raphael Hythloday, whose name translates as “expert of nonsense” in Greek. In an amical dialogue with More and Giles, Hythloday expresses strong criticism of then-modern practices in England and other Catholicism-dominated countries, such as the crime of theft being punishable by death, and the over-willingness of kings to start wars (Getty, 321).

Book two has Hythloday tell his interlocutors about Utopia, where he has lived for five years, with the aim of convincing them about its superior state of affairs. Utopia turns out to be a socialist state. Interpretations about this important part of the book vary. Gilbert notes that while some experts believe that More supports socialism, others believe that he shows how socialism is impractical. The former would argue that More used book two to show how socialism would work in practice. Individual cities are run by privately elected princes and families are made up of ten to sixteen adults living in a single household. It is unknown if More truly believed in socialism, or if he printed Utopia as a way to show that true socialism was impractical (Gilbert). More printed many writings involving socialism, some seemingly in defense of the practices, and others seemingly scathing satires against it. Some scholars believe that More uses this structure to show the perspective of something as an idea against something put into practice. Hythloday describes the city as perfect and ideal. He believes the society thrives and is perfect. As such, he is used to represent the more fanatic socialists and radical reformists of his day. When More arrives he describes the social and cultural norms put into practice, citing a city thriving and idealistic. While some believe this is More's ideal society, some believe the book's title, which translates to “Nowhere” from Greek, is a way to describe that the practices used in Utopia are impractical and could not be used in a modern world successfully (Gilbert). Either way, Utopia has become one of the most talked about works both in defense of socialism and against it.

Tone

Utopia has a more playful tone than one might think. While More's world is illustrating whatever point he is trying to get across, he is having fun engaging in creating his own world, as is demonstrated in the way he phrases "Then let me implore you, my dear Raphael,' said I, 'describe that island [Utopia] to us!"(Getty 323). He also says "When Raphael had finished his story, I was left thinking that quite a few of the laws and customs he had described as existing among the Utopians were really absurd." This demonstrates that he realizes his world is bizarre, and wants others to realize how out of place it was in their society. More is quite anxious to create his world, and pieces it together in great detail, taking pleasure in what makes his world different from our own. However, he wants the reader to take his story seriously, which is why he bases it in reality, saying it is a part of the “New World”, this being the parts of America and its surrounding islands discovered by Amerigo Vespucci in 1497. 

Interpretation

One of the most troublesome questions about Utopia is Thomas More's reason for writing it.

Most scholars see it as a comment on or criticism of 16th-century Catholicism, for the evils of More's day are laid out in Book I and in many ways apparently solved in Book II. Indeed, Utopia has many of the characteristics of satire, and there are many jokes and satirical asides such as how honest people are in Europe, but these are usually contrasted with the simple, uncomplicated society of the Utopians.

Yet, the puzzle is that some of the practices and institutions of the Utopians, such as the ease of divorce, euthanasia and both married priests and female priests, seem to be polar opposites of More's beliefs and the teachings of the Catholic Church of which he was a devout member. Another often cited apparent contradiction is that of the religious tolerance of Utopia contrasted with his persecution of Protestants as Lord Chancellor. Similarly, the criticism of lawyers comes from a writer who, as Lord Chancellor, was arguably the most influential lawyer in England. It can be answered, however, that as a pagan society Utopians had the best ethics that could be reached through reason alone, or that More changed from his early life to his later when he was Lord Chancellor.

One highly influential interpretation of Utopia is that of intellectual historian Quentin Skinner. He has argued that More was taking part in the Renaissance humanist debate over true nobility, and that he was writing to prove the perfect commonwealth could not occur with private property. Crucially, Skinner sees Raphael Hythlodaeus as embodying the Platonic view that philosophers should not get involved in politics, while the character of More embodies the more pragmatic Ciceronian view. Thus the society Raphael proposes is the ideal More would want. But without communism, which he saw no possibility of occurring, it was wiser to take a more pragmatic view.

Quentin Skinner's interpretation of Utopia is consistent with the speculation that Stephen Greenblatt made in The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. There, Greenblatt argued that More was under the Epicurean influence of Lucretius's On the Nature of Things and the people that live in Utopia were an example of how pleasure has become their guiding principle of life. Although Greenblatt acknowledged that More's insistence on the existence of an afterlife and punishment for people holding contrary views were inconsistent with the essentially materialist view of Epicureanism, Greenblatt contended that it was the minimum conditions for what the pious More would have considered as necessary to live a happy life.

Another complication comes from the Greek meanings of the names of people and places in the work. Apart from Utopia, meaning "Noplace," several other lands are mentioned: Achora meaning "Nolandia", Polyleritae meaning "Muchnonsense", Macarenses meaning "Happiland," and the river Anydrus meaning "Nowater". Raphael's last name, Hythlodaeus means "dispenser of nonsense" surely implying that the whole of the Utopian text is 'nonsense'. Additionally the Latin rendering of More's name, Morus, is similar to the word for a fool in Greek (μωρός). It is unclear whether More is simply being ironic, an in-joke for those who know Greek, seeing as the place he is talking about does not actually exist or whether there is actually a sense of distancing of Hythlodaeus' and the More's ("Morus") views in the text from his own.

The name Raphael, though, may have been chosen by More to remind his readers of the archangel Raphael who is mentioned in the Book of Tobit (3:17; 5:4, 16; 6:11, 14, 16, 18; also in chs. 7, 8, 9, 11, 12). In that book the angel guides Tobias and later cures his father of his blindness. While Hythlodaeus may suggest his words are not to be trusted, Raphael meaning (in Hebrew) "God has healed" suggests that Raphael may be opening the eyes of the reader to what is true. The suggestion that More may have agreed with the views of Raphael is given weight by the way he dressed; with "his cloak... hanging carelessly about him"; a style which Roger Ascham reports that More himself was wont to adopt. Furthermore, more recent criticism has questioned the reliability of both Gile's annotations and the character of "More" in the text itself. Claims that the book only subverts Utopia and Hythlodaeus are possibly oversimplistic.

Reception

Utopia was begun while More was an envoy in the Low Countries in May 1515. More started by writing the introduction and the description of the society which would become the second half of the work and on his return to England he wrote the "dialogue of counsel", completing the work in 1516. In the same year, it was printed in Leuven under Erasmus's editorship and after revisions by More it was printed in Basel in November 1518. It was not until 1551, sixteen years after More's execution, that it was first published in England as an English translation by Ralph Robinson. Gilbert Burnet's translation of 1684 is probably the most commonly cited version.

The work seems to have been popular, if misunderstood: the introduction of More's Epigrams of 1518 mentions a man who did not regard More as a good writer.

The title of the book has since eclipsed More's original story and the term is now commonly used to describe an idyllic, imaginary society. Although he may not have directly founded the contemporary notion of what has since become known as Utopian and dystopian fiction, More certainly popularised the idea of imagined parallel realities, and some of the early works which owe a debt to Utopia must include The City of the Sun by Tommaso Campanella, Description of the Republic of Christianopolis by Johannes Valentinus Andreae, New Atlantis by Francis Bacon and Candide by Voltaire. 

The politics of Utopia have been seen as influential to the ideas of Anabaptism and communism.^{[citation needed]} While utopian socialism was used to describe the first concepts of socialism, later Marxist theorists tended to see the ideas as too simplistic and not grounded on realistic principles.^{[citation needed]} The religious message in the work and its uncertain, possibly satiric, tone has also alienated some theorists from the work.

An applied example of More's Utopia can be seen in Vasco de Quiroga's implemented society in Michoacán, Mexico, which was directly inspired by More's work.

During the opening scene in the film A Man for all Seasons, Utopia is referenced in a conversation. The alleged amorality of England's priests is compared to that of the more highly principled behaviour of the fictional priests in More's Utopia, when a character observes wryly that "every second person born in England is fathered by a priest."

Cultural impact

In 2006, artist Rory Macbeth inscribed all 40,000 words on the side of an old electricity factory in Norwich, England.

In 2019, the video game Final Fantasy XIV made significant reference to the work in its expansion "Shadowbringers".

Intelligence assessment

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_assessment

Intelligence assessment is the development of behavior forecasts or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an organisation, based on wide ranges of available overt and covert information. Assessments develop in response to leadership declaration requirements to inform decision making. Assessment may be executed on behalf of a state, military or commercial organisation with ranges of information sources available to each.

An intelligence assessment reviews available information and previous assessments for relevance and currency. Where there requires additional information, the analyst may direct some collection.

Intelligence studies is the academic field concerning intelligence assessment, especially relating to international relations and military science.

Process

The Intelligence Cycle

 

Intelligence assessment is based on a customer requirement or need, which may be a standing requirement or tailored to a specific circumstance or a Request for Information (RFI). The "requirement" is passed to the assessing agency and worked through the intelligence cycle, a structured method for responding to the RFI.

The RFI may indicate in what format the requester prefers to consume the product.

The RFI is reviewed by a Requirements Manager, who will then direct appropriate tasks to respond to the request. This will involve a review of existing material, the tasking of new analytical product or the collection of new information to inform an analysis. 

New information may be collected through one or more of the various collection disciplines; human source, electronic and communications intercept, imagery or open sources. The nature of the RFI and the urgency placed on it may indicate that some collection types are unsuitable due to the time taken to collect or validate the information gathered. Intelligence gathering disciplines and the sources and methods used are often highly classified and compartmentalised, with analysts requiring an appropriate high level of security clearance.

The process of taking known information about situations and entities of importance to the RFI, characterizing what is known and attempting to forecast future events is termed "all source" assessment, analysis or processing. The analyst uses multiple sources to mutually corroborate, or exclude, the information collected, reaching a conclusion along with a measure of confidence around that conclusion. 

Where sufficient current information already exists, the analysis may be tasked directly without reference to further collection.

The analysis is then communicated back to the requester in the format directed, although subject to the constraints on both the RFI and the methods used in the analysis, the format may be made available for other uses as well and disseminated accordingly. The analysis will be written to a defined classification level with alternative versions potentially available at a number of classification levels for further dissemination. 

Target-centric intelligence cycle

Target-centric intelligence cycle

This approach, known as Find-Fix-Finish-Exploit-Assess (F3EA), is complementary to the intelligence cycle and focused on the intervention itself, where the subject of the assessment is clearly identifiable and provisions exist to make some form of intervention against that subject, the target-centric assessment approach may be used.

The subject for action, or target, is identified and efforts are initially made to find the target for further development. This activity will identify where intervention against the target will have the most beneficial effects.

When the decision is made to intervene, action is taken to fix the target, confirming that the intervention will have a high probability of success and restricting the ability of the target to take independent action.

During the finish stage, the intervention is executed, potentially an arrest or detention or the placement of other collection methods.

Following the intervention, exploitation of the target is carried out, which may lead to further refinement of the process for related targets. The output from the exploit stage will also be passed into other intelligence assessment activities.