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THE REALITY OF PARADOX: , , AND ’S

Donald Gilman

Fact and clash and combine in Thomas More’s Utopia (1516). In his second letter to Peter Giles dated February 23, 1518, More acknowledges this interaction and, responding to criticism, confronts the absurdities that the fictional Raphael Hythlodaeus presents. The inconsis- tencies that characterize Utopia, More contends, exist elsewhere in the world. Further, in continuing his defense of truthful description, he denies any arbitrary appropriation of absurd names, such as Utopia, Anydrus, Amaurotum, and Ademus. Both Giles and Hythlodaeus, he adds, can tes- tify to the accuracy of the account. Empirical reality and imaginary vision, however, become blurred: More and Giles are historical personages and interlocutors in a fictional dialogue; Hythlodaeus is a fictitious character who, according to travelers, is alive and well in Portugal. In spite of these confusions, the truth of philosophical principles and Christian teaching emerges. Less discerning readers, More concedes, may not benefit from these lessons and may relegate More the interlocutor “to [the status of] any recording secretary who merely records the opinions of others1.” However, historical veracity blends into envisioned fantasy, thereby evok- ing for the reader a coherent picture of the reality of ideas that supersedes the twists and turns of historical observation and imaginative insights. The ambiguities of paradox may lead to competing claims on the con- gruence of More’s Utopia. Certainly, the etymological meaning of Utopia (i.e., “nowhere”) contrasts with Hythlodaeus’s description of a eutopia, a happy or fortunate place. Further, the bipartite structure of the text sug- gests a fracture between observation and perception: the historical inter- locutors More and Giles interact through dialogue in the first book with the fictional character Hythlodaeus, who notes the political and economic

1 Thomas More, “Letter to Peter Giles,” Complete Works of St. Thomas More, ed., trans., and notes Edward Surtz, S. J., and J. H. Hexter, 15 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963–1997), 4:253. “quam actuario cuipiam scribae, qui in curia aliorum sententias dumtaxat enotet,” 4:252. All subsequent citations will refer to the volumes and pages of this edition, and will be provided parenthetically in the text, with corresponding quotations in the notes. 406 donald gilman inequities in contemporary and Europe and details through extended discourse in the second book a plausible but ideal common- wealth.2 Through a meticulous attention to More’s stylistics, Elizabeth McCutcheon has demonstrated the dynamics and a resolution of these apparent contradictions.3 In spite of these convincing analyses, More’s use of paradox and his means to construct a plausible but imaginary vision deserve further exploration. Thus, in examining the conflicting but cohesive picture of Utopian religious practices presented in the second book, this study intends to elucidate More’s employment of paradox as an epideictic technique and, then, to review his thoughts on rhetorical principles that enable him to justify the coherence and credibility of his social conception.4 Toward the end of his summary of the Utopians’ religious beliefs, Hythlodaeus describes the liturgy of holydays. Unlike Christian celebra- tions, these rites are performed twice per month: the Final-Feast on the last day of the lunar month acknowledges gratitude for prosperity; the First-Feast on the following day offers prayers for continued fortune. However, although Utopians, like Christians, are monotheistic, each citi- zen attributes qualities to Mithras whose name recalls the Persian deity. Contrasting with Gothic churches distinguished by light and lightness, Utopian temples are somber. Utopians, moreover, conceive of God freely and individually, and prayers reflect personal concerns and supplications.

2 For studies on the bipartite structure, see especially J.H. Hexter, More’s “Utopia”: The Biography of an Idea (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952); and Edward Surtz, S.J., “ and Structure,” in More, Complete Works, 4:cxxv–cxxxiv. 3 Elizabeth McCutcheon, My Dear Peter: The “Ars poetica” and Hermenuetics for More’s “Utopia” (Angers: Moreanum, 1983); “Denying the Contrary: More’s Use of Litotes in the Utopia,” Moreana 31–32 (1971): 107–122; “More’s Utopia and ’s Paradoxa Stoicorum,” Moreana 86 (1985): 3–22; “Puns, Paradoxes, and Inquiry: The ‘De servis’ Section of More’s Utopia,” Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Torontonensis, eds. A. Dalzell, et al. (Binghamton: Medieval Textes and Studies, 1991), 91–99. 4 The relationship between paradox and epideictic literature has been extensively studied. See, in particular, Thomas Burgess, Epideictic Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1902); Elbert Thompson, The Seventeenth-Century Essay, University of Humanistic Studies 3:3 (Iowa : University of Iowa Press, 1926): 94–105; Warner C. Rice, “The Paradossi of Ortensio Lando,” Essays and Studies in English and Comparative Literature 8 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,1932): 59–74; A. E. Malloch, “The Techniques and Function of Renaissance Paradox,” Studies in Philology 53 (1956): 191–203; Rosalie L. Colie, Paradoxia Epidemica: The Renaissance Tradition of Paradox (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966); Barbara C. Bowen, The Age of Bluff: Paradox and Ambiguity in Rabelais and Montaigne (Urbana: University of Press, 1972), chap. 1; Le paradoxe au temps de la Renaissace, ed. M. T. Jones-Davies (Paris: Touzot, 1982); A. H. Tomarken, The Smile of Truth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); Patrick Dandrey, L’éloge paradoxal (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1997), 47–173.