Ideal Commonwealths, Plutarch’s Lycurgus, More’s Utopia, Bacon’s New Atlantis, Campanella’s City of the Sun, Hall’s Mundus Alter Et Idem

Ideal Commonwealths is comprised of five writings on the ideal civilization including politics and social programs. Inspired by the philosophy of Plato and Socrates and often viewed as satirical, each essay each essay portrays an ideal form of human existence. Life of Lycurgus by Plutarch is a biography of Lycurgus, the legendary lawgiver of Sparta, who established the military-oriented reformation of Spartan society. All his reforms were directed towards the three Spartan virtues: equality, military fitness, and austerity. Utopia by the Tudor statesman and Catholic martyr, Sir Thomas More describes a communist society austerely dedicated to organized happiness. The New Atlantis by James I’s Lord Chancellor, Sir Francis Bacon, describes a South Pacific community committed to scientific research; doing pioneering work in aeronautical and submarine technology and in genetic engineering. The City of the Sun by Tomaso Campanella, is located on an island in the Indian Ocean. This is one of the most important utopias, and may have influenced Bacon’s New Atlantis. Mundus Alter et Idem by Joseph Hall is a satirical utopian fantasy in which the narrator takes a voyage in the ship Fantasia, in the southern seas.