“How does this exhibit source provide evidence that helps me better understand More’s critique of sixteenth century society and politics?”
In Amerigo Vespucci’s “Travel Narratives”, Vespucci goes on to describe a variety of different observations he makes when he visits the people of Brazil. He is dumbfounded by their social, cultural, and economical constructs because they directly contradict the values and norms that he has been raised with in sixteenth century Europe. Although Vespucci doesn’t directly criticize European society there are many similarities between the people of Brazil and the people that More describes in his utopia. The similarities between both Vespucchi’s and More’s society highlight the criticisms that More was making against his then current day political and societal systems. Vespucci speaks about the lack of emphasis on material goods as a strange aspect of the Brazilians. However, More speaks of the devaluing of currency and commodities as a solution or platform to creating an ideal society. This is a direct critique against the materialism that he was surrounded by in sixteenth century and politics. The similarities between both Vespucchi’s and More’s society highlight the criticisms that More was making against his then current day political and societal systems.
Vespucci opens up his narrative on the Brazilians by addressing that, “both sexes go about naked, covering no part of their bodies” (Vespucci 219). The nakedness of the people points to a reversion to the bare necessities of the human race, contrary to the social norms that Vespucci has grown accustomed to. By stripping away all clothes, the people are able to get rid of the status that usually comes with ones clothing. The uniformity of the Brazilians is mirrored by More when he says, “[How can anyone] be silly enough to think himself better than other people, because his clothes are made of finer woolen thread than theirs. After all, those fine clothes were once worn by a sheep, and they never turned it into anything better than a sheep,” (More 65). More describes a people that feel content with only one article of clothing while contrasting them to the ambassadors from other lands. The ambassadors that wear “fine woolen thread” are similar to the 16th century European political figures of More’s time. Vespucci continues to speak about the lack of material goods amongst the Brazilian people: “There is a great abundance of gold, and by them it is in no respect esteemed or valued” (Vespucci 222). The Brazilians lack of attention toward metals or other precious materials is reciprocated by the Utopians who: “have so little value that if circumstances required the Utopians to part with all such metals none of them would think they lost a single farthing” (More 76). More is directly critiquing the common European practice of flaunting ones wealth by owning and exhibiting items made of gold or silver to display ones wealth. In More’s Utopia without any value to material goods and an abundance of food and shelter, he shows how a society is able to eliminate the greed and corruption that existed in the sixteenth century political systems of his time.
Vespucci’s travel narrative helps to highlight the differences that he observes between the Brazilian people and the European people of his time. While highlighting the cultural, economical, and political differences that he observes, he gives the reader an almost parallel society to the one that More depicts in his utopia. More’s utopia directly criticizes the sixteenth century society that he lives in by describing a society that can more efficiently function while also sharing things in common and eliminating luxurious goods from their lives.
Works Cited
More, Thomas. Utopia. 2nd. Translated by Clarence H. Miller. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1516.
Vespucci, Amerigo. “Mondus Novus.” Travel Narratives from the Age of Discovery. Translated by G Northrup. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1504. 214-223.
Excellent response paper. Great connections between the two texts. You have made the critique very clear.
5/5