Utopia Exploration Quotes Page 3
(Book.Page) based on the 1989 Cambridge University Press edition
| Quote #7 I have a feeling they picked up Greek more easily because it was somewhat related to their own tongue. Though their language resembles Persian in most respects, I suspect them of deriving from Greece because, in the names of cities and in official titles, they retain quite a few vestiges of the Greek tongue. (2.78) |
More is having a little fun with us here. Not only is he making a joke about all those Greek word-games we keep seeing, he's also inserting Utopia into the cultural history of a European world. Where are we again? Is Utopia similar to Europe, or really different?
| Quote #8 Any sightseer coming to [Utopia] who has some special intellectual gift, or who has travelled widely and seen many countries, is sure of a warm welcome, for they love to hear what is happening throughout the world (2.79) |
Does this make the Utopians stationary explorers? Is that even possible?
| Quote #9 But in that New World [the area including Utopia], which is distanced from ours not so much by geography as by customs and manners, nobody trusts treaties (2.86) |
Hythloday is doing something nifty here with the image of exploration. He's shifting it from being something purely literal to something metaphorical as well. The "newness" isn't so much a quality of physical discovery but of intellectual discovery.
