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It is well known that the developing circumstances of the Reformation led Thomas More to some second thoughts about his Utopia: "yf any man wolde now translate [Erasmus's] Moria in to Englyshe, or some workes eyther that I haue my selfe wryten ere this, all be yt there be none harme therin / folke yet beynge (as they be) geuen to take harme of that that is good / I wolde not onely my derlynges bokes but myne owne also, helpe to burne them both wyth myne owne hands."1 Short of burning the whole thing, More seems also to have had second thoughts (and even initial misgivings) about the appropriateness of including a particular section of the text. I refer to that portion of book 1 which, in the Latin editions, carries the marginal label "Festiuus dialogus fratris & morionis," translated in the Yale edition as "A Merry Dialogue between a Friar and a Hanger-On. "2 More's ambivalence toward the passage is attested in a letter to Erasmus, the subject of which is the attack on More's writings waged in the Antimorus of the French humanist Germain de Brie (Germanus Brixius). This vitriolic controversy, which scholars rightly characterize as an unfortunate episode serving mainly to reveal the worst sides of both men, nevertheless produces a few points of interest in connection with Utopia.3 First is More's defense of the passage. He tells Erasmus that Brixius laughs at the dialogue between the friar and the fool, ironically claiming that in it More displays the sharpness of his wit, the strength of his diction, and the soundness of his judgement ("Ridet in Vtopia mea dialogum in quo fraterculus cum morione disceptat: 'in quo' inquit |
