Abstract: This essay explores six images of Thomas More's life and character found in authors across the sixteenth century, stretching from the autobiographical More to the humanist Erasmus (whose friendship More enjoyed), the reformers Tyndale and Foxe (authors of polemics against More), the translator Robinson (whose English Utopia remains illuminating), and the biographer Stapleton (whose life of More emphasizes Catholicism and classical comparisons). This essay explores the reception of More at the beginning of a legacy struggle lasting to the present moment. How did each understand More? what was it about More that provoked admiration, consternation, lamentation, condemnation, or commendation? In addition to presenting and probing these representative images, the essay suggests that the only road to a better, more truthful, more accurate, or more complete Thomas More runs straight through renewed and careful study of his immense English and Latin literary output and especially the intellectual history, legal history, and theological history informing his life, death, and afterlives.
Stephen Smith (Mon,) studied this question.