John Clement and Thomas More met at a school in London called St. Paul’s where Clement had been a student. More brought Clement into his home in order to teach More’s children. Clement was very close to More and his family and More treated him like he was his own son as well. He married a woman named Margaret Giggs who also lived with More and his family. Clement became a doctor and was hand picked by Henry VIII to attend Wolsley. He was a Catholic and consequently had to flee England several times when certain monarchs were on the throne. He died in 1572 when he had just fled to Mechlin.

The title of the movie “Zootopia” is a play on the word Utopia. The movie was originally called “Zootropolis” was was changed to Zootopia for American audiences. The change in title made me look at the movie in a different lens. When I think about the word zootropolis, I think of a city that consists of animals but otherwise there is nothing special about it. The word zootopia places a focus on the fact that, in the movie, all species of animals peacefully coexist with each other. There are different escalators for different sized animals, different restaurants for different animals’ diets, and even different job stereotypes based on different species. All of these adaptations create a harmonious Utopia for the animals to live in.

This quote is important because it explicitly compares More’s travel writings to that of Vespucci’s. It says that More “ran the same hazard” as Vespucci. By using the word hazard here, the writer is implying that Vespucci made mistakes that More was falling in to. I find it interesting that someone who in modern day is so revered for his travel writings is being insulted here for his wanderlust. It is also interesting to me that it says he was desirous of “seeing” the world rather than exploring or documenting it. This quote makes More sound like he has a more selfish reasoning for traveling than other travel writers before him.

When More is talking about his first introduction to Raphael Hythloday he says, “I saw him, by accident, talking with a stranger, who seemed past the flower of his age” (Book 1). When reading this quote, one might be able to guess the meaning of the word flower without looking the etymology up but when you understand the complete history of the word it gives you more insight to why More chose to say it this way. In this context, the word “flower” is used to mean the “height of one's beauty, fame, or prosperity” (OED, 3). The word flower was first used in this context in 1340. When I first read the quote I assumed it meant beauty but I did not know that it could also relate to prosperity. Therefore, More is not only insulting this man’s physical appearance but he might be calling him poor and unsuccessful as well.

This quote describes a cultural knowledge of the geography of their island. Most people in other countries likely would not know their island well enough that they could direct a boat into a dangerous bay but the natives of Utopia did. In this culture, the people learned about the bay because it was a method of survival.