ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I analyze the seminal utopian text, Thomas More’s Utopia, through the tripartite model of subjectivity developed by Lacan to argue that More’s text, the title of which provided the genre its very name, depicts subjectivity in all three subject positions (Symbolic, Imaginary, and Real). As all subsequent early modern English utopian texts responded to Utopia in some way, More’s text acts as the foundation upon which all these texts are based. I also establish the groundwork for a later chapter’s focus on linguistic subjectivity by analyzing Utopia’s incorporation of an a priori language and inclusion of an artificial alphabet that he created to add to the text’s verisimilitude in the context of early modern travel narratives.
