Young Thomas More and the Arts of Liberty

Gerard Wegemer is professor of literature at the University of Dallas and, since 2000, he has been the founding director of the Center for Thomas More Studies. Among his publications are A Thomas More Source Book, Thomas More on Statesmanship and Thomas More: A Portrait of Courage. He has served as an editor for Moreana, the international journal on Thomas More and his times. He is editing a paperback series of Thomas More's major works and has written articles and reviews on Thomas More, Shakespeare and Renaissance humanism in such journals as Renascence, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Review of Politics, Ben Jonson Journal and Moreana. Wegemer has master's degrees in political philosophy and in literature from Boston College and Georgetown University, respectively, and earned his doctorate in English literature from the University of Notre Dame.

• 1. Young Thomas More: why do peace and prosperity require arts of humanitas?; 2. Fashioning peace and prosperity: what are the necessary arts?; 3. Cicero's and More's 'first citizens': how do they avoid faction and civil war?; 4. What were More's earliest views of humanitas, libertas, and respublica, 1500–6?; 5. More's Life of Pico della Mirandola: a model of libertas and humanitas? (c.1504–7); 6. More's 1509 coronation ode: artful education of eighteen-year-old Henry VIII?; 7. Political poems of 1509–16: proposing self-government by 'sound deliberation'; 8. Richard III, c.1513: diagnosing the causes of England's plague of war; 9. Utopia, 1516: a model respublica of peace, liberty, and self-government?; 10. The un-utopian Thomas More Family Portrait: an icon of Morean humanitas?; 11. The arts of liberty: can peace and prosperity be fashioned by 'sound deliberation'?

"Those who look at the More family portraits from the frames provided by this book will learn something new because Wegemer has such wisdom in discovering old facts..." -Stephen Merriam Foley,Brown University