Utopia, Arcadia and the Forest of Arden

In Utopia (1516) Thomas More created a humorous world with serious purpose. His invented republic was place where existing conventions and structures did not exist, allowing the positing of alternatives. The creation alternative worlds which satirise or critique contemporary society is technique employed by writers in most genres, periods cultures. More’s work interesting for us this context at least part because likelihood that Shakespeare familiar it. When he Forest Arden As You Like It, some characters there are utopian elements their experience place. But only putative Utopia. also contains pastoral Arcadia, again drawing upon ancient precedents, but more recently explored English poets Edmund Spenser Shepherd’s Calendar (1579) Philip Sidney Countess Pembroke’s Arcadia (1593). This article interrogates use Utopian Arcadian one Shakespeare’s complicated plays. its intention comic. Sidney’s poem it romantic, unlike both them ultimately about returning to real world, new perceptions who we are, as individuals.