Non sum Oedipus, sed Morus

Abstract

This article aims to investigate the representative strategies of Moriae Encomium by taking into account the link between Erasmus’ Moria and Thomas More’s portrait as it emerges both from the Encomium Moriae and from the Utopia. Specifically, I will focus on the crucial role of Erasmus’ concept of omnium horarum homo as an ethical and aesthetic model applied to the definition of More’s nature. This approach, which explores the intertextual construction of Morus-Moria’s identity, shall allow me to stress the relevance of the metaphor of mundane masking in Erasmus’ Encomium and More’s Utopia. By considering Erasmus and More’s paradoxical combination of Plato, Cicero and Lucian of Samosata, I will show how the image of the world theatre becomes the symbol of Erasmus’ philosophia civilior based on the rhetorical and moral idea of decorum.