十六世紀摩爾(Thomas More, 1478-1535)著述《烏托邦》(Utopia)、獨創烏托邦此字本身兼具「美好」與「烏有」的雙義性，開啟了西方烏托邦概念豐富的演變旅程。不同時代分別擷取了摩爾烏托邦概念的部分面向，建構屬於當時代的烏托邦想像。例如，西方在十七、十八世紀的初期嘗試以烏托邦文學突顯想像中的「有」，藉以慰藉現實世界中的「無」；十八世紀的「孤島文學」則認爲美好社會不可能自然存有，而傾向以人力重新建構對照於現世的嶄新社會。十九世紀，西方烏托邦由文學的範疇走向社會思潮，烏托邦社會思潮主導烏托邦的走向。二十世紀，德國烏托邦研究者以秩序的觀點研究烏托邦，他們認爲烏托邦是生存秩序的表徵，烏托邦意識可推動生存秩序的革新與轉變。諸此不同時代架構了烏托邦概念豐富的內涵與面貌。它不僅與世界息息相關，並且傳達了期盼人類改善生活的渴望。然而在西方烏托邦廣大的演變脈絡中，德語世界的烏托邦在那些部分承接了摩爾以降的烏托邦系統，以及具備了那些不同於摩爾烏托邦傳統的烏托邦概念以及文學特質，本文擬由摩爾的烏托邦概念出發，探究烏托邦概念與文學在德語世界發展的現象。
Thomas More wrote his book Utopia in the 16(superscript th) Century and created the special meanings of this word ”utopia” to be ”a nice place” and ”nowhere”. What he did enriched the developments of utopian thought in Western World. Different people have catched parts of Mores ideas for building their own imaginations about utopia. Some of them had the hope to improve the social situations by utopian thought. In 17(superscript th) and at the beginning of 18(superscript th) Century, the writers wrote utopian literary works to describe the ”good places”, so that they might be comforted although they did not have such a nice place in the real world. In 18(superscript th) Century, the ”Island Literature” denied there should be a good place existing. They tended to build a new world by themselves instead of believing that God will give them one. In 19(superscript th) Century, utopian thought emphasized the social aspect. Whether utopias exist or not, was not their main point. How to give their critics for improving their society was the most important value of utopian thought. As to 20(superscript th) Century, the utopian researchers treated utopia as a kind of existence order. The ”utopian consciousness” is pushed by the innovation and change of utopian order. All of those utopian thinking indicate that utopias do not only exist, but also close to our world. Utopian thought shows the hope of human beings about life. But, how has the More's Ideas about Utopia been dealt with under different culture system. In this article, Ⅰ will focus on exploring the developments of German utopian ideas and literatures which are derived from More's Utopia.