SOURCE: "The New Atlantis and the Uses of Utopia," in ELH, Vol. 57, No. 3, Fall, 1990, pp. 503-28.

In the following excerpt, Albanese describes several utopian aspects of the New Atlantis.

In 1608 Bacon prepared a brief for King James to encourage the "plantation" of Ireland. In its course, he draws a comparison between its proposed structure of governance and that designed for Virginia, whose settlement had been fitfully pursued: "The second [proposition] is that your Majesty would make a correspondency between the commission there [in Ireland], and a council of plantation here [in London]. Wherein I warrant myself by the precedent of the like council of plantation for Virginia; an enterprise in my opinion differing as much from this, as Amadis de Gaul differs from Caesar's Commentaries." The advice here is pragmatic and direct—but takes a strange detour by likening Jacobean imperialism to written, indeed, literary texts. As the...