The New Atlantis
New Atlantis, The,an unfinished work by F. Bacon , posthumously published at the end of a volume containing his Sylva Sylvarum; or A Natural Historie ( 1627 ; some copies dated 1626 ). William Rawley, Bacon's chaplain and literary executor, called it a ‘fable’ devised to describe ‘a college instituted for the interpreting of nature and the producing of great and marvellous works for the benefit of men, under the name of Salomon's House, or the College of the Six Days’ Works’—alluding to the biblical account of the Creation. A hybrid, it begins with the narrative of a sea voyage in the Pacific, in which a ship gets blown off course into unknown waters near Peru, and lands on an island resembling the lost island of Atlantis, as described by Plato in the Timaeus and Critias. A native explains to the travellers how a King Solamona had reigned there ‘about 1900 years ago’, and had set up a...
[The entire page is 297 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Oxford University Press Titles
