A poetic republic It is the utopian dream of Robert Burton, the extravagant author of Anatomy of Melancholy, master of English baroque prose and one of the rarest figures in European literature.

Robert Burton (Lindley, 1577-Oxford, 1640), English writer, was vicar of St. Thomas' Church, Oxford, and a professor at Oxford University. Under the pseudonym Democritus Junior, he published a notable treatise, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), a lengthy medical, philosophical, and historical essay, unprecedented in literature, which encyclopedically compiles all the knowledge available up to that time about depression, its symptoms, and its cure, from classical to modern authors. Burton rewrote the work repeatedly throughout his life, and in the prologue acknowledges having done so largely as therapy against his own depression. The work is now considered one of the greatest monuments of the Baroque era, as well as a brilliant synthesis of European culture that summarizes a vast number of classical texts.

Reflection on utopia and dystopia—their historical evolution, contemporary manifestations, and future potential—extends beyond historiographical or academic spheres. It constitutes an essential effort to recover a set of crucial conceptual materials for diagnosing the present.

Collection Utopias
Prologue by Fernando R. de la Flor
Translation of Ana Sáez Hidalgo