The New Atalantis

The scenario expressed in this book is that three individuals (with a few additional friends) travel around England and point out everybody's bad behavior for the supposed purpose of gaining an understanding of how to instruct a prince to behave appropriately. The travelers include Astrea (goddess of justice), her mother Virtue, and Lady Intelligence (not a measure of intellectual capacity, rather the person who knows all the gossip-worthy sins of everyone.)

As the notes explain, this was a book used to criticize the English court and members of parliament. It focused on hypocrisy and sexual misbehavior although other vices were mentioned as well. The extensive footnotes were not enough for me to understand the links between Manley's show more characters and their real counterparts- it would have taken a robust study of English history (the Stuarts) to gain a real understanding.

I didn't enjoy this. There seemed to be a distorted focus on what, from the purpose of instructing a leader, seemed to me to be unimportant sins and not enough of a focus on the social contract between a leader and the people. This may have been out of an attempt to provide adequate examples of hypocrisy. Manley of course has the right to focus on what seemed important to her, and she particularly focused on the seeming impossibility for a woman to maintain her virtue because of continual attack. She especially had negative comments about Lesbianism. These kinds of comments seemed out of place in this construct and seemed to me to waste the opportunity to genuinely satirize the sins of those who governed. Perhaps from a woman's perspective in this time and place the men and Lesbians apparently attacking virtuous women were the best examples of sinners.

Perhaps I have missed something important here. I would look forward to reading somebody else's review of this book! show less