Abstract: Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy is important in English Renaissance writing, in which Burton puts forward the notion of “a Utopia of mine owne”, a “poetic commonwealth”. Burton offers a utopic vision as a remedy to his contemporaries who are suffering from melancholy at the time of rapid societal transition, providing a critique of the “top-down” mode of utopia. For Burton, the “bottom-up” mode of utopia advocates an active involvement with the world by means of poetic dialogue, and poetry means absolute liberty and a means of dialogue to treat melancholy. The individual should not wait passively for the transformation of the outside society, but should find his own poetic way-out. Specifically, he asks people to avoid being alone and staying idle. By warning people of madness of their own, of others and of the society, he is in fact arguing that before the world is saved, the individual should be saved first, and sheds light on possibilities of integration of utopian critique, way of life and artistic creation into cultural practice.

Key words: Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, utopic vision, poetic commonwealth