The origins of utopian thought are as manifold as they are variegated. “The Republic,” “the Golden Age,” “the Ideal City,” “the Land of Cokagne,” “Paradise,” “the New Millennium” are all part of a great idealistic vision of “better things to come.” In England and Europe in the latter part of the nineteenth century, “the socialist utopia was squarely linked to the evolutionary worldview with its progressiveness and faith in science” (Kumar, 68), a faith that was not appreciated by a skeptical Lawrence. Meanwhile, according to many, America had become an image of a newly found utopia; Jean-François Revel called it “The only possible escape for mankind” (Kumar, 70). So too did it seem for Lawrence. For Lawrence, America represented a continental genesis, a venue where, amidst the torment and destruction of a decaying Europe, he could create an idealized refuge for his Ranamin, his utopian society. Although Lawrence envisioned America as a possible cultural and artistic paradigm of enlightenment and freedom for Ranamin, he remained ambivalent toward America before, during and after his visits there. This idealistic ambivalence is implicit in Lawrence's attitude of America as both an ou topos, or no-place, and eu topos, or Place-Where-All-is-Well, and is expressed in both his fiction and correspondence. Critically, he has a notion of America both as a suitable place for Lawrence's colony and presumably his unconscious fascist agenda.

During his stay in Gargnano between September 1912 and April 1913, Lawrence first became interested in portraying America as a new and promising continent. Among the essays he wrote there (later compiled into Twilight in Italy), one in particular, “San Gaudenzio,” presents America as a place of hope and opportunity. Lawrence tells the story of Paolo, who goes to America and works in California as a gold miner. His sons, “Il Duro” and “John,” follow his example in the New World. John cannot bear to live in Italy again and wants to return to the United States as soon as possible: “It was a great puzzle to me why he would go […] There was a strange, almost frightening destiny upon him, which seemed to take him away, always away from home, from the past, to the great, raw, America” (Arnold, 15).