Bacon: As an Essayist

Bacon: As an Essayist

As a man of letters, Bacon is popularly known for his prose style. His way of writing shares, no doubt, a number of qualities with that of Elizabethan and Jacobean writers; but it have, at the time, some special features of its own. Thus, it remains for the main part of the aphoristic--- with the result that Bacon is the most quotable writer of the world. His essays are remarkable for their brevity. His sentences are short and rapid but they are forceful. In other words, as Dean Church observes “They come down like the strokes of a hammer”.

Bacon evolved a prose style that proved for the first time that English can also be used to express fine thoughts in simple sentences. Bacon, in fact, wrote more than one style and suits his style to his subject. In his first collection of “Essays” he illustrates the definition of essay as “meditative” but in his later essays he acquired blood and flesh. The stylistic changes are to bring the greater clarity. In his earlier essays his sentences are sketchy and in incomplete manner but in later essays there is warmth and clarity. Most of his words are read like proverbs:

“For a lie faces God and shrinks from man”. (“Of Truth”)

“It is strange desire to seek power and loss liberity

or, to seek power over other and to loss power over

a man’s self” (“Of Great Pleasure”)

Thus, there is not even a single essay which does not contain such wisdom of human heart. His sentences ore over packed with meaning and they are often telegraphic in nature.

But the aphoristic statement of his essays depends on such expression--- such as “balance” and “antithesis” which marked the structure of his sentences. In his essay “Of Studies” there is threefold balances:

“Studies serves for delight, for ornament and for ability”.

“Some books are tasted, other to be swallowed, and

a few are be chewed and disguised”.

“Studies make a full man, conferences a ready man and

writing an exact man”.

Thus, his style is clearly rhetorical; and he has the power to attracts its readers even thought he cannot convince them.

In this sense, one has to study another feature of Bacon’s style--- his extensive use of images, metaphors, similes. Bacon draws his imagery even from the human life or from the common facts of nature. He gives striking metaphors and similes to prove his point. As he says in “Of Studies”: “……distilled books are like distilled water flashy things”. His similes are most of the time apt, vivid and different. Classical mythology, biblical, astronomy, philosophy, natural observation, domestic aspects etc are pressed to communicate with the meaning.

Bacon expressed his thoughts in a few words or sentences. His essays are to be read slowly and carefully, not because the words are obscure but because the thought expressed in them is compact and condense. In his essay “Of Truth”, Bacon brought the idea for man’s natural love for lie. The poetic figure of speech is brought out in the statement:

“Certainly it is heaven upon earth, to have a man’s mind
 move in charity, rest in providence,
and turn on the poles of truth”.

Bacon’s words are without wit and humour--- in ordinary sense of meaning--- but he is capable of creating humour to please his readers: “By pains man comes to greater pain”. “Through indignities man can rise to dignities. (Of Great Palace)

Though Bacon’s style is heavy in learning yet it is flexible. Bacon, on the whole, is not difficult at all. Though there are some Latinism words in his essays but which are difficult to follow yet they does not lead to obscurity. Bacon’s style bears the stump of Bacon, the man, who is not only the widely studied essayist but one, who wrote with great care permitting nothing superfluous in it. What, Johnson says of Bacon the speaker, is equally true of Bacon the writer:

“No man ever wrote with care, or suffered less emptiness,
less idleness n what he said………. He hearers what
should cough or took a side from him without loss”.

In conclusion, Bacon’s style bears the stamp of its own, though there is some controversy, whether he wrote one style or two. Bacon’s essays cover a span of 28 years and within this short period these essays were published. Bacon’s style is not a personal, or the chatty style of Montaigne or Lamb. His essays are distinctive and aphoristic full of learned quotations and allusions. But what is important about his style is his brevity. One may put forward the point, Bacon was, indeed, a great artist who expresses his thoughts and feelings in his style.

Bacon as an essayist

  

Bacon challenged the basic beliefs of man e.g. truth, love, friendship, honesty, secrecy and reshaped them. He challenged the most established norm and ideals of mankind.

He questioned everything; he questioned what was, generally, considered unquestionable. He was an iconoclast. His approach was revolutionary. He begins his essays with a challenging statement i.e. what is truth, what is friendship and what is love.

He was very skeptical. He believed that the test of the truth of everything is in practical observation. He believes that experience is the basis of every judgment. This is called empirical approach. And no doubt he was an empiricist. His way of thinking was inductive. It was based upon facts and upon data. His spirit of inquiry and spirit of skepticism was the outcome of Renaissance. Bacon was very utilitarian. Like a scientist, he did only what was useful.

His training had been as a scholastic but his approach was anti-scholastic. He was bitterly against the scholastic approach. He said that the arguments of scholastics appear to be very intelligent and philosophical but actually these are nothing but only mental luxury. He said that scholastic try to prove the proven, means, who is God, what is sin or reward. In philosophy, this attitude is called begging in question. What is to be proved, it is taken as supposed.

Bacon says the reasoning of schoolmen is in fact very smart and full of life but actually this life is like the life of worms in rotten flesh. They appear to be very active but this is a very deadly activity. They are not agent of life rather they are the agents of death. The arguments of scholastics kill the mind than to develop the mind. Thus Bacon demolished the scholasticism with their own tools.

Bacon gave the theory of “duality of truth”. He proved that ideals are definitely good but ideals are only for ideal and perfect people. Imperfect people can’t follow the ideals and when they can’t follow them they go reverse and tell lies. Bacon said that everyone should try to be as good as possible. One must realize his faculties. An imperfect man must compromise with his imperfection. Instead of cursing himself one should compromise with his imperfection. This is called “expediency”. That truth is only for ideal people and for common man expediency should be the principle.

Bacon said that there are two kinds of truths – heavenly truth and earthly truth. He further said that heavenly truth is contained in Bible and it is for “salvation”. But earthly truth is in the laws of nature and in the means of science and it is necessary for earthly success. And this earthly truth is different from heavenly truth. Both are opposite to each other and can’t function for its opposite and one must be able to differentiate between them. This is called relativity of truth or duality of truth. L. C. Knight wrote that Bacon did not give the theory of the duality of truth but he only stated the facts who actually believe in their conducts.

What Bacon’s essays reveal is that:

1. Man in relation to the world and society.
2. Man in relation to himself
3. Man in relation his Maker.