Bacon As An Essayist

[Danisa Southmayd]

ThoughI can see why some people see Bacon coming off as arrogant in his writing, I, however, see Bacon as a talented essayist. I admire how Bacon carefully crafts his sentences, and in essence, his essays from a number of different angles, weighing one argument against another. His essays are works that should be praised because of brilliance he displays in them.

1st Viscount St Alban, English philosopher, statesman, and essayist, also known as Lord Verulam. Best known for leading the scientific revolution with his new 'observation and experimentation' theory which is the way science has been conducted ever since

Some or all works by this author were published before January 1, 1929, and are in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. Translations or editions published later may be copyrighted. Posthumous works may be copyrighted based on how long they have been published in certain countries and areas.

Make this a salad by omitting the bread, doubling and chopping the lettuce, crumbling the bacon, mixing that with the roasted tomatoes and their juices and then tossing it all with a simple salad dressing.

Francis Bacon is significant as an essayist for pioneering the essay form inEnglish literature. His essays are concise, insightful, and cover a wide rangeof topics, blending philosophy with practical wisdom. Bacon's clear, aphoristicstyle and keen observations on human nature and society have influencedgenerations of writers and thinkers.

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Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is widely accepted as a progenitor of thescientific method and the father of the modern essay. In both areas he reliedon systematic empirical thinking in order to further understand nature andsocial interactions. He helped create the scientific method of strictobservation and inductive reasoning.

Bacon was a member of the British Parliament, a jurist, and a philosopher.In these capacities he used the scientific method to organize his thinking. Heorganized knowledge into three groups: history, poetry, and philosophy, andstudied them from the point of view that information is processed throughmemory, reason, and imagination.

Bacon first published his Essays in 1597, and published latereditions in 1612 and 1625. His essays are written in a logical and systematicway, approaching their subjects from a variety of viewpoints, comparing them,and writing in clear prose, often employing aphorisms to concisely make apoint. He covered such topics as truth, love, death, marriage, education,religion, child-rearing, health, and good and evil, to name a few.

Francis Bacon is often credited as the first great English essayist, thoughhe borrowed from other writers, such as the French essayist Montaigne and fromthe Greek philosopher Aristotle. Bacon published his book of ten essays in 1597(Montaigne published his first book of essays in 1580). Bacon followed hisfirst volume with a book of 38 essays in 1612, and finally, a volume of 58essays in 1625. As one of the eNotes guides linked to below states, the essayswere popular because they were brief, lively, humane and well-written. They gotto their points quickly and in a logical way, in contrast to many longer-windedwritings of the time.

Bacon's essays often examine abstract topics such as love, friendship, truthand anger. He is considered an early empiricist and proponent of the scientificmethod of testing hypotheses in an objective manner. In his essays, he liked toview issues from different perspectives and in a detached way. In his essay "OnAnger," for example, he lists different causes of anger, then focuses on threecauses, then offers solutions. His essays come from a Christian perspective butalso are rational and analytic.

Sir Francis Bacon was a true Renaissance man in that he was accomplished inmany areas, one of which was essayist (read a brief bio at the linkbelow). Some scholars believe it was he who invented the essay as aliterary form. Even more amazing is that he wrote essays for fun.

You can see the variety of his essays by examining their topics, some ofwhich include: Truth, Death, Anger, Envy, Revenge, Travel, Marriage and SingleLife, Suspicion, Riches, Ambition, Goodness and Goodness of Nature,Plantations, The Colors of Good and Evil, etc. (see link below). There is evena Bacon group right here on enotes (see link).

An early career in finance as a licensed stockbroker and insurance agent was later followed by a return to college, studying literature and the poetry of Edmund Spenser and Geoffrey Chaucer, along with economics and environmental science.

Frances Bacon's aim as an essayist was to share the wisdom of his life. Theoriginal number of essays in Bacon's Essays (1597) was ten and included titleslike "of Studies," "Of Discourse" "Of Suitors," "Of Expense." By the year 1612,there were thirty-eight essays. As Bacon's life progressed, through politics,philosophy, science, bribes and imprisonment, he shared his wisdom, so hisdevelopment as an individual is evident in tone and content and, sadly, unlikein classic fiction, his development as a man left him sadder.

His style of essay writing is not dogmatic nor didactic but rather personableand friendly. For example, when speaking of envy he doesn't begin with adeclaration of envy being harmful and destructive of happiness. His styleallows him to explore such subjects with an observational eye that relatesincidents to meaning and only eventually reveals his judgment and wisdom on thesubject. His essays were well received because of his warm wisdom.

Francis Bacon was a man of a rare breed. He had three goals in life whichshaped his accomplishments: serving his country, serving his church andlearning the truth. His distinguished abilities included authorship,science, law, and philosophy. Being an Englishman of many trades, heeffectively wrote essays which still today receive worldwide appeal. He alsoinitiated the widely used Scientific Method. Living in England during KingJames I and later Queen Elizabeth, he also experienced the era of Shakespeare'sentrance to the world stage.

During his early years he grew intellectually quickly finding himself atTrinity College by age 12. In his studies he later led a movement to employinductive reasoning in an effort to solve problems, something we still worktoward in classrooms and business models today.

Bacon wrote no systematic discussion of rhetoric or essay writing himself,but scattered throughout his own essays are comments on his own approach, whichdiffered significantly from what is known as the Ciceronian style thatemphasized style (the arrangement of words) to subject matter.

In his essay The Advancement of Learning (1605), Bacon said thatessays should primarily "apply Reason to Imagination for the better moving ofthe Will," and in a later essay, Bacon noted that "Rhetoric is subservient tothe imagination, as Logic is to the Understanding." In essence, Baconargued that essays should be based on logic and reason, which should takeprecedence over style or rhetorical techniques.

Bacon wrote almost a hundred essays on such subjects as "Divisions ofLearning," "The Great Renewing" (in which he advocated a plan for organizingall knowledge), and the "Interpretation of Nature" (a full discussion of hisphilosophical views). Most of his essays are characterized by threestylistic features, consistent his view of the importance of subject overstyle: 1) the subject matter conforms to the style; 2) the use of relativelysimple, direct vocabulary; and 3) a tone of reasonableness rather thanattack.

Bacon's essays, because they are direct and succinct, are often compared tothe writings of Tacitus. For example, one of Bacon's typical statementsin an essay is "He who hath wives and children hath given hostages to Fortune,"easily the subject of an entire essay by itself.

Sir Francis Bacon was a great essayist and prose writer of 17th century literature. He is very much known for his essays and so his place is great as an essayist. He was born in England, got basic education at Cambridge. His father was also a great man, very close to the Ministers of Queen Elizabeth. Bacon educated himself in law and became Bar at Law.

Bacon has given practical advice to the kings and rulers how to deal with ambitious persons in the state. Bacon advises kings not to side with any particular faction or party in the state. They should not allow factions to grow. Factions under kings ought to be like the motions of the inferior.

The relation in which the judges ought to stand to their king is discussed in the essay of Judicature. Judges ought not to forget their high and important position in the state. They are subordinate to their rules. They must not thwart the wishes of the king. He tells them now to deal with their neighbors, their second nobles or gentlemen, their merchants, their commons, and their men of war. Bacon examines the causes of seditions and troubles in the state and suggests methods where by kings can successfully prevent their up rise.

Bacon wishes to escape from the private and personal to the political aspect of the question with which he deals. This he does not only in the discussion of unity in religion but in the treatment of marriage. Evidently he felt himself more at home in the character of statesman than in that of moralist and among the weightiest of his essays are those which treat of political questions. Nowhere does his wisdom show to better advantage. In his capacity of political moralist, Bacon seems to shake of the fetters which cramp him when he is dealing with individual morality. It is the fact that he is always, at heart, a political moralist that lowers his tone in the other class of cases.

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