When discussing the style and themes of Sir Francis
Bacon’s Essays, it’s important to remember that the
Essays were published in three editions in Bacon’s lifetime. Each
new edition added more themes to the list of topics treated, and each of the later
editions presented essays that tended to be longer, and more elaborate in style, than
the editions that preceded them. Nevertheless, critics have cited some common traits of
Bacon’s style and themes, and perhaps these can best be illustrated by examining a
particular essay – in this case, the essay titled “Of
Death.”
Bacon’s essays are often said to contain short,
pity, memorable phrases as well as balanced sentence structure, and certainly all of
those traits are evident in the opening words of the essay “Of
Death”:
Men
fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children, is
increased with tales, so is the
other.
Here the phrase “men
fear death” immediately catches our attention. “Men” is balanced later by “children,”
and the phrasing that follows the semicolon is as balanced as the phrasing that precedes
it. Meanwhile, the phrases on either side of the semicolon are themselves balanced, and
this frequent use of balance in Bacon’s essays suggests the mental balance and sensible
reasoning of the author. The fact that Bacon is dealing with such a universally
interesting topic as death is also typical of his essays, which very often deal with
precisely such topics. Rather than writing about his personal experiences or
perceptions, Bacon writes about topics likely to interest most readers, and he does so
in a fairly impersonal style.
Bacon is often said to write
in a crisp, terse, clipped manner, in a style influenced by Tacitus and Seneca rather
than by the long, elaborately developed sentences of Seneca, and this tendency to
terseness can be seen in the following sentence:
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Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it;
honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear preoccupateth it . . .
.
In his essays, especially
the later or revised ones, Bacon tends to cite classical examples to make his points and
even to quote from classical sources. In the essay “Of Death,” for instance, he writes
as follows:
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Augustus Caesar died in a compliment;
Livia, conjugii nostri memor, vive et vale.
Tiberius in dissimulation; as Tacitus saith of him, Jam Tiberium vires et
corpus, non dissimulatio, deserebant. Vespasian in a jest, sitting upon the
stool; Ut puto deus fio. Galba with a sentence; Feri, si
ex re sit populi Romani; holding forth his neck. Septimius Severus in
despatch; Adeste si quid mihi restat agendum. And the
like.
Today, many of Bacon’s
sentences, as in the passage just quoted, would be considered fragments, but they are
typical of the often lightning speed of his style and of his emphasis on matter over
manner, substance over conventionally “correct” grammar. Bacon rarely develops the full
implications of many of his ideas. Instead, he often mentions an idea quickly and then
swiftly moves on to the next, thereby encouraging readers to make connections and to
think for themselves. Certainly that is one of the effects of the essay “Of
Death.”
