Bacon s Contribution

English prose owes a great deal to Bacons way of writing. A critic rightly pointed out that Hooker and
Bacon did really great things for the development of English prose . When alliteration, antithesis,
similes from unnatural natural history were rampant, these two men showed that English was as
capable as the classics of serving the highest purposes of language. They showed that it was possible in
English also to express the subtleties of thought in clear, straightforward, and uninvolved sentences and
when necessary, to condense the greatest amount of meaning into the fewest possible words.
Bacon shows himself in his essays to be a consummate rhetorician. He made for himself a style which
though not quite flexible and modern, was unmatchable for pith and pregnancy. When the bulk of
English prose was written in loose sentences of enormous length, he supplied at once a short, crisp and
firmly knit sentence of a type unfamiliar in English. He rejected the conceits and overcrowded imagery
of the Euphuists. For the students of expression, his essays are of endless interest and profit for their
remarkable compactness and nervous vitality.
Compton Rickett says, Emerson is the one modern writer with whom Bacon may be fairly compared,
for their method is much the same. In each case you have a series of trenchant and apparently
disconnected sayings, where the writer endeavours to reach the readers mind by a series of Aphoristic
attacks.
Compton Rickett observes again, Comparing Bacon with his predecessors, Hooker, Sidney, Lyly,
Ascham, it will be seen how widely he departs from the prolix methods of the day. In rhetorical power,
musical cadence, quaint turns of speech, he is equalled by many of his contemporaries, excelled by a
few, but for a clear, terse, easy writing, he has no peer save Ben Jonson, and even today his essays are
models of succinct , lucid prose.
Hugh Walker assessing the contribution of Bacon to the development of English prose observes,
Bacon took one of the longest steps ever taken in the evolution of English prose style. English prose
was already rich and sonorous. Hooker still ranks as one of our greatest stylists. So does Releigh. But
while these writers have majesty and strength, it cannot be said that they were the masters of a style
suited to all the purposes which prose must subserve. The sentences were inconveniently long ,
frequently involved and obscure. In his essays, Bacon did furnish a model. The sentences had to be
short. With shortness came lucidity.
The same critic maintains further, The essays of Bacon have to be read slowly and thoughtfully, not
because the style is obscure, but because they were extremely condensed. The grammatical structure is
sometimes loose, but it is rarely ambiguous. With shortness came also flexibility.
Terseness of expression and epigrammatic brevity are the most striking qualities of Bacons style.
Bacon possessed a marvellous power of compressing into a few words an idea which ordinary writers
would express in several sentences. Many of his sentences have aphoristic quality. They are like
proverbs and maxims full of worldly wisdom indeed.
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune. Of Marriage and Single Life
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. Of
Studies.
A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Of Truth
Aphorisms impart singular force and weight to his essays. Bacon achieves this terseness of style often
by avoiding superfluous words and by omitting the ordinary joints and sinews of speech. At times he
becomes even obscure because of extreme condensation. Another quality of Bacons style is his
recurrent use of figurative language. In his essay, Of Truth, he gives us very vivid and apt similes and
metaphors to illustrate his ideas. He compares truth to a naked open daylight. He compares falsehood
to an alloy in a coin of gold or silver. In his essay, Of Friendship, he says, For a crowd is not
company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no
love. Again the essays of Bacon are full of illustrations, allusions, and quotations from Latin and
Greek sources as well. They show his love of learning and exhibit his knowledge of the classics. In the
essay, Of Truth, there are allusions to Pilate, Lucian, Lucretius, and Montaigne. He makes his style
more scholarly and grand by using quotations from the Bible, Latin and Greek.
While concluding Bacons contribution on the whole, Compton Rickett observes, In his
Advancement of Learning, he is one of the earliest to seek to consolidate and unify his knowledge; in
his Essays, he is the pioneer of clear sententious English, that suggests rather than expounds, and
blends dignity with familiarity, in that pleased and attractive manner which is the secret of the power of
all our great essayists. Again in his Henry Vii , he shows the possibilities of a flowing, orderly and
picturesque narrative that shall compel attention without recourse to strained conceits. Finally, in his
New Atlantis, with its plea for a College of Scientific research, he started a movement that led to the
foundation our Royal Society.
Compton Rickett further maintains: His literary methods are then of the orator, not the dialectician; he
is not good in argument; not reliable even in exposition. In fact, he is a valuable, intellectual irritant
rather than a constructive force.; an intellectual irritant with fine rich literary resources at his
command; fertile in illustration , luminous in suggestion, and with considerable power to challenge and
arrest the attention. Malcolm Cowley well compared him with Moses on Pisgah, surveying the
Promised Land, but not entering into possession. Bacon gave strength and simplicity to English prose
putting an end to the prolixity and diffuseness of his predecessors.