#TOPIC: #ROSE_STYLE_OF_BACON

#QUESTIONS_SET_IN_PAST_PAPERS:

• Bring out the stylistic beauties of Bacon's writings with particular reference to his essays. (1975)

• Discuss the scientific training on Bacon's style. Illustrate your answer from his essays and other writings. (1976,77)

• Discuss Bacon as a representative writer of the Renaissance. (197OK8) (Also discuss Morality)

• Define the Essay as understood by Bacon. How did this literary form take its rise in England? (1979,92,93)

• What idea of Bacon's personality do you get from the style of his essays? (1979)

• "Bacon has the talent for packing thought close and making it portable". Discuss Bacon's prose style in the light of this statement. (1980)

• Justify Bacon's claim, "I have taken all knowledge to be my province" Base your remarks on his Essays and if you prefer any other of his books in addition. (1983) Also discuss his content.

• Do you think Bacon's essays are an attempt at an introduction of a new literary form of English literature. (1986)

• Write an essay on Bacon's style.(1987,89)

• "Bacon's essays are the first true English prose classic."(1988)

• Bacon spoke of his Essays as "dispersed meditations". Do you agree? (1989) Also discuss his thoughts.

• "Bacon's sentences appear to be proverbial saying for apothegm". Illustrate from Bacon's Essays. (1990)

• "A series of trenchant and apparently disconnected sayings, where the writer endeavors to reader's mind by a series of aphoristic attached."  Elaborate this statement with illustrations from Bacon's Essays. (1991)

#ANSWER:

1. #INTRODUCTION – #ESSAYS_AS_DISPERSED #MEDITATIONS

Lexically speaking, the term ‘essay’ means ‘to attempt’. Dr. Johnson defines essay as “a loose sally of mind”. To Priestley, it is “a genuine expression of an original personality”. Lobban regards essay as “a short, discursive article on any literary, moral, philosophical or social subject”. Bacon defines essay as “a charm of personality” and “a reverie”. In a nutshell, essay is an informal piece of writing on any subject. Bacon’s essays come up to this touchstone as these are “informal gossips”, though full of moral wisdom vis-à-vis our public and private life.

2. #INFLUENCE_OF_MONTAIGNE

The essay form was suggested to Bacon by Montaigne. The discursive style of essay best suited Bacon as he wanted to express his “dispersed meditations”. Despite that Bacon is impressed by Montaigne in this respect, he is different from Montaigne in the following ways:
(i) Montaigne’s essays are verbose and copious while those of Bacon, concise and packed.
(ii) Montaigne’s essays are abstract, containing knowledge of diffused humanity whereas his essays are absolutely realistic, showing his insight into human nature.
(iii) Montaigne is informal but Bacon is impersonal.
(iv) Montaigne’s essays are philosophical but remain confined to the understanding of the common man while those of Bacon are practical but are meant for the learned alone as they are in the form of outlines, providing us with food for further thinking process.
So, Bacon no doubt adopted the essay form from Montaigne, yet he moulded this literary species to be completely his own.

3. #BACON_S_GREATNESS – #NEW_LITERARY_FORM
#AND_PROSE_STYLE

Bacon is great because he not only introduced a new literary form, the essay form, in English but also attempted his essays in a new prose style. The style he inherited from his predecessors like Hooker and Raleigh was rich and sonorous, marked by diffuseness and prolixity. The 17th Century prose, on the other hand, was barren and bald. Bacon’s prose occupies a middle link between Elizabethan prose and the late 17th Century prose. The former was plentiful, suffering from irregular vitality while the latter, totally barren, having no vitality at all. Bacon’s prose is at once plentiful and precise, enjoying regular vitality.

#QUALITIES_OF_HIS_PROSE_STYLE

 Following are some of the distinguished features of his prose style:

I. V