Perez Zagorin, in his biography of Francis Bacon, has this to say about Bacon's interest in the art of communication: "Throughout Bacon's intellectual life he maintained a constant interest in language and the methods of communicating knowledge, information, and opinion. He made numerous experiments with different modes of imparting his ideas, ranging from courtly entertainments and polemical discourses to formal treatises, aphorisms, essays, interpretations of myths, histories and utopian fiction." Zagorin does not address the Shakespeare authorship question. Of course, we know that Bacon admitted to his friend Toby Matthews that he was a "concealed poet," so it is very likely that his experiments extended to poetry.
In support of the hypothesis that Bacon could successfully maintain a dual existence as an exoteric man of letters and as a concealed poet and dramatist, consider Bacon's essays Of Truth and Of Simulation and Dissimulation: "The best composition and temperature, is to have openness in fame and opinion; secrecy in habit; dissimulation in seasonable use; and a power to feign, if there be no remedy."
In support of the hypothesis that Bacon could successfully maintain a dual existence as an exoteric man of letters and as a concealed poet and dramatist, consider Bacon's essays Of Truth and Of Simulation and Dissimulation: "The best composition and temperature, is to have openness in fame and opinion; secrecy in habit; dissimulation in seasonable use; and a power to feign, if there be no remedy."
There are no replies made for this post yet.
