33 Quotes by Sir Francis Bacon on Poetry, Drama & Theatre

[A Phoenix]

Here's the next short quote video about the Great One dedicated to Lawrence in celebration of 25 wonderful years of sirbacon.org♥️♥️♥️

There is a generally held belief that Francis Bacon the serious legal, philosophical and scientific mind had no time for or interest in poetry, drama and the theatre. Nothing could be further from the truth. His works of law, science, philosophy, literature, essays, personal letters and even legal charges are permeated throughout with theatrical metaphors and allusions revealing his extensive and profound interest in poetry, drama and the theatre.

Find out more in this short video:

 

Edited November 3, 2022 by A Phoenix

[Eric Roberts]

45 minutes ago, A Phoenix said:

Here's the next short quote video about the Great One dedicated to Lawrence in celebration of 25 wonderful years of sirbacon.org♥️♥️♥️

There is a generally held belief that Francis Bacon the serious legal, philosophical and scientific mind had no time for or interest in poetry, drama and the theatre. Nothing could be further from the truth. His works of law, science, philosophy, literature, essays, personal letters and even legal charges are permeated throughout with theatrical metaphors and allusions revealing his extensive and profound interest in poetry, drama and the theatre.

Find out more in this short video:

https://youtu.be/WciAv6nzCcY

Hi Phoenixes. Just a quick "congratulations" on the new quote video. It's your best yet. Love the background colours. It must have taken many days to put it all together. What an excellent use of the video medium... to focus the light of Bacon's mind in such a concentrated way. After watching the presentation one is left in no doubt that Francis Bacon could speak with great authority about the theatre and was fully aware of it's higher potential to expand the mind and move the heart. 

[A Phoenix]

Thanks Eric for all your wonderful kind words and support - much appreciated♥️🙂

[Christie Waldman]

Very nice presentation! I loved the music. Did you use sources for the quotations?

I am just now reading Brian Vickers' article, "Bacon's Use of Theatrical Imagery," The Legacy of Francis Bacon, Studies in the Literary Imagination 4, no 1 (April, 1971), 189-226. It collects a lot of examples from Bacon.

Here is an important one, I think. In writing about John Ford's play, Perkin Warbeck which used Bacon's History of the Reign of Henry the Seventh as its basis, Vickers observes:

Dr. Righter has singled out Shakespeare as being "almost unique" in his use of the Player King metaphor. It is not impossible, of course, that Bacon may have learned from him, but at all events on this point he is to be placed beside Shakespeare. (new par) Bacon's History of Henry VII was the acknowledged source for Ford's Perkin Warbeck, and it is interesting to see how Ford has drawn on Bacon's image-sequence.

In a footnote, Vickers writes,

Dr. Righter suggests the influence on Ford  of Shakespeare's concept of the Player King [source citation omitted]. This may be so, of course, but the direct influence of Bacon is demonstrable, and it is significant (although comparisons such as this are always dangerous material for the 'Baconian' lunatic fringe) that both Bacon and Shakespeare should have responded both to the majesty and to the instability of the Player King (pp 223-224, nn 83, 84).

So, Bacon could have gotten it from Shakespeare, and any anyone who thinks the reverse might be true is part of the "Baconian lunatic fringe"!  Does that sound logical?

(I suppose that, like so many things, this ought also to go in "Evidence.")

[A Phoenix]

Hi Christie,

Thank you for your kind and generous comments and support. 

I have a copy of the Vicker's article but I can't remember if I have read it and if I have it would have been a long time since. I certainly would have read it for the video if had occured to me.  We are fortunate enough to have the complete 14 volume set of Spedding's standard Life and Works of Francis and it is usually our first port of call.

We posted the dedication to The Chronicle History of Perkin Warbeck alluding to the Great One in our Quotes About Francis Bacon on 13 October.

This is my favourite quote about Bacon and Shakespeare from Professor Vickers:

'In the 1594-5 the festivities lasted from 20 December to Shrovetide (just before Lent); on 28 December 'a comedy of errors (like to Plautus his Menaechmus) was played by the players'. In all probability this was Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, performed by the company to which he belonged, the Lord Chamberlain's Men: this was perhaps the closest contact that Bacon and Shakespeare ever had.'

[Brian Vickers, Francis Bacon A Critical Edition of the Major Works (Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 532] 

Absolutely priceless. You just could not make it up!

                                                                                                                              All the world's a stage,

                                                                                               And all the men and women merely players!

 

[Lawrence Gerald]

It may be the closest contact that Vickers had with Bacon is Shakespeare.  Vickers demonstrates that the over educated can be blind to truth. Truly a Comedy of Error.

[Allisnum2er]

Congrats A Phoenix for this great and essential video.❤️

What a beautiful way to reveal to the world that Francis Bacon was  unquestionably a man of Theater !

I love your choice of quotes, the music, and the rythm of your video. 

Many thanks for all your hard and beautiful work .

[A Phoenix]

Hi Yann,

Thank you, for all your love and support-always very much appreciated. ♥️🙂👍

[Christie Waldman]

Thank you for sharing that great additional Vickers quotation, A Phoenix. The reason I asked about sources was because I know how hard it is to search fourteen volumes of Spedding. Such great quotations you have found!

One of these days  the late British barrister N. B. Cockburn's book may be reprinted or made into an e-book (we hope). He has an entire chapter on Bacon and theatre: "Bacon's Interest in the Theatre," The Bacon Shakespeare Question: The Baconian Theory Made Sane (1998), pp. 21-40. On pp. 30-31, he provides content from Baconiana vol 7, 3rd Series (July 1909) ("minor literal references to the theatre" and "use of theatrical metaphors"). He does not mention the Vickers essay, that I saw.

 

[Eric Roberts]

On 11/3/2022 at 9:40 PM, A Phoenix said:

Here's the next short quote video about the Great One dedicated to Lawrence in celebration of 25 wonderful years of sirbacon.org♥️♥️♥️

There is a generally held belief that Francis Bacon the serious legal, philosophical and scientific mind had no time for or interest in poetry, drama and the theatre. Nothing could be further from the truth. His works of law, science, philosophy, literature, essays, personal letters and even legal charges are permeated throughout with theatrical metaphors and allusions revealing his extensive and profound interest in poetry, drama and the theatre.

Find out more in this short video:

 

Francis Bacon and the Stage, R J W Gentry, 1949 Baconiana No. 132, pp: 167-172 

https://sirbacon.org/archives/baconiana/1949_Baconiana_No 132.pdf

 

[Kate]

That’s a fabulous quote in here ‘of truth’. I feel compelled to tweet it!

[Lawrence Gerald]

"The distinction between poets and prose writers is a vulgar error… Lord Bacon was a poet. His language has a sweet and majestic rhythm which satisfies the sense, no less than the almost superhuman wisdom of his philosophy satisfies the intellect; it is a strain which distends and then bursts the circumference of the hearer's mind and pours itself forth together with it into the universal element with which it has perpetual sympathy."  Percy Shelley from A Defence of Poetry

[Light-of-Truth]

3 hours ago, Lawrence Gerald said:

"The distinction between poets and prose writers is a vulgar error… Lord Bacon was a poet. His language has a sweet and majestic rhythm which satisfies the sense, no less than the almost superhuman wisdom of his philosophy satisfies the intellect; it is a strain which distends and then bursts the circumference of the hearer's mind and pours itself forth together with it into the universal element with which it has perpetual sympathy."  Percy Shelley from A Defence of Poetry

I get the same when I read Bacon and I read Shakespeare.

Typically, I read Bacon linear front to back, Shakespeare is criss-cross, up and down, and backwards maybe more than forwards. LOL

The same Rhythm, the same satisfaction of the mind. 😉

 

 

[Lawrence Gerald]

2

  T

     r

        u

           e

[Light-of-Truth]

             T
            O
           B
          E
         O
        R
       N
      O
     T
    T
   O
  B
 E
157

The most famous line in Shakespeare adds up to 157 Simple cipher. LOL

[Lawrence Gerald]

On 11/3/2022 at 12:49 PM, A Phoenix said:

Hi Christie,

Thank you for your kind and generous comments and support. 

I have a copy of the Vicker's article but I can't remember if I have read it and if I have it would have been a long time since. I certainly would have read it for the video if had occured to me.  We are fortunate enough to have the complete 14 volume set of Spedding's standard Life and Works of Francis and it is usually our first port of call.

We posted the dedication to The Chronicle History of Perkin Warbeck alluding to the Great One in our Quotes About Francis Bacon on 13 October.

This is my favourite quote about Bacon and Shakespeare from Professor Vickers:

'In the 1594-5 the festivities lasted from 20 December to Shrovetide (just before Lent); on 28 December 'a comedy of errors (like to Plautus his Menaechmus) was played by the players'. In all probability this was Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, performed by the company to which he belonged, the Lord Chamberlain's Men: this was perhaps the closest contact that Bacon and Shakespeare ever had.'

[Brian Vickers, Francis Bacon A Critical Edition of the Major Works (Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 532] 

Absolutely priceless. You just could not make it up!

                                                                                                                              All the world's a stage,

                                                                                               And all the men and women merely players!

 

Do you think Brian Vickers has figured out that Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens? Asking for a friend....

[Kate]

1 hour ago, Lawrence Gerald said:

Do you think Brian Vickers has figured out that Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens? Asking for a friend....

This is a synchronicity. Last night I wondered why Samuel Clemens (who we all know believed Bacon to be Shakespeare) chose the name Twain. Turns out Twain means twins. As per my video (which most of you have seen, so only adding this for new readers), Twins are a sign of the Invisible College and Brotherhood.

 

Also is Vickers by any chance related to Hugo Vickers, Royal Historian? 
 

Kate

ps This is the “accepted” version.

 

Edited November 8, 2022 by Kate

[Christie Waldman]

I think what Twain said was he didn't know whether Bacon was Shakespeare, but he thought it was a lot more likely that Bacon was Shakespeare than that William Shaxpere was.

[Light-of-Truth]

https://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Mark_Twain/Is_Shakespeare_Dead/Chapter_V_p1.html

For fun:

 "We May Assume"

In the Assuming trade three separate and independent cults are transacting business. Two of these cults are known as the Shakespearites and the Baconians, and I am the other one--the Brontosaurian.

The Shakespearite knows that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare's Works; the Baconian knows that Francis Bacon wrote them; the Brontosaurian doesn't really know which of them did it, but is quite composedly and contentedly sure that Shakespeare DIDN'T, and strongly suspects that Bacon DID. We all have to do a good deal of assuming, but I am fairly certain that in every case I can call to mind the Baconian assumers have come out ahead of the Shakespearites. Both parties handle the same materials, but the Baconians seem to me to get much more reasonable and rational and persuasive results out of them than is the case with the Shakespearites. The Shakespearite conducts his assuming upon a definite principle, an unchanging and immutable law--which is: 2 and 8 and 7 and 14, added together, make 165. I believe this to be an error. No matter, you cannot get a habit-sodden Shakespearite to cipher-up his materials upon any other basis. With the Baconian it is different. If you place before him the above figures and set him to adding them up, he will never in any case get more than 45 out of them, and in nine cases out of ten he will get just the proper 31.  

Let me try to illustrate the two systems in a simple and homely way calculated to bring the idea within the grasp of the ignorant and unintelligent. We will suppose a case: take a lap-bred, house-fed, uneducated, inexperienced kitten; take a rugged old Tom that's scarred from stem to rudder-post with the memorials of strenuous experience, and is so cultured, so educated, so limitlessly erudite that one may say of him "all cat-knowledge is his province"; also, take a mouse. Lock the three up in a holeless, crackless, exitless prison-cell. Wait half an hour, then open the cell, introduce a Shakespearite and a Baconian, and let them cipher and assume. The mouse is missing: the question to be decided is, where is it? You can guess both verdicts beforehand. One verdict will say the kitten contains the mouse; the other will as certainly say the mouse is in the tomcat.

The Shakespearite will Reason like this--(that is not my word, it is his). He will say the kitten MAY HAVE BEEN attending school when nobody was noticing; therefore WE ARE WARRANTED IN ASSUMING that it did so; also, it COULD HAVE BEEN training in a court-clerk's office when no one was noticing; since that could have happened, WE ARE JUSTIFIED IN ASSUMING that it did happen; it COULD HAVE STUDIED CATOLOGY IN A GARRET when no one was noticing-- therefore it DID; it COULD HAVE attended cat-assizes on the shed-roof nights, for recreation, when no one was noticing, and harvested a knowledge of cat court-forms and cat lawyer-talk in that way: it COULD have done it, therefore without a doubt it did; it could have gone soldiering with a war-tribe when no one was noticing, and learned soldier-wiles and soldier-ways, and what to do with a mouse when opportunity offers; the plain inference, therefore is, that that is what it DID. Since all these manifold things COULD have occurred, we have EVERY RIGHT TO BELIEVE they did occur. These patiently and painstakingly accumulated vast acquirements and competences needed but one thing more-- opportunity--to convert themselves into triumphant action. The opportunity came, we have the result; BEYOND SHADOW OF QUESTION the mouse is in the kitten.

 

[Lawrence Gerald]

 

From Mather Walker

https://sirbacon.org/mgreatestbaconian.htm

"Twain says we can be absolutely certain the man from Stratford did not write the Shakespeare Works, but as to the question whether Francis Bacon wrote we cannot say we know he wrote them when the evidence is not final and absolutely conclusive. HOWEVER, he then proceeds to demonstrate that in his opinion, Francis Bacon, and only Francis Bacon could have written them. He says,

"The author of the Plays was equipped, beyond every other man of his time, with wisdom, erudition, imagination, capaciousness of mind, grace and majesty of expression. Every one has said it, no one doubts it. Also, he had humor, humor in rich abundance, and always wanting to break out. We have no evidence of any kind that Shakespeare of Stratford possessed any of these gifts or any of these acquirements."

And adds,

""It is evident that he [Bacon] had each and every one of the mental gifts and each and every one of the acquirements that are so prodigally displayed in the Plays and Poems, and in much higher and richer degree than any other man of his time or of any previous time. He was a genius without a mate, a prodigy not matable. There was only one of him; the planet could not produce two of him at one birth, nor in one age. He could have written anything that is in the Plays and Poems…He had a wonderful talent for packing thought close and rendering it portable. His eloquence would alone have entitled him to a high rank in literature."

[Christie Waldman]

Thank you for looking up my reference, Light of Truth.

Citation for Light-of-Truth's quotation: Mark Twain, ch 5, "We May Assume," Is Shakespeare Dead? From My Autobiography (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1909), 50-55, 50. I found it by searching the word "sure" in the free edition on Google. Odd, Twain is more in line with Bacon's own observation, "If we begin with certainties, we end with doubts," than he was (or at least, saw himself to be) with the Baconians of his time. That was why he called himself a "Brontosaurian." It all depends on how you define "Baconian." People who studied the life and works of Francis Bacon used to be able to call themselves "Baconians." Twain thought the proof would come.  (I am not entirely happy with that last sentence. As I recall, Twain was confident that work being done with ciphers would provide the "proof." That was what I meant.)
 

Edited November 10, 2022 by Christie Waldman
Added material in parentheses at the end.

[Light-of-Truth]

4 hours ago, Christie Waldman said:

Thank you for looking up my reference, Light of Truth.

Citation for Light-of-Truth's quotation: Mark Twain, ch 5, "We May Assume," Is Shakespeare Dead? From My Autobiography (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1909), 50-55, 50. I found it by searching the word "sure" in the free edition on Google. Odd, Twain is more in line with Bacon's own observation, "If we begin with certainties, we end with doubts," than he was (or at least, saw himself to be) with the Baconians of his time. That was why he called himself a "Brontosaurian." It all depends on how you define "Baconian." People who studied the life and works of Francis Bacon used to be able to call themselves "Baconians." Twain thought the proof would come.

I'd like to share this video that I have watched countless times. I love it!

I should mention that for whatever reason, Keir Cutler may not be accepted by all Baconians. I've been told, and I don't know why. A Strat? An Oxen?  I don't care, I LOVE this video, I watch it again and again, and share it with anyone who is new to Bacon.

 

[Allisnum2er]

14 hours ago, Christie Waldman said:

Thank you for looking up my reference, Light of Truth.

Citation for Light-of-Truth's quotation: Mark Twain, ch 5, "We May Assume," Is Shakespeare Dead? From My Autobiography (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1909), 50-55, 50. I found it by searching the word "sure" in the free edition on Google. Odd, Twain is more in line with Bacon's own observation, "If we begin with certainties, we end with doubts," than he was (or at least, saw himself to be) with the Baconians of his time. That was why he called himself a "Brontosaurian." It all depends on how you define "Baconian." People who studied the life and works of Francis Bacon used to be able to call themselves "Baconians." Twain thought the proof would come.  (I am not entirely happy with that last sentence. As I recall, Twain was confident that work being done with ciphers would provide the "proof." That was what I meant.)
 

Hi Christie,

After some investigation this morning in the world of the paleology, I would like to share with you an alternative answer to the question why Mark Twain called  himself a "Brontosorian".

The Brontosaurus was discovered by Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-1899) , professor of Paleology and President of the National Academy of Sciences, in 1879.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othniel_Charles_Marsh

Two years earlier, he had discovered the Apatosaurus.

There was a debate for years in the scientific community about Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus being from different species or not.

By calling himself "Brontosaurian", Mark Twain indicates us that he is not an "Apatosaurian". 

Here is the interesting part ! 🙂 

The name "Apatosaurus" comes from ancien Greek "Apate"  ἀπάτη  meaning “trick, deception”.

And the complete name given by Othniel Charles Marsh to its Dinosaure was "Apatosaurus Ajax", Ajax being a reference to the Troyen Hero  Ajax, the Great.

Back to Shakespeare/ Bacon, there is, for me, some good "hidden" reasons why Ajax is the Ninth Worthie (3x3) in Loves Labour's Lost.

https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/facsimile/book/SLNSW_F1/160/index.html%3Fzoom=850.html

       

                        

And the complete name given by Charles Marsh to the Brontosaurus was Brontosaurus excelsus .

https://latin-dictionary.net/definition/19624/excelsus-excelsa

The name Brontosaurus comes from Bronte ,the Goddess of Thunder.

https://www.theoi.com/Titan/Astrape.html

https://archive.org/details/franciscibaconio00baco/page/n21/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater

And the last but not the least ...

Othniel Charles Marsh and Delia Bacon are interred in the same cemetery : The Glove Street cemetery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grove_Street_Cemetery

https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2012/04/13/lund-new-eyes-for-old-haunts/

 

Edited November 10, 2022 by Allisnum2er

[Christie Waldman]

Dear Allisnum2er,

What you have written raises more questions for me! Who is that depicted in your illustration of the cover of book 9 of the De Augmentis? Ajax? How would we know him as Ajax?  Are there any more details you would be able to provide, with regard to what you wrote?

Perhaps you are right that Twain chose the "bronto" rather than the "apato" because "apato" came from an ancient Greek word for "fake." But he would have have come across the Greek etymology, to have done it for that reason. It's possible. I am not completely sold on your hypothesis. Still I bet you are right that there is something behind that name, why Twain chose it.

After reading your post, I found out Twain also wrote about the brontosaurus in "Extracts from Eve's Diary." http://www.monologuearchive.com/t/twain_006.html. Here is another link, "Sam's Short's, 'Adam's Soliloquy,' 1905," Mark Twain House and Museum, Sept. 14, 2020, https://marktwainhouse.org/2020/09/14/sams-shorts-adams-soliloquy-1905/. In case anyone is interested.

I had previously become interested in the Marsh family. The paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh was said to have been born not far from me in Lockport, New York (Oct. 29, 1831). The name "Othniel" is unusual. In the Bible, Othniel was the son of Caleb's younger brother.

Caleb Marsh, father of Othniel, was the younger brother of John Marsh, American pioneer, whose French-Native American (probably common law) wife, Marguerite (Decoteaux), is said to have died in childbirth, and her infant daughter too, in 1831 (George D. Lyman, John Marsh, Pioneer (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930), ch 23). John Marsh and Marguerite also had a six-year-old son, Charles, whom Marsh left, to be raised by his friends, the Pantiers, in Salem, Illinois, when he went out West after Marguerite's death. I have read that Othniel had adopted Indian ways. He became good friends with Sioux Indian chief Red Cloud after he advocated for the Sioux on Red Cloud's behalf in Wash. D.C.

This interesting National Park Service article says the name "brontotherium" coined by Othniel came from the Indians' association of "giants in the land" with thunder, "inspired by Lakota oral histories": "Brontothere: Large beasts of the Badlands," Nov. 10, 2020, https://www.nps.gov/articles/brontothere.htm.

There's also this article. https://www.strangescience.net/marsh.htm. The articles all say Othniel was "born poor." His dad Caleb was a farmer. His father may have been money-poor, but he owned land. The Marsh family could trace its ancestry back to 1633 when John Marsh of Salem, Massachusetts, arrived from England and married Susanna Skelton, daughter of the first minister of the first Christian church in Massachusetts (Lyman, 4-5).

I guess Twain is pointing out the problems in trying to accurately reconstruct a dinosaur from old bones, a good metaphor for all of us to keep in mind, I think.  Sorry, this has gotten off on a tangent.

[Light-of-Truth]

I am ever amazed by the holographic connections made on the B'Hive!

Brontobyte is a term based on Bacon's binary code.

https://www.techtarget.com/searchstorage/definition/brontobyte

A brontobyte is a measure of memory or data storage that is equal to 10 to the 27th power of bytes. There are approximately 1,024 yottabytes in a brontobyte. Approximately 1,024 brontobytes make up a geopbyte.

Brontobytes are sometimes represented by the symbol BB, but the prefix bronto- is not currently an official SI prefix that is recognized by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. In 2010, following a campaign on the campus of the University of California, Davis, an online petition was created to have hella- become the official SI prefix for 10²⁷. The suggested prefix originated from Southern California slang for "hell of a lot." The prefix was incorporated into the Google calculator in May 2010, but the campaign otherwise subsided.

There is nothing in existence currently measurable on the brontobyte scale, but internet of things and sensor data are the most common potential uses for brontobyte-level storage. The advent of technology like self-driving cars, which will generate enormous amounts of sensor data, could bring brontobytes as a unit into the storage media sphere.

 

Based on the 2010 campaign, Twain would maybe call himself a "Hellasaurian" today.

Either way, all I can say is "Yabba Dabba Do Now!"