impact of allusion in Bacon's essays

What is the impact of using different allusions in Bacon’s essays?

Allusion is a reference in a literary work to a person, place, or thing in history or another work of literature. Allusions are often indirect or brief references to well-known characters or events.

Allusions are often used to summarize broad, complex ideas or emotions in one quick, powerful image. For example, The essays of Bacon are full of illustrations, allusions, and quotations, some of these quotations being from Latin sources. These allusions and quotations show Bacon’s love of learning. The essay bear witness to Bacon’s learned mind in the extensive use of quotations and allusions drawn from various sources, classical fables, the Bible, History, the ancient Greek and the Roman writers.  Bacon employs allusions to and quotations in order to explain his point. These allusions are having a great impact to enrich his essays. So, Bacon shows mastery of the principles of prose by using allusions in his essays.  These allusions lend to his ideas greater weight and serve to make his point more strong and vivid.

In the essay, Of Truth, we have allusions to Pilate, Lucian. Lucretius, and Montaigne with quotations from the last two. He also gives us a quotation from the Bible in this essay. These allusions and quotations enrich this essay and make it more interesting. In the allusion to Pilate, the Jews accused Jesus Christ before the Roman Governor of Judea, for perverting the nation and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ, a king. The charge was false as Jesus said;

“My kingdom is not of this world, to this end was I born and for this cause came I unto the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice”

Pilate did not wait to be told that the truth was what Jesus spoke. Pilate looked upon Christ as a harmless lunatic or enthusiastic, and was anxious to release him, but was forced to sentence him to death by the cries of the infuriated Jewish mob. Actually, by using this allusion Bacon wants to emphasis the reality that certain people do not bother to find the truth and they sometimes hide it even they know and find great pleasure in changing their opinion frequently because they desire unlimited freedom to act and think which would not be possible if they had to believe in fixed principle. Bacon’s utterances through allusions are thoughtful, insightful, lively, witty and meaningful to the core that enrich the essay and cause his essays to be packed with astounding wit.

 In the essay, Of Marriage and Single Life, we have a reference to Ulysses and a quotation from Thales, an ancient Greek philosopher. Bacons elaborates in the essay that loving husband should be serious, conventional and loyal. So, he uses the allusion of Ulysses for the greater impact of this idea and to support his argument. Here, the allusion used by Bacon relates to Penelope, who is the wife of Ulysses, the King of Ithaca and the Greek hero in the Trojan War. She must have grown middle aged by the time Ulysses returned to her after 20 years, at the end of his wanderings and adventures. The allusion here is to the circumstances of Ulysses refusing to marry and live with the goddess Calypso, though she offered to make him immortal like. This allusion more clearly illustrates the topic to the reader that men of a serious bent of mind usually follow conventions and are steady in their love for their wives.

 The essay, Of Friendship, contains a large number of allusions which illustrate Bacon’s argument that even great men, who have strong and firm minds, need friends to whom they can open their hearts. There are a number of allusions to philosophers also in the same essay. In the essay Of Friendship, for example, the argument is set in motion by a quotation by Aristotle. This is followed by Bacon’s own comment upon it, which leads to a further elaboration of the meaning of solitude. Certain allusions are being used in the essay Of Friendship such as reference to Comineus, Pythagoras, Epimenides, Numa, Empedocles and Apollonius. In Of Friendship Bacon uses the allusions related to kings and princesses to give a great impact of the relation of friendship. Great men, kings and dictators formed friendship. Sylla, the dictator of Rome, made Pompey, his friend and placed confidence in him, though later on Pompey turned against him and brought about his fall.

Julius Caesar had Decimus Brutus as his friend though he was deceived by his man and was brought by him to his fall. Augustus, the Roman Emperor, made Agrippa, as his friend, though Agrippa played foul tricks on his friend and deceived him. In spite of these examples of defalcation of friends, it cannot be denied that the love for friendship has been felt by kings and princess, and in the absence of friends life has been intolerable. Bacon wants to give the importance of friendship through the examples from history to produce an immense impact on the readers.

In the Essay, Of Discourse, we have an allusion to Greek mythology, this reference is based on the story of Pheathon, he was the son of a Greek god Apollo, god of sun. Once his son insisted to drive his father’s chariot of sun. Apollo tried to stop his son but the young man insisted and Apollo allowed him to drive and as a result this unserious driver could not control the horses and they moved towards the earth and as sun came near the earth this resulted high temperature because of that many things caught fire so, Apollo pulled the chariot back. When Pheathon was about to ride Apollo gave him a piece of advice in Latin:

“spare boy the whip and tighter hold the reins.”

Bacon used a reference from Greek mythology to give an impact to the reader through the words of Apollo that people who pass sarcastic remarks are like whip, they make the listeners unhappy, aggressive and violent. One should not talk about the things which people do not want to listen.

In the Essay, Of Revenge, Bacon uses the allusions of Cosmus, Prophet Job (Ayub A.S) and Julius Caesar.

Bacon is giving another reference of his contemporary, he says that the Duke says God orders us to forgive our enemies but never orders us to forgive our friends. If your friends hurt you than you should definitely take revenge. Through the given reference Bacon emphasis on the importance of taking revenge.

In the essay, Of Great Place, there are allusions to Tacitus of Galba, Solomon and Vespasian.

In the essay, Of Superstition, there are allusions to:

• Plutarch; the Greek biographer who lived round about 85 A.D.
• Saturn; the other name is Cronos, father of Jupiter. It is said about him that he ate all his children before the birth of Jupiter.
• Augustus Caesar; he according to Bacon, encouraged Atheism.

Conclusion:

 Bacon uses allusions to make them fit the occasion. At times the allusions not only support the argument, but are themselves elucidated by the argument. Bacon thus employs allusions and quotations in order to explain his point. They serve to make an impact more scholarly and enrich it while lending weight to his ideas.