BACON AS A PROSE STYLIST

It has been observed by a critic that,

“The quality of strength in bacon’s style is intellectual rather than emotional”

Indeed the secret of Bacon’s strength lies in his conciseness. Hardly any writer, ancient or
modern, has succeeded in compressing so much meaning within so short a compass; several of
essays- e.g. “those on studies and negotiating”- are marvels of condensation. Perhaps the most
fascinating aspect of Bacon’s style is that no one can stay indifferent to it. In other words, as a
prose writer, he has either ardent admirers or passionate detractors. And, it is interesting to note
that both these extreme positions are occasioned by the very same properties of his style. Bacon
ushered in the modern era of writing English prose. F.G Selby says that,

“The part of Bacon’s influence is of course due to the charm of his style”

To be sure, there is a marked difference in the style of his earlier essays and that of his later
ones. But, the important fact is that the difference is one of approach and not one of technique.
In the beginning, Bacon thought the essay to be nothing more than a diary of “dispersed
meditations”. Therefore, the earlier essays are terse and pithy jottings of his observations on
domestic, political, intellectual, moral, religious and social issue. As a result, the discerning
reader can see that these essays are mere skeletons of thought grouped around a single theme.
“Of Studies” belongs to this category. In this essay, we see how Bacon has a quick, chatty way of
writing---almost as if he were talking to himself:

“Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them”

It must be noted that the same aphoristic character of the diction is to be found in his later
essays. The difference is that, with the passage of time, Bacon toned the rapier-sharp rhythm of
his sentences. This is because he perceived that his rapidly growing reading public was made up
of people having varying reading tastes and skills. Let us compare the rhythm of above quoted
lines with that of passage taken from ‘Of Adversity’, which is one of his later essays:

“We see in needle works and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon sad,
solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground”

The brilliant rhetoric is the same in both the passages. So it is the pithiness and the terse virgour.
Even Bacon’s predilection for juxtaposition of thesis and antithesis is seen in both instances. The
main difference is that the first passage is so constructed that Dean Church was moved to say
that the words”

“…come down like the stroke of hammer…”

On the contrary, the second passage flows harmoniously more like a melody than like a beat. In
his earlier days, Bacon achieved terseness in his style by leaving out superfluous epithets,
conjunctions and connectives. Later he aimed more towards crafting balanced sentences which
consisted of two parts. The first part would be a statement and second would be an explanatory
analogy. For example:

“He that hath wife and child hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great
enterprises either of virtue or mischief”

Bacon’s sentences are more modern in their structure than those of other Elizabethans prose
writers- being more pointed and less involved. Even his more intricate sentences are so carefully
constructed and so free from inversions that meaning is not difficult to catch. The essays, in
particular, are remarkable for balance and point as might naturally be expected from their
aphoristic style. This is really strange when we consider the fact that he also wrote sentences like
this:

“A lie faces God and shrinks from man”

Or this

“The ways to enrich are many, and most of them foul”

It is true that his cavalier attitude towards grammar is clearly visible in the second sentence. But,
most people would agree that they have no problem in understanding what the writer has to
say. It must be borne in mind that in Bacon’s age, little attention was given to the logical division
of a subject into paragraphs. One of the most pleasurable aspects in Bacon’s style is his use of
imagery and analogy. Consider his denunciation of pride in ‘Of Vainglory’:

“The fly sat upon the axle-tree of the chariot wheel said,

What a dust do I raise?”

The above discussion makes it clear that Bacon did not have two styles of writing. Rather, it can
be said that it was the same style which he applied in different ways as and when the situation
demanded. Certainly, this is only one of reasons why his admirers claim to be one of the greatest
prose stylists in English Language.

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Francis Bacon: A Moralist

Bacon is not a true moralist. His morality is a saleable morality. He is a moralist-cum-
worldly wise man. Bacon appears as a moralist in his essays, for he preaches high moral
principles and lays down valuable guidelines for human conduct. Some of his essays
show him as a true lover and preacher of high ethical codes and conducts. For instance,
in “Of Envy”, he puts:

“A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever envieth virtue in others.”

Then, in his essay “Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature” he says:

“But in charity there is no excess; neither can angel or man come in danger by it.”

Again, he appears to be a lover of justice in his essay “Of Judicature”:

“The principal duty of a judge is to suppress force and fraud.”

In spite of all given examples, one cannot deny the fact that Bacon was a “Man of
Renaissance”. He had a deep insight in human nature. He knew that man is naturally
more prone to evil than good. He was a clear-eyed realist who saw the weakness in
human nature and drawbacks of human conduct and also knew that man is not capable
of acting according to noble set of ‘ideals’. Though Bacon’s morality was greater than
that of average man’s, yet it was not of the highest order. The matter of good and right
was important for him but not if it proved too costly in worldly terms. On one hand, he
preached high moral principles and on the other hand, he also expressed a mean
capacity by compromising upon those morals for the sake of worldly success. For this
reason, William Blake, a spiritual poet says about his essays:

“Good advice for Satan’s Kingdom.”

Blake considers any utilitarian advice contrary to God’s ways, but Bacon does not bother
for that. He considers this world more important and striving after the success in this
world is equally important. Bacon discusses man as he “appears” and not as he “ought
to appear”.

In his essay “Of Great Places” Bacon certainly shows a high morality when he condemns
or at least dislikes the practice of ‘wrongs’ on part of high officials.

[CENTER]“In place there is license to do good and evil; where of the latter is a
curse.”[/CENTER]

Afterwards he appreciates the power of doing good.

“But power to do good, is true and lawful end of aspiring.”

But besides these moral approaches, he also supports the idea of adopting certain
disloyal means to reach a high position.

“It is good to side a man’s self whilst he is in the rising and to balance himself when he is
placed”.

Thus, like a moralist, Bacon preaches the noble dimensions of great place, but with this
statement his purely utilitarian approach also comes forth with all its power.

In the essay “Of Truth” he appears to be a ‘genuine’ admirer of truth and seems to install
the love of truth in his readers.

“It is heaven upon earth, to have man’s mind move in charity, rest in providence and
turn upon the poles of truth.”

But he also points out that

“Falsehood is like an ‘alloy’ in gold and silver, which makes the metal work better even
though it reduces, the value of the metal”.

He says:

“A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.”

By putting this he has diluted all the effect of his own words said in the praise of the
truth.

One can find the same strange mixture of high ethics and utilitarianism in the essay “Of
Revenge”. In this essay Bacon condemns revenge by saying:

“Revenge is a kind of wild justice.”

And

“One who studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green.”

He expressed that there is no place of revenge in high society and it is a high quality to
forgive an enemy. Hereafter, Bacon spoils the effects by putting that in some cases man
is justified in taking revenge, if the avenger can save his skin from the eyes of the law. He
says:

“But then let a man take heed the revenge be such as there is now law to punish; else a
man’s enemy is still forehand”.
In his essay “Of Suitors” Bacon says that a man should refuse to undertake a suit if it is
by giving a false hope to the petitioner and that one should not demand undue reward
for his services. Those who employ crooked methods to win suits are the worst
offenders of society. But he also says that if a patron wants to favour the undeserving
party, he should bring both the parties to a compromise for this would be less dangerous
for him. So, to Bacon, morality and ethical codes seem inferior to worldly considerations.

“Of Simulation and Dissimilation” is another example of the strange mixture of morality
and prudence.

“The best position and temperature is; to have openness in fame and opinion; secrecy in
habits; dissimulation in seasonal use; and power to feign, if there be no remedy.”

Bacon’s morality has also been described as a cynical kind of wisdom. This impression is
confirmed by even those essays which deal with strong private relations between men.
“Of Friendship”, “Of Parents and Children”, “Of Marriage and Single life” and “Of Love”,
all depict a certain kind of utilitarianism and worldly benefit. Here Bacon expresses a
definite failure of emotions, for he takes the pure matters of heart in terms of their uses
and abuses.

In short, though Bacon’s essays portray morality and high ethical standards, yet he does
not appear as an ideal moralist and these are but the “flashes of morality”. He is not a
true moralist.

----------------------------

Francis Bacon: Worldly Wisdom

Bacon was, definitely, a worldly wise man. He was the wisest and the meanest of
mankind. He was truly of Renaissance; the age of accumulating knowledge, wealth and
power. Being a true follower of Machiavellian principles, he led his life for worldly
success. He was a man of shrewd and sagacious intellect with his eyes fixed on the main
chance. And what he preached in his essays was also the knowledge, needed for worldly
success.

There is no doubt that Bacon’s essays are a treasure house of worldly wisdom. The term
worldly wisdom means a wisdom which is necessary for worldly success. It does not
need any deep philosophy or any ideal morality. But Bacon was a man of high wisdom,
as he himself pronounced, “I have taken all knowledge to be my province”. Bacon also
preached morality but his morality is subordinate to worldly success and he never
hesitated to sacrifice it for worldly benefit. His essays are rich with the art which a man
should employ for achieving success in his life, such as shrewdness, sagacity, tact,
foresight, judgment of character and so on.

The subject of Bacon in his essays is the man who needs prosperity in worldly terms.
Bacon’s essays bring men to ‘come home to men’s business and bosoms’. He teaches
them, how to exercise one’s authority and much more. When he condemns cunning, it is
not because of a hateful and vile thing, but because it is unwise. That is why the wisdom
in his essay is considered a ‘cynical’ kind of wisdom. He describes his essays as ‘Counsels
– civil and moral’.

In his essay “Of Truth”, Bacon appreciates truth and wishes people to speak the truth. He
says:

“A lie faces God and shrinks from man.”

He warns human beings against the punishment for the liar on the doomsday. But at the
same time, he considers a lie as an ‘alloy’ which increases the strength of gold and feels
it necessary for the survival on earth. He says:

“A lie doth ever add pleasure.”

---this is purely a statement of a “worldly wise man”.

The essay “Of Great Places” though contains a large number of moral precepts yet in this
very same essay he also preaches worldly success.

“It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty; By pains men come to greater
pains”.

And

“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.”

Then Bacon suggests that men in authority should work not only for the betterment of
public but also for their own status:

“All rising to great place is by a winding stair; and if there be factions, it is good to side a
man’s self whilst he is rising and to behave himself when he is placed.”

It is purely a utilitarian advice and it surely holds a compromise between morality and
worldly success. Even when Bacon urges a man not to speak ill of his predecessor, it is
not because of high morality but because of the fact that the man who does not follow
advice would suffer with unpleasant consequences.

Bacon’s approach towards studies is also purely utilitarian. In his essay “Of Studies”, he
does not emphasize on study for its own sake, but for the benefit which it can provide to
man to be supplemented by practical experience.

“Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man and writing an exact man.”

And then he says:

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and
digested.”

Bacon also points out the effects of different branches of studies on a man’s mind and
thinks it helpful in the cure of different mental ailments and follies.

His essay “Of Suitors” totally reveals Bacon’s shrewd insight. Although he suggests that a
suitor should not be disloyal towards his petition and should tell him the truth about the
chances of winning the suit without leaving him wandering in false hopes. Bacon
suggests that a patron should not charge extensive amounts for a small case. But then
he dilutes all this by saying if the patron wants to support the non-deserving party, he
should make a compromise between both of them, so that the deserving party would
bear not great loss. This is a purely utilitarian approach and it shows what Bacon himself
had been in his career, for it was his own profession.

In the essay “Of Revenge” Bacon shows a certain high morality by saying that:

“Revenge is a kind of wild justice; One who studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds
green.”
He feels dignity in forgiving ones enemy. But then he says that even revenge is just in the
cases when one can save one’s skin from the hands of law.

Bacon showed a certain incapacity for emotions. He took the relation of friendship for its
benefit and made a purely worldly approach to the subject which intimately deals
between two persons. He gave us the uses and abused of friendship. He says:

“Those that want friends to open themselves unto, are cannibals of their own hearts.”

This essay clearly shows Bacon’s cynical wisdom and that his morality is stuffed with
purely utilitarian considerations.

Bacon considers love as a ‘child of folly’. In his essay “Of Love” he says:

“It is impossible to love and to be wise.”

He considers wife and children as hindrance in the way of success and progress. He says:

“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune.”

Afterwards in his essay “Of Marriage and Single Life” he tells the ‘benefits’ of a wife.

“Wives are young men’s mistresses, companion to middle age and old man’s nurse.”

In his essay “Of Parents and Children” Bacon puts:

“Children sweeten labour, but they make misfortune more bitter.”

All these statements show his essentially mean and benefit seeking attitude, even in the
matters of heart. In short, Bacon’s essays are a “hand book” of practical wisdom
enriched with maxims which are very helpful for worldly wisdom and success.

---------------------------

Francis Bacon: Wisest, Brightest, Meanest

“If parts allure these think how Bacon shin’d

The wisest, brightest and meanest of mankind.”

Bacon was the wisest because of his worldly wisdom, he was brightest owing to his
powerful intellect and the art of writing terse essays, and he was meanest due to his
treacherous character.

The above mentioned remark on Bacon was made by a renowned and marvelous poet,
“Alexander Pope”. If we observe critically, this statement holds its validity. For Bacon
appeared to be a true child of Renaissance. Undoubtedly he was a man of wisdom and
powerful intellect. But all at once he was a calculating character, keeping an eye on the
main chance. He was a true follower of Machiavelli. He failed to harmonize his mixed
motives, complex principles and high aims together. He wanted to strive after the
selfless scientific truth but he was conscious that nothing could be done without money
and power. So, he strived after material success. Bacon belonged to the age of glory and
greatness, surprising meanness and dishonest conduct and he could not avoid these
evils.

Bacon was a man of multi-talents. His wisdom was undeniable. The thirst for infinite
knowledge and his versatility was truly astonishing. He possessed an intellect of the
highest order. He was learned in Greek, French, Latin, English, Science, Philosophy,
Classics and many other fields of knowledge. He is regarded as the creator of the
modern school of experimental research. He held that “man is the servant and
interpreter of nature”. He supplied the impulse which broke with the medieval
preconceptions and set scientific inquiry on modern lines. He emphasized on
experimentation and not to accept things for granted. Bacon was indeed an eloquent
prophet of new era and the pioneer of modern sciences.

The essays of Bacon also portray his intellect and practical wisdom. The varied range of
subjects too expresses that ‘he had taken all knowledge to be his province’. Bacon could
utter weighty and pregnant remarks on almost any subject, from “Greatness of
Kingdoms” to “Gardens”. The essays are loaded with the ripest wisdom of experience
and observation conveyed through short, compact and terse sentences. One cannot
deny the sagacity and shrewdness of his counsels. Bacon’s essays deal with man. He is an
able analyst of human nature, and his conduct in public and private affairs. His
comments regarding man’s behaviour may at times sound cynical but they are
undeniable truths. He says:

“A mixture of a lie doth even add pleasure.”

Bacon is true here for most of the people would find life terrible without false hopes and
false impressions. His views about friendship, though lacks in feelings and emotions, yet
these are undeniably true to human nature.

Following are a few examples of his wisdom.

“One who studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green”.

And

“Men in great places are thrice servants”.

So, like a very wise man he coin ideas and teaches them to make people wise in worldly
terms.
Bacons brightness is best illustrated in the way in which he clothes his wisdom into
brevity and lends the readers a great pleasure. The compactness of thought and
conciseness of expression was a virtue in an age when looseness in thought and
language was the rule. The essays are enriched with maxims and proverbs. He supports
his ideas and arguments with innumerable quotations, allusions and analogies which
prove his wide knowledge and learning. The aptness of the similes, the witty turn of
phrases and the compact expression of weighty thoughts are evidence enough of the
brightness of his intellect.

§ “Suspicions among thoughts are like bats among birds.”

§ “Money is like much, except it be spread.”

§ “Virtue is like precious adours --- most fragrant, when they are incensed or
crushed.”

Moreover, the precise and authentic turn of sentences and the condensation of
thoughts in them have been enhanced by the antithetical presentation. Such as:

“A lie faces God and shrinks from man.”

“The ways to enrich are many and most of them are foul.”

“It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty.”

“Through indignation, men rise to dignity.”

Thus with the tool of antithesis, Bacon made his argument many times stronger and
influential than a simple sentence. He created so much wit and strength in such precise
writings that they are still valid and famous. No man individually did provide such
strength and simplicity to the English language than Bacon. Bacon tried to reach the
reader’s mind by a series of aphoristic attacks. Therefore he is considered as the pioneer
of modern prose. There is hardly any equal of him for clear, terse and compact writing.

Now, it appears to be an irony of nature that a man with such a tremendous intellect and
wisdom had such a mean character. Bacon was not mean in the sense of being a miser.
He was indeed reputed to be a very generous. The manner in which Bacon betrayed his
friends, especially Essex, proved him most ungrateful and ignoble man. He made
friendship and uprightness subordinate to his success. He always kept his eye on the
main chance, worshipping the rising sun and avoiding of the setting one.

His marriage was also a marriage of convenience. He did not hesitate to take part in
political intrigues in order to promote his ambition. His letter to the king and queen
were also full of flattery that it was hard to believe that they came from the pen of such
an intellectual man.

Though he was wise yet he showed certain incapacity of emotions and this trait can also
be witnessed in his essays. He took the purely personal and domestic matters of a man –
like marriage, friendship, love etc in terms of pure utility. Such as:

“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune.”

And

“Those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own heart.”

In short, Bacon was a man of the world – worldly wisdom and worldly convenience. He
had a “great brain” but not a “great soul”. His complex and contradictory characters will
continue to be a psychological enigma for the readers to understand. So, he was
definitely the wisest, brightest and meanest of mankind.

--------------------------------------

Introduction to Bacon Essays

About Bacon and his Essays

1. Bacon (afterwards Viscount St. Albans), the son of Nicholas Bacon was born in 1561
and died in 1626.

2. The first edition of the Essays (ten included); the second edition (forty included)
appeared in 1625. Tennyson said, “ There is more wisdom compressed into small volume
than into any other book of the same size that I know” Many of the essays are made up
of extracts, complied from commonplace books and his other published works, and
woven together into a new whole.

3. There are three divisions of Bacon’s works: Philosophical as The Advancement of

Learning, Literary as The Essays and Professionals as Maxims of Law.

4. Bacon made no scientific discovery as Newton and Harvey made, but he laid the
solid foundation of Science because he was the first man to point out the importance of
experiment in the study of knowledge.

5. The great influence on Bacon is Bacon himself, his own keen observation of life and
manners. He set forth to propound a doctrine of human conduct – a theoretical scheme
in which the man of active virtue should not be baffled by the vices of others, but use
their vices for his own advantage and the advantage of the state. In opposition of
Aristotle who proffered the life of contemplation, Bacon cries up the life of action. Dr.
Johnson defined an Essay as “a loose sally of the mind, an irregular undigested piece, not
a regular and orderly composition.” The essay as a distinct literary form was born in 16th
century with the publication of Frenchman, Montaigne’s Essays. Bacon borrowed the
form from him, but suited it to his own purpose.

A brief introduction to Bacon’s Essays

1. Of Great Place:

— The rising onto place is laborious and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is
sometimes base and by indignities men come to dignities.
 — Death falls heavy upon him who dies too well known to others, but unknown to
himself.

— It is a strange desire to seek power and lose liberty; or to seek power over others
and to lose power over a man’s self.

— Men in great place are thrive servants: servants of the sovereign or state; servants
of fame and servants of business.

Summary: Men are servants of the state, their desires for fame and time restriction.
Man should follow the good examples set in the past. There are faults of men in great
place such as delays, corruption etc. We should refuse bribes. One may while rising to a
position use crooked methods and join sides but after reaching a position, one should
become neutral.

2. Of Friendship:

— Whoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

— For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures.

— A great city is a great solitude.

Summary: Aristotle’s remarks that who so likes solitude is either is a best or an angle is
according to Bacon half true. Friendship helps disburden heart. If frustration is kept in
heart, it causes depression and tension for man. Friendship brings better understanding.
A man with a friend has two lives. He can do many things for him and when he dies, he
can fulfill his desires etc. A friend can advise and even praise and flatter us. Friendship
increases joys and lessens the intensity of grief. Man may feel lonely in a crowd in the
absence of love.

3. Of Studies:

— Studies serve delight, for ornament and for ability.

— To spend too much time in studies is sloth, to use it too much for ornament is
affectation.

— Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them and wise men use them.

— Read not to contradict and confute, nor to — believe and take for granted, nor to
find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others
to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested.
 — Reading makes a full man, conference a ready man and writing an exact man.

— Distilled books are like common distilled water flashy things.

Summary: Studies are a source of delight in one’s leisure and solitude. Studies help
people develop abilities. It is a sign of laziness to spend too much time on studies. We
should study important books and find mere summary of unimportant ones. Books are
good companions. Deferent genres and subjects enlighten our mind differently.

4. Of Parents and Children:

— The joys of parents are secret; and so are their griefs and fears.

— Children increase the cares of life; but they mitigate the remembrance of death.

— Children sweeten labor, but they make misfortune more bitter.

Summary: Children get benefit because of their parents. Parents usually have unequal
favoritism towards their children. They should give enough pocket money. They should
choose a suitable profession for their child.

5. Of Ambition:

— Ambition is like Choler which is a humor that makes men active and earnest.

Summary: Ambition makes man active but if it is checked it can also be dangerous.
Ambitious people are highly required fro the war. If ambition is allowed without control,
it can be harmful for the king and the government. Ambitious people can also be used
by the king as instruments.

6. Of Truth:

— What is Truth? said jesting Pilate and would not stay for an answer.

— But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open day-light, that doth not
shew the masks and mummeries and triumphs of the world, half so stately and
daintily as candle- lights.

— A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.

— It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore and to see ships tost upon the sea, a
pleasure to stand in the window of a castle and to see a battle and the adventures
thereof below. But no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground
of the Truth.

— A lie faces God; but shrinks from man.

— But it is not the lie that passes through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and
settleth in it that doth the hurt.

Summary: Pilate the Roman emperor was very casual about the truth at Christ’s trial and
did not bother to find it out. Certain people have great delight in changing their
opinions. Human mind is basically attracted to lies, so it dislikes truth. The value of truth
is realized only by those who have experienced and understood it. Truth is important in
not only in philosophical and theological fields, but also in day to day life. Montaign has
rightly said that a man who tells lies is afraid of his fellow men but is unafraid of defying
God who is all perceiving.

7. Of Revenge:

— Revenge is a kind of wild justice.

— It is the glory of man to pass by an offense. That which is past is gone and
irrevocable: wise men have enough to do with things present and to come: therefore
they do but trifle with themselves, that labor in past matters.

— A man that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would
heal.

Summary: Revenge is uncivilized and can only be found among the brutes. Forgiving an
enemy is supreme moral superiority. Man should be forwarding looking and forget the
past to brood over the present and the future. Man does wrong to others out of his
selfish love for himself. In taking revenge, it is generous to reveal his identity to the
victim, because the pleasure of revenge lies not so much in causing pain than in making
the enemy realize and repent of his mistake.

8. Of Simulation and Dissimulation:

— Tell a lie and find a troth.

Summary: The practice of dissimulation is followed by the weak man, for the strong
minds and hearts have the power to tell the truth. The man of secret nature never gives
a hint of what is in his heart. The advantage of simulation and dissimulation is that they
keep the opposition guessing and unprepared and so to be easily surprised at the proper
moment. They also help us discover the intentions of the other. The disadvantage is that
they indicate a weakness of the disposition and one who uses these methods is
considered unreliable.

9. Of Death:

— Revenge triumphs over death.

— It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant perhaps, the one is as

painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is wounded in hot
blood.

Summary: Death is a natural phenomenon. Violent passions enable a man to overcome

death. Revenge, love, honor, grief and fear make him bold enough to meet death. A
noble cause makes a man insensible to pain and torture.

10. Of Adversity:

— It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of man and the security of a God.

Summary: One may wish prosperity and all the good things it brings with it; but one
should admire adversity and all the good things that belong to it. It is true greatness to
be weak and yet to be careless and indifferent like a God. The pleasure of the heart is
better than the pleasure of the eye. Prosperity can discover vice; adversity discovers
virtue.

11. Of Nobility:

— Nobility attempts sovereignty.

Summary: In a democracy, there is no need of nobility and people are commonly quieter
and do not like rebellion, when there is no nobility. Numerous nobility causes poverty
and inconvenience in a state.

12. Of Superstition:

— It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such an opinion as is

unworthy of him.

— The master of superstition is the people and in all superstition wise men follow
the fools.

Summary: Superstition or a false notion of God is highly insulting and irreligious.

Atheism is better than superstition because an atheist uses his sense and reason, has
respect for natural piety and laws and cares for reputation. Atheism doesn’t cause
disturbances in the states, but superstition disregards our moral values and desires men
to follow its dictates blindly. The causes of superstition are certain festivals and rituals
which appear charming and to the senses.

Examples from Other Essays:

a. Money is like muck, not good if not spread (of Seditions and troubles)

b. The ways to enrich are many, and most of them foul (of Riches)

c. Wives are young men’s mistresses, companions for middle-age and old men’s
nurses. (Of marriage and single life)

d. He that hath wife and children, hath given hostages to fortune (Of Marriage
and Single Life)

e. Travel in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of

experience. (Of Travel)

f. Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth
and embaseth it.

g. Unmarried men are the best friends, best masters, best servants, but not
always the best subjects. (advantages and disadvantages of unmarried men)

h. Secrecy in suits is a great mean of obtaining. (Of Suitors)

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Bacon’s Essays – a blend of philosophizing, moralizing and worldly wisdom

Introduction: “I have taken all knowledge for my province” says Bacon and “Beyond any
other book of the same size in any literature they are loaded with ripest wisdom of
experience.” Says Hudson regarding Bacon’s essays. No body can deny the wisdom of
Bacon of his understanding of the affairs of the world.

He shows an extraordinary insight regarding the problems that men face in life. But his
wisdom is only practical and not moral. Alexander Pope has given the following remarks
about Bacon in his epic:
If parts allure these think how Bacon shin’d

The wisest, brightest and meanest of mankind

There is some basic truth in this contention. One cannot deny his wisdom, his
observation, intellect and genius. Bacon was a very complex and enigmatic character.
The dichotomy of moral values what one finds in his essays was to be found in his
character, too. Compton-Rickett says, “He had a great brain, not a great soul.” He
wanted to serve humanity with through the expansion of usable knowledge. He was
aware that no headway could be made in this world without adopting certain mean
ways. He was a product of the Renaissance with composite qualities such as wisdom,
meanness and brightness. Bacon was a man of the Renaissance and that was
an age which tried to explore to the full, the opportunities of mind and body afforded
to man. The term, Renaissance means Re-birth or more generally the Revival of
Learning. It was a series of events by which Europe passed from Medieval to a
Modern Civilization. In this age, there was a new spirit of inquiry, of criticism and
of passionate scientific inventions. Literature of that age was chiefly marked by this
spirit and Bacon’s essays have several features that show the spirit of
Renaissance. A very important writer of the Italian Renaissance was Machiavelli
whose opportunistic philosophy sacrificed high ethical ideals in the interest of
achieving material progress. Man is an individual and an end in himself and
this sense of individualism gave rise to the feeling that he must know how to get on in
this world. The revival of classical learning and the study of ancient Greek and Roman
Literature and history was a hallmark of the Renaissance. The spirit of learning
is very much in the essays of Bacon. There are many allusions to ancient history and
the references to classical mythology are all evidence of the typical Renaissance
culture. Latin writers such as Seneca and Virgil and Lucian have frequently been
drawn. His love of learning is portrayed in his essay Of Studies and he
substantiates his arguments in his essay, Of Friendship with instances from history. Blake
on reading the essays of Bacon is supposed to have remarked that they were good
advice for Satan’s Kingdom. Now, a Satan’s Kingdom naturally implies a state of affairs
in which morality has no place or in which actions are governed by a complete
lack of principles. To some extent, it is indeed undeniable that Bacon’s advice
incorporates a certain cool disregard for high moral ideals. The actual fact is that in
Bacon’s essays, one find dichotomy of values, the essays present a strange complexity
and contradiction of wisdom and values. In order to understand the real
meaning of his essays, it is imperative to understand the underlying purpose of
his writing. Man was the subject of most literature and man is the
subject of Bacon’s essays too. Thus the wisdom that Bacon shows in his
essays is regulated by the practical consideration. It is frankly utilitarian. This does
not mean that the essays don’t contain ethical or philosophical values, they do, but
the overall hallmark of his essays is practical use.

Wisdom, Meanness and Brightness: To a religious-minded man like Blake, advice such as
what Bacon offers in his essays must indeed have been shocking. Blake would regard any
utilitarian advice as opposite to God’s ways, but Bacon was not so particular, for he a
man of the Renaissance. It is easy to assume that Bacon’s wisdom was cynical because
many of his advice calmly ignores ethical standards and seems to imply that nothing
succeeds like success. Bacon is utilitarian, but he is so because he realized that the vast
majority of the people in the world are guided by this attitude and success for them has
only one meaning – the material success. His essays reflect the profound wisdom of his
mind, his brightness is ascertained by his vast knowledge and literary and classical
allusions made in his works, his meanness does not deal with his money. He was reputed
to be a very generous man. He was mean because he showed a surprising lack of
principle in promoting his selfish interests.

Philosopher – cum – moralist: At least two of his essays present him as entertaining
deep regard for high sentiments and the sanctity of truth. Of Truth speaks of truth, love
and fair dealings in high terms. Here he is a philosopher who advocates the pursuit of
truth. He is also a moralist when he says that “man’s mind should turn upon the “poles
of truth.” Falsehood debases man despite his material gains and success. Bacon
advocates man to follow a path of truth and truthfulness. Similarly, his essay Of
Goodness and Goodness of Nature is on a purely moral plane. He counsels goodness,
charity and benevolence and there is a clear condemnation of evil. There are some
essays in which he puts a number of moral precepts, not ignoring prudential aspects.
When we come to Bacon’s essays dealing with subjects such as love, marriage, family life
and parents and children, we are struck by the cold and unemotional treatment of topics
what could easily admit an emotional approach. Prudence governs marriage, love and
friendship. Love is an emotion, not fit for life according to Bacon. As a philosopher, he
takes a balanced view of every thing, weighs the pros and cons of every issue, presents
different aspects of the picture and counsels moderation. This is a rationalist’s approach
and it preludes emotion and feeling. The essays are a handbook of practical wisdom.
Each essay is a collection of suggestion and guideline for a man of action. His essays lack
coherence and logical sequence, otherwise a quality in a standard essay. But his essays
are unity of ideas.

Conclusion: But it has to be pointed out that Bacon is not a moral idealist. He does not
preach morality, but not ideal morality. The kind of morality he teaches is tinged with
what is called worldliness. We might even say that the guiding principle is expediency.
Yet one cannot say that Bacon is amoral or immoral in his advice. In every issue, he
balances the advantage and disadvantage. Even within the utilitarian code, there is a
code of conduct – a morality that is perhaps as high as is easily practicable in the world
as we know it. His essays embody the wisdom and philosophy and morality of a clear-
eyed realist who knows quite well that men should be and but also knew what they
actually were. Bacon is undoubtedly a man whose morality is greater than the average
man’s, but it is not of the highest order. The pursuit of good and right are important but
not if it proves too costly in worldly terms. His advice is neither for Satan’s Kingdom nor
for God’s, but for the Kingdom of man.

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Aphoristic style of Bacon

Introduction: Bacon’s fame as a writer depends most of all on the fact that he is the
father of modern English prose. He evolved a prose style that proved for the first time
that English could also be used to express the subtleties of thought, in clear and
uninvolved sentences.

The critics have noticed that there is a marked difference between Bacon’s earlier and
later essays. Macaulay, contrasting extracts from of Studies (1597) and Of Adversity
(1625) illustrates what he calls the two styles of Bacon.

It is true that there is a vast difference between the styles of Bacon. But it is rather
questionable whether this difference could be attributed to the fact that Bacon had
gained a maturity of mind and intellect. Bacon wrote in more than one style. The stately
movement of The Advancement of Learning and Of Adversity has been achieved in 1605
itself. Does that mean that Bacon had achieved maturity of mind and imagination in
eight years? This is not convincing. The explanation lies in the fact that Bacon’s very
conception of the essay underwent a change. Bacon described his essays as “Dispersed
Meditations”. The first collection of essays is fully illustrative of Bacon’s definition of the
essay as dispersed meditations set down significantly rather than curiously. The original
idea was to make the essays into a sort of diary in which significant observations on
various topics of practical importance. His essays were jotted down in a terse and pithy
and concise language. His first essays were a mere skeleton of thought, grouped around
central themes with suitable titles. There was no attempt polishing the style or clothing
the statements with literary beauty or imaginative grace. When, however, Bacon saw
that his essays had gained an unexpected popularity, he thought that it was worth while
polishing them and making them richer. These essays are very brief in length. The ideas
have not been developed. The sentences are all crisp, short and sententious. Each
sentence stands by itself. There is so much of condensation that each sentence can
easily be expanded into a paragraph. That is to say that one single sentence does the job
of a paragraph.

Essays not quite dispersed meditations: It would, however, be a mistake to call all the
essays of Bacon “Dispersed Meditations”. There are some which have received at his
hand, a rather detailed treatment and which cannot be termed as “Sketchy”. In these
essays, Bacon finds room for conjunctions and connective clauses. Ideas are not left
underdeveloped and transitions from one thought to another are not so abrupt. In Of
Friendship, there is a logical approach in the enumeration of the principle fruits of
friendship. Each advantage is properly handled and ideas are developed smoothly. There
is not that abrupt transition of thought that characterized some of Bacon’s other essays.
Of Empire can be said to contain almost exhaustive treatment of the dangers that beset
a king in those days. In Of Seditions and Troubles, there is a quite closely reasoned and
connected account of the causes and remedies of discontentment and agitation that
may fester and burst out into trouble for the country. Aphoristic sentences are found in
these essays too, but attention has been given to other factors as well.

Aphoristic style of Bacon: An aphoristic style means a compact, condensed and

epigrammatic style of writing. Bacon’s writing has been admired for various reasons.
Some have admired them for dazzling rhetoric, others his grace. In Bacon we find a style
which is distinct and at the same time characteristic of his age. His style includes various
qualities. Firstly, he remains the best aphoristic, so he stands the most quotable writer.
There is terseness of expression and epigrammatic brevity, in the essays of Bacon. His
sentences are brief and rapid, but they are also forceful. As Dean Church says, “They
come down like the strokes of a hammer.” The force of aphoristic style depends on other
stylistic qualities which supplement it. He weighs the pros and cons of a statement and
immediately counter-balances it. (Give examples from the above the extracts).

A Rhetorician: Bacon’s style is definitely rhetorical. In this connection, Saintsbury has

remarked that no one, “knows better than ---- (Bacon) how to leave a single word to
produce all its effects by using it in some slightly uncommon sense. He has great powers
of attracting and persuading his readers even though he may not convince them. In
prose rhetoric, in the use, that is to say, of language to dazzle and persuade, not to
convince. He has few rivals and no superiors in English.” There is a constant use of
imagery and analogy in Bacon’s essays. The apt and extensive use of metaphors,
images, similitudes and analogies is in keeping with the view of the rhetoricians of the
ancient as well as of the Renaissance. Bacon draws his imagery from the familiar objects
o nature, or from the facts of every day life.

His Allusions and Quotations: 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. Of Truth includes Pilate,
Lucian and Montaigne, In Of Great Place; we have Tacitus, Galba and Vespacian, and Of
Friendship includes reference to Aristotle. Thus Bacon employs allusions to and
quotations in order to explain his point. They serve to make his style more scholarly and
enrich it while lending to his ideas. Though, his style is heavy with learning, yet it is more
flexible than any of his predecessors and contemporaries. His sentences are short and
with this shortness comes lucidity of expression. Thus he shows mastery of the
principles of prose. There almost no humor in Bacon’s essays, but his essays are packed
with astounding wit.

Conclusion: The style of Bacon is not the personal and chatty style of the subjective
essayist like Montaigne and Lamb. It is dignified and aphoristic style. He was indeed a
consummate artist who polished and chiseled his expressions and who could change his
style to suit to his subject.

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Sunday, December 19, 2010

Bacon as an essayist

What is an essay? The literary essay is indefinable as a spring day in the wood, but it
does suggest some qualities of an essay like the day itself. The root meaning of the term,
essay is an attempt or trial. Dr. Johnson defined an essay as “a loose sally of the mind, an
irregular undigested piece, not a regular and orderly composition.” The emphasis is on
the informality of tone and the fact that an essay in not an exhaustive, argumentative
disquisition on a theme. The essay could be objective as well as subjective. In subjective
essays, the object is not important, any subject will do.

It is the writer’s personality which lends charm to this type of essay. J.J. Lobbans’s
definition of the essay as, “a short discursive article on any literary, philosophical or
social subject, viewed from a personal or historical standpoint” includes all types of
essays.

Montaigne and Bacon: The essay as a distinct form was born in the 16th century with
French writer, Montaigne’s Essays. He frankly confessed that his essays were about
himself, in the sense that they portray him in a number of moods and habits. Bacon
borrowed this form from Montaigne but suited it to his own purpose. Bacon lived in a
time and country where life was both serious and vigorous and he is occupied with
serious matters. One can say that these essays show his egotism in the sense that they
show his ideas and thoughts based on his own experience. But in Bacon’s essays we
don’t find the chatty quality found in Montaigne’s or Charles Lamb’s essays. Emerson is
the one modern writer with whom Bacon may be fairly compared, for their method is
much the same. But Hugh Walter rightly says, “With Bacon we enter the world of stark
realities, rational and grave, having no place for lively humor or conversational ease. But
this doesn’t detract us from his greatness as an essayist. To him goes the credit of being
the first of English essayists, as he remains, for sheer mass and weight of genius, the
greatest”

The form and subject of Bacon’s purpose: Bacon’s essays come home to men’s business
and bosoms. Bacon’s essays group themselves round three great principles: (a) Man in
relation to the world and society (b) Man in relation to himself and (c) Man in relation to
his Maker. In all of these categories of his essays he has given variety. Man is the subject
of Bacon’s essays. This human interest is one reason why his essays are popular and
have universal appeal because human beings are most interested in themselves. For
Bacon’s purpose, only this form was the most suitable. He developed this genre with his
essayistic qualities. The subject of his essays is varied and bears a wide range. He writes
on a variety of themes such as family life, politics, marriage, friendship, studies, ambition
and many others. Bacon thus proved the capacity of the essay form to be all-inclusive.
Later essayists too proved it so we have political, historical and biographical essays.
Bacon’s intent in writing essays was a serious one. He intended them to be “Counsels
Civil and Moral”. They were not written for amusements or leisure time. They do not
have the personal element that make Lamb’s essays too charming. In this differs from
Montaigne too. Bacon gives opinions and never speaks of himself. He speaks like a
statesman or a moralist, not like a street boy. Bacon is concerned in most of his essays
with ethical qualities of men and with political matters and thought it clear that he
admires moral and intellectual truth, he is practical and rather opportunistic in the
advice he offers. He doesn’t expect his reader to aspire to a high standard of morality; he
simply approaches to him with practical and worldly didacticism. His essays have
historical significance, too, for they were written for a particular group of men to offer
them guidance that they must rise in the world and do good to the state. His essays are
brief as any essay should be. He is not lightly dealing with important topics. He deals
with all essay topics seriously even if they are unimportant. As he writes about gardens,
but authoritatively and in a dignified manner, not humorously and subjectively like Lamb
or Montaigne. A man who wants to achieve worldly and material success and popularity
could easily find very useful principle here in Bacon’s essays. The reader’s interest is held
by the historical and literary allusions tinged with Greek and Latin references.

Style: His essays are also important from stylistic point of view, too. To Bacon must go
the credit, not only of introducing a new literary form into England but also that he
developed a style which is marked for its pitch and pregnancy in the communication of
thought. It was the first style set in England which later traveled to the age of Addison,
Steele and Swift. He discovered the value of brief, crisp and firmly-knitted sentences of a
type hitherto unfamiliar in English. He also rejected the elaborate euphuistic style
overcrowded with imagery and conceits. The most important characteristic of his style,
that which gives the essays the position of a classic in English Language is the terseness
of expression and epigrammatic force. He has an unraveled ability of packing his
thoughts into the smallest possible space. The essays may be described as one critic
says, “Infinite riches in a little room.” (Give sentential examples from his essays). Bacon
was a man of the renaissance and in his essays; we find a characteristic of his age: the
use of figurative language. Similes and Metaphors and striking comparisons are found in
his essays. The scholar’s love of learning is evidenced by the frequent use of quotations
and allusions in the essays. What is most important regarding his contribution is the
terseness and epigrammatic quality of his essays.

Conclusion: Bacon’s essays are a proof of his strength of mind, intellect and knowledge.
They are packed with remarkable sagacity and insight, shrewd and profound
observation. He showed for the first time with (along with Hooker) that English was as
capable as Greek or Latin of serving the highest purposes of language. Sercombe and
Allen say, “Trite as the subjects are familiar as the treatment of those who know the
Essays, the reader is seldom unrewarded by a sensation of novelty, so multitudinous are
the face of Bacon’s thoughts.” John Freeman says, “The intellectual spend-thrift is the
true essayist.” As one of the world’s epoch-making books, Bacon’s essays have done
much to mould and direct the character of many individuals. The brevity of these essays
has been recommendation to readers with limited leisure. They have become a classic of
the English Language and they owe this position, not to their subject-matter, but to their
style.

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Of Parents and Children by Sir Francis Bacon | Summary and Analysi

“Of Parents and Children” is a suggestive essay, in which Sir Francis Bacon provides some
suggestions, through which parents can bring up their children. There are some common
practices related to children, which are being followed in every society and the author
wants to rectify them. For instance, people think that children themselves should choose
a profession as per their interest. Sir Francis Bacon Bacon thinks the opposite and says
that instead, the parents should select a profession for their children. However,
somewhere in the essay he just demonstrates reality. The essay has a relational and
common subject matter. Bacon is a teacher in this essay and every parent can learn
something from him. The author has also quoted some wise words to fortify his stance.
In fact, it is a guide to those parents, who do not know how to bring up their children in
a way that they can get success in future.

Griefs and Joys of Parents:

Children are the greatest gift of God but at the same time, they make parents’ condition
miserable, considers Sir Francis Bacon. However, all the parents keep their joys as well as
griefs secrete. He, epigrammatically, illustrates this situation in these words: “The joys of
parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears”. Parents work hard for their children
and try to make them happy. They have hope that their children will live a life of
content; therefore, parents enthusiastically struggle for them. On the other hand, they
also fear their bad luck because it can impact the lives of children. Children are blessings
of God but they increase the anxieties of parents, says Sir Francis Bacon. Nevertheless,
the parents feel delighted while seeing their children with the hope that they would
continue living their life through their children. Thus, children are source pleasure as
well as grief.

Difference between Human and Animal Species (elaborated through examples):

Every species can continue living in this world through reproduction but there are some
differences between humans and animal species. Humans have memory; they can make
history and remember it. For example, ancient Roman and Greek History can still be
found in libraries. Besides, humans are intellectual; they cannot swim but they can make
submarines; they cannot fly but they can make airplanes. They have the ability to survive
in every situation: whether by hook or by crook. Additionally, they are not only
remembered because of reproduction but because of their good deeds. For instance, we
still remember Homer because of his poem Iliad. Similarly, Aristotle is still known
because of his knowledge. Indeed, there is a vast difference between human and animal
species.

Bacon thinks that people who are married and have children cannot do noble deeds.
They focus their attention on their family and children. Thus, Sir Francis Bacon calls
children as a barrier for parents on the path of success.

Unequal affection of parents:

Some parents make a difference between their children. In many families, some children
are more affectionate, whereas some are less. This kind of attitude of parents against
their children is unjustified in the eyes of Sir Francis Bacon. He advises parents to love
every child equally. Especially, the mother’s affection should be equal towards every
child. He mentions legendary words of Solomon, who said: “A wise son rejoiceth the
father, but an ungracious son shames the mother.” These words are true even today.
When a child does something good, his father is praised but whenever he does a
shameful act, his mother is alleged for his act. Besides, in most of the families, the
youngest child and the eldest child are respected, whereas middle children are ignored.
This common practice is also not acceptable; in most of the cases, middle children prove
themselves best and bring fame to families.

Suggestions to parents:

Sir Francis Bacon has some suggestion for parents as well as for children. He
recommends that parents should not fix pocket money of the children. If pocket money
is too low then the child will try to learn every such method through which he can make
money. He would start spending his time in a bad company, where he will learn new
means of cheatings and earnings. Finally, he will become greedy and do anything to get
a large sum of money. Hence, the attitude of parents should not be strict nor liberal
especially in the matter of pocket money.

Parents should also not create competition between their children. Particularly, brothers
should not be inspired to compete for each other. This method will increase hatred
between both of them; they will become jealous and ultimately, they will consider each
other enemies. Sir Francis Bacon in “Of Parents and Children” gives an example of
Italians, who do not make any difference between the son and nephew. He encourages
such kind of practices. Sometimes a nephew earns better respect for his uncle as
compared to a real child.

Children cannot decide their future:

Some parents think that it is the duty of a child to choose a profession for himself. Bacon
does not think that it is a right decision. Children cannot decide their future. They, in
most of the cases, just have temptations; therefore, it is the duty of parents to show
them the right path. Parents should select a profession for their children. However, in
exceptional cases, a child may be allowed to decide. For instance, if he has strong
feelings for a specific field, he may be allowed to adopt it. Nevertheless, the decision
should be made as early as possible.

At last, Bacon illustrates his another experience. He says that the young children are
fortunate. They are also good at making their careers. However, it is not true if they are
going to inherit a lot of wealth.

Conclusion:

Sir Francis Bacon has experienced the activities of children and parents. He does not
favour anyone; instead, he tries to make a balance. He guides the parents through
examples; he also quotes authentic words of ancient people. In simplest words, he
convinces the parents to rectify their wrongdoings. Many epigrammatic sentences are
also there in the essay. Whenever he makes a comparison between two things, he uses
an epigrammatic sentence. However, they have no ambiguity; rather it clears doubts of
readers. Philosophically, this essay is rich. Every advice of the author is applicable even in
this era. Due to these qualities, the essay “Of Parents and Children” by Sir Francis Bacon
gained eminence in every century.

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Of Superstition by Sir Francis Bacon | Complete Summary and Analysis

Superstition is the most highlighted topic even in the modern era. Sir Francis Bacon, in
“Of Superstition”, talks about the intellectual blindness of people and the effects of
superstition in everyday society. Although he is a Christian by religion and does not
promote atheism, yet he is fed up with the superstitious beliefs of people; therefore, he
prefers atheism to superstition. He is not against religion nor does he criticizes religious
scholars just for the sake of criticism; he just shows reality to his readers. Moreover, not
all customs and beliefs are bad in his eyes. In “of Superstition”, we realize that there are
some traditions, which are good according to Sir Francis Bacon. At the end of the essay,
he clearly mentions that good forms and rules of religion should not be spoiled along
with the bad ones.

Bacon has observed the world, around him, very minutely; he has also judged the
people from a wide-angle; after seeing it clearly, he finds some wrongdoings of people
which are not only harmful to them but to the whole society. He could not stop himself
to speak against the irrational beliefs of the people. This essay, in fact, is the expression
of feelings through strong arguments. In order to support his arguments, he makes
allusions from the past. He also quotes wise words of old philosophers and gives clarity
to his essay.

Superstition Vs. Atheism:

Superstition is worse than atheism, means Sir Francis Bacon. An atheist does not believe
in the existence of God; superstitious person dishonors Him; therefore, superstition is
more harmful than atheism. Bacon makes a very relevant reference from the past. He
quotes Plutarch in this regard. According to him:

“Surely, I had rather a great deal men should say there was no such man at all as
Plutarch, than that they should say that there was one Plutarch that would eat his
children as soon as they were born.”

Plutarch

The quotation is self-redundant. If someone says Plutarch eats his children then it is
obviously a false statement; it is creating a negative image of a person. On the other
hand, if it is said that Plutarch never existed then it is far better than the previous one.
Similarly, when a superstitious person does an irrational act, he, in reality, is going
against religion and so against God. Thus, superstition proves to be the most
contemptuous act in this world.

Sir Francis Bacon gives more arguments in favour of atheism and against superstition. He
says, “Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to
reputation … moral virtue … but superstition dismounts all these”. In simple words, the
author wants to say that superstition has no rule; it has no moral purpose, no value, no
law; therefore, any person having superstation beliefs cannot be called sensible as it is
just a blind following. Sir Francis Bacon recalls the great times of Augustus Caesar; that
time was full of peace as atheism was predominant in that era.

Harms of Superstition:

Firstly, when people start accepting superstation at a wider level and when it assumes
charge of every mind, it starts interrupting affairs of a state. It also takes hold of the
religious places. Even wise people start believing in the fools. Superstition is far away
from rationality and reasonability; therefore, foolish minds start controlling everything.
Afterward, it becomes impossible to deal with insane people in a rational manner. Bacon
also refers to the wording of “Council of Trent”; it was said that teachers of medieval
ages could explain heavenly bodies. It was definitely a false proposition; they just
misinterpreted everything. Similarly, teachers of Bacon’s era have corrupted the doctrine
of churches through their misinterpretations. Ultimately, religion becomes impure,
which obviously is the biggest damage of superstition.

Growth of Superstition:

There are certain reasons, which helps growing superstition. Firstly, most of the
superstition beliefs are delightful. People themselves have created these beliefs;
therefore, they have added pleasantness in them. When they become pleasant, people
start practicing these beliefs or customs. Secondly, some people consider superstition
beliefs and rituals as a part of religion; therefore, they stick to them; leaving them is
considered a contemptuous act. Thirdly, some people just follow the tradition. They
adopt these methods and customs because their forefathers used to perform them.
Fourthly, some people, for their personal interest, create false beliefs and promote
them. When they preach, people start believing them and ultimately people become
their followers. Fifthly, ‘favouring too much of good intentions”. Sixthly, some religious
scholars explain religion while comparing heavenly matters with human affairs; most of
the time they add the meanings of their choice to religion, which, according to Sir
Francis Bacon, causes the growth of superstition. Lastly, there are some people, who
start assigning their tragedies to fate or evil eye, which causes the growth of
superstition.

Sir Francis Bacon believes that superstition /customs and rituals corrupt the religion;
they destroy its purity. However, Bacon considers that not all the rituals and customs are
evaded; there are some, which should be adopted for the welfare of mankind: “the good
be not taken away with the bad, which commonly is done when the people is the
reformer”.

Conclusion:

Sir Francis Bacon has criticized the superstition. He is against self-created customs and
rituals. However, it is not hard to believe that some customs, in his eyes, are necessary
to be practiced as they may help to reform society. Sir Francis Bacon, in this essay,
strictly deals with superstition. His tone is harsh in this essay. It seems that he wants
reformation in religion and also in society. It is possible only if people reject false beliefs.
Otherwise, atheists are better than they are because they do no harm to anything.
Superstition, on the other hand, makes religion frail. Moreover, superstitious people,
indirectly, go against God. As far as the style of Sir Francis Bacon in “Of Superstition”, is
concerned, it is as usual: simple, lucid and unambiguous. The essay is well written. The
idea of the essay is praiseworthy and requires appreciation. In short, the whole essay is a
remarkable example of Bacon’s observation and experience.

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Of Ambition by Sir Francis Bacon | Complete Summary and Analysis

The essay “Of Ambition” can be used as evidence to prove the worldly wisdom of Sir
Francis Bacon. It is full of advice; it covers every profession and department of Bacon’s
era. The author has advised every person either he is a king, prince or a common man.
The essay is less about ambitions but more about ambitious persons. However, as usual,
the author shows both sides of the picture; he talks about negative as well as positive
qualities of ambitious people. He also talks about their different types; some of them are
harmful, whereas others are useful. Likewise, different kinds of ambitions have been
mentioned and fully explained in this essay; if ambitions are harmful then what is their
impact; if they are useful, then how these ambitions can help a person in this world.

Furthermore, readers hardly find any essay of Bacon in which he has not mentioned any
example from Ancient Romans; Of Ambition is also not different from other essays of Sir
Francis Bacon in this regard. Let us see what he further says about ambitions and
ambitious persons.

Ambition and Ambitious Persons:

The Author starts his essay with the definition of ambition; using a simile, he says,
“Ambition is like choler”; “choler” is a physiological word. It was believed that there are
four humours in the human mind; one of them is choler; if something wrong happens to
choler, a person becomes wild. Sir Francis Bacon actually wants to say that ambition is
the worst kind of disease; ambitious persons, like choler, becomes mad if something
wrong happens to them; he elucidates it further; “if they [ambitious people] be checked
in their desires, they become secretly discontent”. According to Bacon, ambitious people
feel happiness in seeing others falling from prosperity to adversity; seeing people in
adverse circumstances, is their desire. Bacon then suggests princes and kings, not to
employee ambitious people at any cost. However, if they are helpless and have no other
choice then they should not check their progress as a precaution.

In which conditions, ambitious people can be employed?

Sir Francis Bacon is not in favour of negative ambition nor he considers it wise to hire
ambitious people. Nevertheless, there are some critical situations when a king or prince
can get their services; they can serve better in these critical situations. For instance, if an
ambitious person has good war-skills, he can be used as a General. It is because his
advantage is greater than his disadvantage. The ambitious person also does not care
about himself but about his ambitions. In order to achieve his goals, he can sacrifice his
life; therefore, the job of a shield, in unsafe situations, best suits him. There is another
last duty, which an ambitious person can fulfill; “pulling down the greatness of any
subject that overtops”, mentions Bacon. Thus, the third purpose of ambitious people is
to use them as a weapon against powerful persons.

Sir Francis Bacon in “Of Ambition”, quotes an example of Tiberius, Macro, and Sejanus in
these words:

“Tiberius used Macro in the pulling down of Sejanus”.

Sir Francis Bacon

Let us clarify this example. In Tiberius Empire, Sejanus was a perfect praetorian guard
but he somehow (actually by reforming the system) managed to make his reputation
and gradually accumulated power by consolidating his influence over Tiberius.
Thereafter, Tiberius used Naevius Sutorius Macro against Sejanus. Macro did his duty
well and caused the downfall of Sejanus. Bacon refers him to clear that ambitious person
can do anything because he just wants to rise.

How to control an ambitious person:

Employing an ambitious person is a risk. First of all, it is hard to identify an ambitious

person. Nonetheless, in his essay “Of Ambition”, Sir Francis Bacon Bacon has a solution.
Ambitious people should be raised from a low position to lofty eminence. In this way,
they will be less dangerous. Moreover, they should be examined time and again; kings
and princes must keep an eye on them; they can easily be identified by their harsh
nature; they also try to please people and make a reputation among them, just like
Sejanus. Bacon gives another suggestion; kings should reward or punish the ambitious
people through their favourites. Furthermore, if there are more than one ambitious
persons, then they can be used against each other. In addition, men of low birth can be
raised to annoy ambitious persons.

Last suggestion, which Bacon provides, is that reputation of ambitious people should be
destroyed all at once. However, sometimes a king cannot do so then he should adopt an
alternative solution; the king can convert his rewards to punishments; his positive image
can be replaced with the negative one. By doing so, the king would spoil the mind of the
ambitious person and he would feel insecure about his position.

It is worth mentioning here that approach of Sir Francis Bacon in “Of Ambition” is
entirely mean. Although he is talking about securities of the State, yet he is promoting
selfishness. He is advising the kings and princes to use a person (ambitious person) and
throw him for a loop. Hence, we can say that Alexander Pope rightly judged Francis
Bacon. Perhaps, it is “Of Ambition” due to which Alexander Pope says, Sir Francis Bacon
“is the wisest, brightest and meanest of mankind”.

Types of Ambitions:

Sir Francis Bacon also divides ambition into certain categories. People, who belong to
the first category, are common so as their ambitions. Everyone wants to dominate
others. According to Bacon, this ambition is not harmful as compared to other
ambitions. The second category is of those people, who try to build image among
people. We can say them, leaders. They gain the support of people and people walk side
by side with them. These kinds of people are harmful in Bacon’s eyes. There is another
category, which is harmful to kings but useful to people; some people build their image
in nobles. They gain reputation and become close to them. Although it is much difficult
to achieve such kind of position, yet ambitious people can achieve it. In Bacon’s view,
such a person should be praised as he achieves a difficult task.

If we deeply judge opinions of Sir Francis Bacon, then there is an ambition, which he
considers, serves a noble purpose; the ambition to do good for the others. Moreover, he
suggests kings to know the difference between good ambitions and bad ambitions.
Likewise, they should differentiate between good persons and bad persons. Some
people really work but some just show off. A king should keep an eye on them and he
should appreciate good ambitious persons as they bring positivity.

Conclusion:

Sir Francis Bacon has presented a number of ways, through which ambitious person and
his ambition can be checked. His guidelines mostly are for the noble classes; for kings
and princes. It is not wrong to say that Bacon is dealing the ambitious people with iron
hands. However, in the end, he shows some positivity. His attitude towards positive
ambitions is soft. He praises those people who do good for the welfare of humanity.

As far as the style of the essay is concerned, there is nothing new in it; Bacon, in every
essay, uses concise and lucid sentences. Everything is clear to the readers. They do not
find any ambiguity in the whole essay. Whenever requires, Bacon uses similes to clarify
his standpoint. In addition, he quotes examples from the past to simplify his views. If we
talk about philosophy, then attitude of Sir Francis Bacon is strict towards ambition and
ambitious people. However, as a whole, the essay is a masterpiece from emperors’ point
of view.

-------------------------------------------------

Critical Analysis Of Great Place by Francis Bacon Essay

The essay Of Great Place written by Francis Bacon, a famous English philosopher and
scientist whose aphorism Sciencia Potentia est is known to everyone in the world,
represents a lot of interesting philosophical ideas. These ideas can be easily related to
the present day principles and concepts. The philosophy of Francis Bacon is concluded in
the fact that the major goal of scientific knowledge lies in providing benefit to the
humanity. (Anderson, 1992, p.124)

My goal in this essay in to give a critical analysis of Francis Bacon’s philosophical work Of
the Great Place.

The main idea of the essay is to show the readers the position of men in great places.
Francis Bacon discusses the life, duties and behavior of those people who occupy high
position in the society. He writes that all the people who live in great places are “thrice
servants”. They are servants of the sovereign or state, fame and business. Moreover,
they have no freedom although they enjoy power. It is a very interesting idea that
powerful people have no liberty. But its true. They have power over other people who
occupy a lower position in the society but they “lose power” over themselves.

Francis Bacon argues that it is very difficult “to raise into place”. People should be strong
and self-confident to take a high position in the society. He writes that “by indignities
men come to dignities”. Moreover, they can easily lose their position that is why they
should be uncompromising in their goals and desires. Even in the old age great men
should not change their manners.
As Francis Bacon is a great philosopher who not only knows a lot about human nature
but also tries to teach others, to share his knowledge with people around him. In his
essay Of the Great Place, Bacon touches upon the problem of other people’s opinion
concerning “great men”. He writes that great persons should “borrow other men’s
opinion” because they can get a lot of interesting and important things for them. The
great men cannot judge themselves. They should learn what other people think of them
in order to remain on the top of the ladder. (Bacon, 2006, p.4)

Bacon expresses a very interesting thought when he writes that the great men are “the
first to find their own griefs, though they be the last to find their own faults”. He is sure
that it is very difficult for those people who have money and power to find their own
faults. They do not see their faults. It seems to them that they have no faults while they
have a lot of them. Only other people can show them their faults. That is why the great
men are interested in learning other people’s opinion. When Bacon says that the great
people are the first to find their griefs, he means that they love themselves so much that
cannot stand any trouble or misfortune. They have power and money and they do not
want to have any griefs in their life. (Gaukroger, 2001, p.56)

Francis Bacon calls these people “strangers to themselves”. The great men are fully
involved in their business that they “have no time to tend their health”, their body and
their mind. The only things they are thinking about are power and money. Sometimes
they simply forget about their health. And only when they get problems with health they
come down to earth and realize that they are merely human beings.

The great philosopher also touches upon the theme of good and evil in his essay. He
argues that “in place, there is a license to do good and evil”. Evil is curse. Only those
people who do good will be able to have rest. Good thoughts are better than good
dreams because the men have an opportunity to bring their good thought to life. Bacon
writes that “merit and good works is the end of man’s motion”. Any men should learn to
do good in his life in order to get award from God at the end of “the motion”. Any man
can be “a partaker of God’s theater” but he should deserve it. (Bacon, 2006, p.5)

The author of the essay tries to explain the readers that any man has an opportunity to
analyze not only his own actions but also the actions of other people in order to
understand what is good and what is bad. They should “neglect the examples of those
that have carried themselves ill”. They should follow only good examples. Moreover, the
great people should be role models to other people. They should learn good lessons
from their past life and take care of their future. Bacon writes: “Seek to make thy course
regular, that men may know beforehand what to expect”. (Bacon, 2006, p.6)
The great philosopher also touches upon the theme of law. It is a very important
question for him because the law in the society is a vital thing. He teaches “to preserve
the right of thy place, but stir no questions of jurisdiction”.He also wants everyone to
preserve the rights of other places.

Bacon argues that there are four major vices of authority. They are corruption, delays,
roughness and facility. In order to overcome delay, the great people should be punctual.
Bacon writes: “give easy access, keep time appointed”. (Bacon, 2006)

Special attention is paid to corruption. Bacon writes that the great people should be
sincere to avoid corruption. In order to avoid roughness, it is necessary to be kinder. The
facility is worse than bribery. It is necessary to be more careful.

Francis Bacon argues that the great men should respect other people even if they are no
so powerful as they are. He writes: “If you have colleagues, respect them”. (Bacon, 2006,
p.8)

The author of the essay wants those people who became great to have a change in their
nature. He wants them to become another men. (Gaukroger, 2001, p.201)

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is necessary to say that such a wise man as Francis Bacon could not only
show the strengths and the weaknesses of the great men of the society but also he
could give them some recommendations concerning their way of life, their behavior and
their principles. He was interested in investigation of the human nature. His natural
philosophy was greatly appreciated because he represented absolutely new
philosophical ideas concerning the essence of life. Francis Bacon’s essay Of Great Place is
one of his bold philosophical works.

-----------------------------------------

WHAT is Truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be
that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in
thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone,
yet there remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins, though there be
not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients

Books You Must Read

Francis Bacon opens the essay “of truth” with the very famous Question “What is
truth?” Asked by Jesting Pilate. Francis took the essay to another level by the very
mention of the name of Pilate since Jesting Pilate was one of the pupils involved in the
crucifixion of Lord Jesus. Although Pilate was battling an internal conflict but he gave in
to the social reforms and ignored his conscience that kept telling him that Jesus was
innocent. This is where bacon states his point that it is easier to choose a known lie then
to stand with the truth alone. He claims that there might have been such courageous
people among our ancestors but people no more has the guts to go ahead put truth
before themselves and stand by it.

But it is not only the difficulty and labour which men take in finding out of truth; nor
again that when it is found it imposeth upon men’s thoughts; that doth bring lies in
favour; but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself.

Francis bacon do agree that men do make an effort to find the truth but once they find it
or get close to finding it, they either give up or the realization of truth is hard to handle
that they prefer a comforting lie which makes them feels better wherein truth is harsh
and brutal.

One of the later school of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think
what should be in it, that men should love lies, where neither they make for pleasure, as
with poets, nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie’s sake.

Some of the Greek scholar and philosopher did try to examine this that why men love
lies and run away from truth. There has been research on why the instinct of men always
favors lies and what leads towards lies rather than truth. They realized its
understandable at some places like a poet use magnanimous words to build a poem and
to make the protagonist look grand or a merchant uses lies for financial gain or to build a
customer but it was still a mystery that what pleasure common folk find in lies.

this same truth is a naked and open day-light, that doth not shew the masks and
mummeries and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth
may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that sheweth best by day; but it will not rise
to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that sheweth best in varied lights.

Francis Define truth as naked and bright as the day light, there is no work around in
truth. A truth is a fact and there is no manipulating or denying it. There is no place for
praises or eulogy in truth, its transparent, honest and bereft of any laudatory language.
Truth doesn’t not dignify men or sing in their honor. It merely states what it is in simplest
of the language. Truth is like a pearl that shines when day light hits it even in the depths
of the sea but it can’t rise to the standards of a diamond that shines irrespective of day
and night. A diamond gives an illusion of light at night which is not there hence feeding
us a lie. Truth shows what is as it is and does not add any element of its own.

A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken
out of men’s minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one
would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken
things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?

It’s true that a mixture of truth and lie does sound peaceful and it might be really useful
at instances. Men do feel good when flattered and hence it can be used a motivating
factor to make them do even better. Imagine a soldier when hear inspiring stories of
military heroes, will fight with double its force and may lead to better outcome in a war.
A combination of truth and lies gives hope and positive attitude to the society which
may result in hardworking and creative individuals. If praise is not unreal in its
description it might not even be effective and may sound bland which nullify the entire
concept of praising someone.

One of the Fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum daemonum, because it filleth
the imagination; and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that
passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the
hurt; such as we spake of before.

Some vary esteemed man deprecated poetry as a portrayal of lies and imagination to
woo man. They blamed poetry to be serving wrong expectation of men and that poetry
is filled with shadow of lies and contain very small amount of truth. Not only this but
they claim that poetry contain such lies that is not forgotten or that fades with time but
they stay in the minds of men and sink in their heart hence causing permanent damage
to their realization of truth. They begin to believe the lie more so ever and deny the
truth completely.
But howsoever these things are thus in men’s depraved judgments and affections, yet
truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the Inquiry of truth, which is the love-
making or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the
belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.

It’s true that lies deprive the mind of men where as truth enlightens it. The inquiry of
truth is like a pursuit of love wherein the lover follows his or her beloved despite if any
obstacle, the inquiry of truth needs such indulgence. The knowledge of truth is acquiring
this incredible gift and the belief of truth is enjoying this gift. This is the ultimate nature
of men in its authentic form.

The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense; the last
was the light of reason; and his sabbath work ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit.
First he breathed light upon the face of the matter or chaos; then he breathed light into
the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen.

The first creature when created by god was first provided with the senses so that he can
feel and relish the worldly things and the last thing was his enlightenment which is the
power of reason, in between these two god gave him a chance to discover himself, do
good and create good. After this god created the world out of chaos so that we could
have a place to habitat and pursue living and then he blessed men with power of
knowledge and reason so that we can differentiate between wrong and right. Lastly
Gods focused his light upon his few beloved men to carry his word forward.

The poet that beautified the sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet
excellently well: It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon
the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the
adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the
vantage ground of Truth, (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear
and serene,) and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale
below; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride.
Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man’s mind move in charity, rest in
providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

The poet who described truth explained it excellently stating : It is a pleasure to stand on
the shore and see ships moving in a rhythm with the water waves, similarly standing on
the window of a castle and watching a fight is a sight to behold and adventure to
experience but above all these is the feeling of standing on a mountain relishing the
fresh and free air on yourself where as all other fellow of yours look small and petty and
this exactly explains what truth feels like, But this realization of truth should make men
humble and he should not be exalted by this and involve himself in charity and good
work.

To pass from theological and philosophical truth, to the truth of civil business; it will be
acknowledged even by those that practise it not, that clear and round dealing is the
honour of man’s nature; and that mixture of falsehood is like allay in coin of gold and
silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding
and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly,
and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be
found false and perfidious.

Meaning, The discussion is usually based on theological and philosophical domain of

truth and when it comes to daily matters, a small amount of lie is understandable and
might also be acceptable although the honor lies in ultimate truth but one cannot
practice truth to its fullest in day to day business. Although lie is like a alloy in a silver or
gold coin which helps in malleability of the metal but it loses its luster. Same way lies
deforms the true nature of truth. Francis compares lying men to a serpent, who spends
his entire life on his belly because he cannot stand erect as he has no feet. Such men are
always loathsome and of bad character.

And therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason, why the word of
the lie should be such a disgrace and such an odious charge? Saith he, If it be well
weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God and a
coward towards men. For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness
of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall
be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men; it being
foretold, that when Christ cometh, he shall not find faith upon the earth.

When it is analyzed deeply he explains that the men who lie is brave towards god and
coward towards men, here brave has been used as sarcasm that he has the audacity to
lie and book a place for himself in hell. When the Day of Judgment arrives a person who
has lied his entire life will have to face the wrath of god and suffer his punishment. This
also leads us to a more serious issue that such decline of moral values someday will
result in loss of character and when Christ comes again he will not find faith on earth.
--------------------------------

Bacon's Essay of Truth

by W.F.C. Wigston

From Baconiana, October 1909

"In the midst of the sun is the light, in the midst of light is truth, and in the midst of truth
is the imperishable Being."--The Vedas

" The first creature of God, in the work of the days, was the light of the senses, the last
was the light of reason; and His Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of His Spirit."
-- From Of Truth by Francis Bacon

"To this end was I born, and for this cause came I unto the world, that I should bear
witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice. Pilate saith unto
Him, What is truth?"--Gospel of St. John, chap. xviii., verse. 37, 38.

It is very important to observe that Bacon's essay Of Truth occupies the first or foremost
place in the collection. Also that this essay opens and concludes with the allusion to our
Savior, who was the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Bacon commences with the words
"What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer." And the essay
ends with the words, " Surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot
possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgment of
God upon the generations of men. It being foretold that when Christ cometh He shall
not find faith upon the earth." This is repeated in the essay "Of Counsel."

It is worthy of note, too, what Bacon says of Pilate, that he"would not stay for an
answer" implying that there was an answer, but that he did not want to hear it, and this
is often the attitude of the world towards any problem that offends it's prejudices,
rouses its passions, or dares to challenge its universal consent upon some echoed
tradition which has never hitherto been looked into or examined. In his essay "Of
Atheism," Bacon points out, how the judgment is prejudiced by the feelings or
affections, and how the mind is deprived of free judgment by the inclinations of the
heart.

"The Scripture saith, 'The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God'; it is not said, The
fool hath thought in his heart,' so as he rather saith it by rote to himself, as that he
would have, than that he can thoroughly believe it or be persuaded of it."

This equally applies to the nature of all human beliefs that are allied by custom with
consent and sentiment --and perhaps most of all to the opposers of the Bacon
authorship of the plays. They, like Pilate, "will not stay for an answer," or give a "learning
patience" to the problem, and in their hearts declare the theory a heresy, a foolish fad,
an impossibility.

Mark Twain has recently drawn a parallel, comparing Shakespeare to Satan, and there is
something in it, for all denial is of the badge of Antichrist; and has not the great German
poet, Goethe described Mephistopheles (and his followers?) with the words "der stets
verneint," --who everlasting denies? After all, rebutting evidence is always easier than
proof, for the thing saves trouble if one only takes one's ignorance seriously, or
affirmatively, setting up for a judge instead of a learner, and imagining a faculty of not
knowing can be a criterion for passing judgments upon new discoveries.

"Coming in a man's own name," Bacon declares, "is no infallible sign of truth. For
certainly there cometh to pass, and hath place in human truth, that which was noted
and pronounced in the highest truth." Veni in nomine patris, nec recipitis me; si quis
venetit in nomine suo, eum recipietis (I came in the name of the Father, but ye did not
receive Me; if any one shall come in his own name, him ye receive).

But in this divine aphorism (considering to whom it was applied, namely, to Antichrist,
the highest deceiver) we may discern well that the coming in a man's own name,
without regard of antiquity or paternity, is no good sign of truth, although it be joined
with the fortune and success of an eum recipietis" (and book Advancement of Learning,
p.99).

Therefore the coming of Shakespeare in his own name, although he has been received
without question, is not an infallible sign of truth. In Aphorism 84 of the first book of the
Novum Organum :

"Again men have been kept back as by a kind of enchantment from progress in the
sciences, by reverence for antiquity, by the authority of men accounted great in
philosophy, and then by general consent. And with regard to authority it shows a feeble
mind to grant so much to authors, and yet deny Time his rights, who is the author of
authors, nay, rather of all authority. For rightly is truth called the daughter of time."

By "consent" Bacon means, the world's general or universal assent, or tradition; as, for
example, that Shakespeare is the author of the 1623 Folio plays. The world often
mistakes echoes for volume, and there is the popular fallacy that counting of heads is
proof of truth. But in matters intellectual it is not as with physical power or wealth--
there is no aggregate or arithmetical sum total, as, for example, when men pull on a
rope or heap up money. But it is rather as in a race, where only a few can be first, and
there is no addition of speeds.

Hear Bacon: "For the worst of all auguries is from consent in matters intellectual
(Divinity excepted, and politics where there is right of vote). For nothing pleases the
many unless it strikes the imagination, or binds the understanding with the bonds of
common notions" (Aphorism 77, Novum Organum).

Therefore the saying,"That the world says, or the world believes," though to be
respected, is not final, and should not deter us from examining anew problems which
the past generations had probably no time or curiosity to question. Besides, as Bacon
says, in this essay Of Truth,

" The first creature of God, in the work of the days, was the light of the senses, the last
was the light of reason; and His Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of His Spirit."

The Vedas say,

"In the midst of the sun is the light, in the midst of light is truth, and in the midst of truth
is the imperishable Being."

" Truth," says Chaucer, " is the highest thing that man can keep."

In this essay Of Truth Bacon says,"

" One of the late school of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think
what should be in it, that men should love lies, where neither they make for pleasure, as
with poets; nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lies sake. But I cannot
tell : this same truth is a naked and open day light, that doth not show the masques, and
mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle lights."

Compare Omar Khayham on the world as a theatre by candle-light :

"For in and out, above, about, below,

' Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow Show,

Play'd in a box whose candle is the sun,

Round which we phantom figures come and go!"

Bacon continues,

"Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will
not rise to the price of a diamond, or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A
mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure."

Observe the apology for poetical fiction in this passage, which presently we find
repeated with something of an explanation:

"One of the Fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum daemonum (the wine of the
devils),because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie."

That is to say, poetical fiction or invention, although it obscures truth, or veils it, is not all
falsehood, and all parabolical poetry shadows, under tropes of similitude's, a concealed
meaning of truth. It would seem, then, that this essay Of Truth is a sort of apology for
the poetical veil, or masque of Truth, upon the score of man's dislike, or incapability, of
receiving unadulterated truth itself? Bacon uses the expression "I cannot tell" to excuse
himself explanation of the world's love of lies. In the play of Richard III the same phrase
in introduced, together with what would seem to answer the question in context with
it:---

"I cannot tell: the world is grown so bad

That wrens may prey where eagles dare not perch." (I. 3).

Christ exclaimed "That the world cannot receive truth," and Bacon implies the same
thing, and he then proceeds to explain that the disguises and actings of the world's stage
are better adapted, than the searchlight of open daylight, for the half-lights of the
theatre. If the reader will turn to the essay entitled Of Masques and Triumphs, he will
find complete proof that this is an allusion to the stage in the essay Of Truth. And it
would seem as if there existed some sort of antithesis between these two essays, i.e.,
the world's love of pleasure is so great, "Satis alter alteri magnum theatrum sumus" (We
are sufficently the great theatre of each other),--"All the world's a stage, and all the men
and women merely players," --and acting has little consonance with truth. Observe, too,
in both essays there is the same allusion to candle-light.

In the plays candlelight is used as a metaphor for starlight:-

"For by these blessed candles of the night."

(Merchant of Venice, V.i).

"There's husbandry in heaven;

Their candles are all out."

(Macbeth II. i).

Night's candles are burnt out."

(Romeo and Juliet III.5).

See Sonnet 21, "As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air."

Masques were dramatic performances in which the actors were disguised by the
wearing of masks which concealed their features, and so their identity.

Bacon commences his essay Of Masques and Triumphs with the words,"These things are
but toys," and concludes the essay with the words,"But enough of these toys." He
means trifles by the word toys. It is most important to point out, that Heminge and
Condell, in their dedicatory preface ( to their patrons the Earls of Pembroke and
Montgomery) in the first edition of the folio plays, published in 1623, employ the word
"trifles" to indicate the plays they are editing:-- "For , when we value the places your
H.H. sustain, we cannot but know their dignity greater, than to descend to the reading of
these trifles."

This point seems to me very pertinent to the entire subject of the essay (and authorship
of the plays), and is a hint of the very first importance as to whether Bacon wore a mask
known as Shakespeare. But the introduction of this subject, in connection with poetry,
and with an apology for the poets' "shadow of a lie," on account of the pleasure
afforded by the dainty shows of the theatre, seen by candlelight, is a hint that only the
most obstinately blind or obtuse person can decline to perceive. The first Masque, in
England, was held at Greenwhich Palace (where King Henry the Eighth was born), "the
first disguise( in the year 1513, on the day of the Epiphany), after the manner of Italy
called a Masque, a thing not seen afore in England." In Love's Labour Lost we have a
masque introduced, and also scene in King Henry the Eighth where the royal dancers are
masked. Triumphs were processional pageants, or shows by Torchlight. Bacon is telling
us that man does not care about abstract truth, and when he says men do not care for
open daylight, he is speaking very truly. For he points out that "the archflatterer with
whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence, is a man's self" (essay Of Love ). And in
this essay Of Truth :

"A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken
out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one
would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken
things full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?"

This is as much as to say, that most men "walk in a vain show," and are actors, i.e., play
up rather to the parts they imagine they possess, than are what they really are by
nature. In the essay Of Love, Bacon says

"It is a poor saying of Epicurus, "We are a sufficiently great theatre to each other ".

That Bacon should introduce this saying of Seneca (to be found in his Epistles, Moral I.,
17) in the essay Of Love is not strange. For Bacon knew that love is one of the greatest of
actors (and cause of acting) in life, as well as the motive for stage comedies in the
theatre. He writes,

"The stage is more beholding to love than the life of man. For as to the stage, love is ever
a matter of Comedies, and now and then of tragedies. It is strange to note the excess of
this passion; and how it braves the nature and value of things, that the speaking in a
perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but love."

The ancients painted Cupid blind, because people in love are deprived of reason and
sound judgment, and see everything by a candlelight of glamour an illusion, where all is
appearance, as in a theatre. The lover conceals his real character, and pretends to all
sorts of parts which he plays in order to attract the one beloved, just, as in natural
selection, we find at the courting season, male birds spreading their peacock feathers to
attract the female, that is to say, this passion consists of every sort of exaggeration both
in action and in speech, which, to the onlooker, is ever a source of amusement and
comedy because of its divagation from all semblance of truth. Observe how Bacon
classes love with envy:

" There be none of the affections which have been noted to fascinate, or bewitch, but
love and envy."

He then makes this profound observation of envy, which is equally applicable to love :

" A man that is busy and inquisitive is commonly envious..... therefore it must needs be,
that he taketh a kind of play pleasure in looking upon the fortunes of others." --essay Of
Envy

This is written in the spirit of the text already quoted from Bacon,

"We are a sufficiently great theatre, one to the other."

That is to say, all life is a theatre, and it may be noted, that love, of all passions, is the
one that attracts most attention from those within the circle, or theatre of its influence.
People of all classes are everlastingly watching it, or contemplating it, or talking about it.
For it brings with it other passions into play, such as envy, or jealousy, and often ends in
the tragedies we read every day in the papers. In the 1st Book of the Advancement of
Learning, Bacon once more quotes this saying with an apology which would seem to be
pointed at himself:--

"Another fault incident commonly to learned men, which may be more probably
defended than truly denied, is that they fail sometimes in applying themselves to
particular persons, which want of exact application ariseth from two causes-- the one,
because the largeness of their mind can hardly confine itself to dwell in the exquisite
observation or examination of the nature and customs of one person; for it is a speech
for a lover, and not for a wise man. We are sufficiently a great theatre to each other" (p.
23 1st Book Advancement of Learning)

It is very possible Bacon was thinking of Seneca, the dramatist, from whom he quotes
this Latin saying ( to whom he compares himself in the De Augmentis of 1623),
particularly as he mentions him in the preceding paragraph but one. But this passage
appears as an apology written for Bacon himself, who was a learned man after the
pattern of Demosthenes and Cicero, whom he has just previously cited. He is covertly
telling us he is a lover of the theatre--of the contemplation of life as a stage, but that he
is not wise to tell us so. In the 2nd book of the Advancement of Learning he again
introduces some part of the above passage, and this time directly pointed at himself :

"My hope is that, if my extreme love to learning carry me too far, I may obtain the
excuse of affection; for that it is not granted to man to love and be wise" (p.75 2nd book
Advancement).

I should like to point out that the poet is compared with lover in the Midsummer's Night
Dream, and in his essay Of Truth he says:

" But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet
truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love
making or wooing of it, the knowledge of of truth, which is the presence of it, and the
belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it,-- is the sovereign good of human nature."

and from :Midsummer Night Dream

"The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,

Are of imagination all compact.

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;

That is the madman. The Lover, all as frantic,

Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.

The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling doth glance

From heaven to earth, from earth to heaven.

And as imagination bodies forth the forms of things

Unknown; the poet's pen turns them to shapes,

And gives to airy nothing a local habitation

And a name." Act V. i.

Observe how Helen is compared to Cleopatra, and observe that we have in the lunatic's
and poet's frenzy a hint for the divine madness connected with Bacchus, which was
called mania, and which fury was sometimes the effect of wine. The lover, Bacon
identifies with the madness ( in his essay Of Love--"mad degree of love"). But it is poetic
creation through love that Bacon is really thinking of, such as Plato describes the love of
wisdom, the begetting the truth upon the body of beauty.

It is somewhat strange to consider how the true character of Bacon's essay Of Truth has
so long escaped discovery at the hands of critics-- I mean the mingling, in this essay, of
Truth and Poetry, and their interrelationship after the manner (to borrow a title from the
German poet, Goethe) of Warheit und Dichtung. For the entire essay is an apology of the
veils of poetry--that is to say, for its shadows and outlines, its bare suggestions, its
parabolical character, its complete reserve. What I mean will be best understood by a
study of Bacon's introduction to the series of poetical and classical myths entitled The
Wisdom of the Ancients, in which collection Bacon has endeavored to rationalize and
explain away the shadows and veils in which the kernels of this ancient wisdom are
enwrapped. His efforts to discover the true forms, hidden behind poetical fancy in these
pieces, are just what he would have us apply to his theatre, with the help of his prose
works. Just what Bacon, in his essay Of Truth , calls "a shadow of a lie," constitutes the
outward poetical garb of all myth containing inner meaning. "Aesop's Fables" belong to
this class of parable. The Fox and the Grapes , outwardly, is the shadow of a lie, which
conveys ( and veils at the same time) the inner moral truth--"We affect to despise
everything unattainable."

Men being for the most part of the nature of children in their intellects, are only held
and interested in sensible objects, and in pictures, or emblems, which poetry can
present to their imagination. Two objects are served by creative poetry that embodies
wisdom in poetic imagery and parable. It serves to preserve and to reveal. Like the fly
embalmed in amber, great truths may be handed down to posterity and preserved intact
through barbarous ages. The secrets of a society of learned men can thus be transmitted
to after times. This indeed is living art, and probably it has been carried out to an almost
incredible degree of perfection and completeness in the art we are now discussing.
"And therefore in the infancy of learning, and in rude times, when those conceits which
are now trivial were then new, the world was full of parables and similitudes; for else
would men either have passed over without mark, or else rejected for paradoxes that
which was offered, before they had understood or judged. So in divine learning, we see
how frequent parables and tropes are. For it is a rule, that whatsoever science is not
consonant to presuppositions, must pray in aid of similitude's." (2nd book Advancement
of Learning, p. 153)

Tennyson once made the remark "that the world was the shadow of God," meaning that
it not only argued , as all shadows do, a great light to produce shadow, but also
concealed God. In Esdras the dead are said to "flee the shadow of the world," and
"which are departed from the shadow of the world." So, in like manner, I would suggest,
Bacon's theatre shadows a great rational interpretation, or revelation, with which latter
Bacon has particularly identified his own unmasking in glory to man.

Bacon describes poesy (poetry) in respect of matter, (and not words), as, "one of the
principal portions of learning, and is nothing else but feigned history , which may be
styled as well in prose as verse" --Advancement , p.90. So in the play of As You Like It ,
"The truest poetry is the most feigning." That is to say, the shadow of the lie is only the
envelope (Act III. ii) of the inward truth, or form, imprinted on it.

Schopenhauer called matter " a false truth," and in parabolic poetry (which is the
"shadow of a lie"), the vehicle of truth is the veil which shadows forth the truth. Spiritual
truths are always immeasurably greater than their vehicles of utterance, and are those
forms, or philosophical ideas, which are conveyed by means of poetic myth and fable.

"Truth in closet words shall fail,

When truth embodied in a tale

Shall enter in at lowly doors."

More than half the force of language, especially of poetical language, consists in its
hints, suggestions, half-lights, which its words do not directly imply, yet habitually
convey indirectly. Bacon's essay Of Truth is, I consider, an apology for poetical fiction,
and for the masking and mumming of his theatre, on the score of man's absolute love of
lies, and hatred of truth. The modern love of novels is a very strong corroboration of this
statement. Put a profound truth in the form of a problem novel and thousands will read
it, attracted by its outward dress, whereas written as a treatise it would attract little
attention! How many readers have Lord Bacon's works compared to the plays attributed
to Shakespeare!

***********Francis Bacon was a great Elizabethan of wonderful versatility. He was a

true child of the Renaissance. He was a great scholar ‘familiar’ with the scriptures of
classical languages, histories and mythologies. He was a shrewd observer of life all
around him.

‘Of Adversity’ is a very penchant essay. Besides its literary value it has a great social
significance. It teaches man to be optimistic under most adverse circumstance. In order
to drive his point home Bacon takes the, help of religious scriptures and this device is
very, effective. Bacon puts forward, his ideas in a simple language; besides the examples
and illustrations from the Bible, Bacon chooses similes and metaphors, based on
common day to day experiences. His choice of needle works and embroideries and of
sweet smelling materials is both happy and intelligent. ‘Of Adversity’ is an example of his
keen and critical insight in to human nature and firm faith in Providence.

Admiration of Adversity—Seneca a rightly hold that the good things which belong to
prosperity are to be wished put the good things that are to be wished putr. the good
things that belong to adversity are to be admired. Triumph over nature is called miraclp.
Such miracles taken place in adversity.

True Greatness:
The true greatness is to have the frailty of man accompanied by the security of God.
This security of God is freedom from care. It happens only in adversity because in
prosperity man is lost in materialism.

A Subject for Poetry:

The sweetness of adversity can best be explained in poetry ‘where the transcendence
are more allowed and the poets indeed have been busy with it. The subject of adversity
has been well dealt with by the ancient poets “For it is in effect (in reality) The thing
which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets, which seemeth not, to be
without mystery.

Adversity — The Test of True Greatness :

To have the weakness of man simultaneously with the God like freedom from care is
true greatness. Such a situation arises in adversity. The determination of Hercules of
liberate Prometheus illustrates the great and noble endeavour and which a weak human
being is capable under the heavy odds of life.

Virtues of Adversity:

Temperance is the virtue of prosperity, whereas fortitude is the virtue of adversity.

Fortitude is a heroic virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament. Adversity is
the blessing of the New Testament. However it cannot be said that Adversity finds no
place in Old Testament. Instead Adversity also finds mention with the prosperity in the
songs and psalms of David in the, Old Testament. The afflictions or miseries of Job in the
Old Testament are mentioned with the wisdom and magnificence of Solomon.

Interdependence of Adversity and Prosperity:

Prosperity also has fears and distastes or unpleasantness. Thus, it can be said that
immaculate prosperity or the prosperity devoid of least trace of pains is not possible.
Likewise, Adversity is not all painful and formidable ‘Adversity is not without comforts
and hopes’. In other words Adversity is relieved by many hopes and comforts ‘we see in
the needle works and embroideries it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad
and solemn ground than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a light-some ground.

Adversity Better Than Prosperity:

Prosperity reveals the evil in man whereas Adversity shows the noble and the virtuous in
man. Virtue is like the precious odours. They are most fragrant when they are incensed
or crushed. Thus the virtues inherent in man are revealed when he is grounded between
the stones of Adversity.

----------------------------

Francis Bacon had a unique writing style which was quite different from the
contemporary writers. It was not his style to present the case to the readers as it stands.
Whenever he wrote an essay he always made the readers see both the sides of the
picture. He talked about the advantages and disadvantages. He argued as well as gave
justifications so that the readers can make up their mind by using their intellect and due
to this his readers never lost their interest while reading his essays.

Although the topic says it all but contrary to that the essay itself contains the pros
and cons of adversity as well as prosperity. Through the technique of references and
quotations he draws the attention of his readers and keeps their interest alive.

Bacon gives reference of a Roman philosopher named Seneca:

“The good things that belong to prosperity are to be

wished; but the good things that belong to adversity

are to be admired”

Prosperity is something that is directly related to happiness and relief so apparently it

will have all the positive things, but adversity being the opposite of prosperity, if it
affects our personality in a positive way then it must be appreciated. Hence this point
gives us a glimpse into a writer's mind that he wants the readers to think about adversity
in a positive way.

Now Bacon clarifies his point through “faith”. Everyone knows that miracles happen
but the people who have firm faith in God do not question it, while the non believers
question it because they don’t believe that miracles have a command over nature but it
is Adversity that makes miracles happen i.e. when something wrong is happening God
sets is right though a miracle. Hence Adversity is somewhat positive because it leads to
miracles. A miracle makes us think that there is someone who controls us as well as the
world around, we thank Him for everything that we have and submit before him.

Calamities are a part of our life and life does not allow escape from them but
imagination is something that takes us away from the hard realities of life and thus we
develop the quality of endurance through imagination. Adversity makes one's
imagination strong and active as they use the medium of poetry to express their
imagination.

Bacon refers to Hercules and Prometheus and uses the metaphor of “sea” to clarify
that how adversity teacher us the skill to sail and endure the hardships of life.

Temperance means moderation and prosperity teaches us temperance. When a

person is blessed with prosperity he will spend his resources mindfully because he
knows that he is going through a good time. On other hand fortitude means patience
and adversity teaches us fortitude. It gives us strength to bear the hardships of life. Both
are good but adversity is more of a heroic virtue because it helps us to lead life
smoothly.

Bacon uses the reference of religion:

“And the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored

more in describing the afflictions of Job than

the felicities of Solomon.”

He tells us that even Bible describes the hardships of Job and not much of the
felicities of Solomon. It clearly shows that if a Holy person like Job faced adversity then
who are we to cry and grief on difficulties that we face in our lives. We should be
thankful to God that he has given us these tough times so that we can get our reward at
the time hereafter.

In the end Bacon gives two examples to support adversity, one of a tapestry and
the other of a flower. The tapestry has lighter colors in background and darker colors in
foreground; it symbolizes our life where the major part of our life consists of hardships.
On the other hand the dark colors in the foreground symbolize the happiness in our life
because they are lesser in quantity. The example of flower tells us that if we really want
to make our life worthy then we have to face hardships because a flower’s fragrance can
be felt only if it is crushed.

Hence Bacon takes the side of adversity and proves it to be a positive virtue.

Talking about adversity, negative things used to come to my mind but after having read
Bacon’s essay “Of Adversity”, my opinion has totally changed. Now I have come to a
conclusion that even bad things can be looked and perceived as positive ones. I agree
with Bacon’s point of view that even adversity affects our life in a positive way.

Bacon gave examples and references from various fields so that if the reader does not
agree with one example he may agree with the other one.

Adversity describes a state of hardship and misfortune but it has a positive impact on
our personalities. If a person has experienced prosperity, only through his life then he
would never consider the non availability of resources in his life. One may not admire a
person who remains happy during his prosperous days, but a person who remains happy
during adversity is the one who should be admired. Thus adversity teaches us to thank
God in every condition.

The example of tapestry and flower inspired me the most. I was really impressed that
Bacon clarified his point so easily by using such simple things. Tapestry is a common
piece of art but we never look at it in the way Bacon has expressed. The ratio of dark and
light colors depicts the percentage of adversity and prosperity in our life. The example of
flower, when crushed emits fragrance, motivates us to bear depression and hardships of
life because they make us a worthy person.

----------------------------In Of Marriage and Single Life, Bacon highlights the differences

between the married life and the single’s life and the various advantages or
disadvantages of the same. The burden of a married life According to Bacon a married
man has a family to raise and take care of.

He is totally committed to providing security to them. But such commitment leaves him
unable to take up any enterprise whether good or bad, noble or wicked. He loses his
freedom to go after what his heart longs for.

Contents

Of Marriage and Single Life Summary

The Liberty of An Unmarried Life

The Unreliability of the Bachelor

A Discipline in Humanity
The Good Husband and Wife

The Apt Time for Marriage

The Failed Husbands

Of Marriage and Single Life: Key Thoughts

Recommended Book

Play Quiz

Of Marriage and Single Life Summary

The Liberty of An Unmarried Life

He feels that the unmarried men are unrestricted and free to make bold moves that can
produce important changes in culture and society.

According to him, human history is a testament to the fact that the greatest
achievements in the different spheres of science, art, literature etc. have been made by
men and women who were single and uninhibited by the constraints of marriage.

Wealthy singles can be generous with their money are therefore sought after by
churches. Unlike married men who are responsible to provide for their family members,
the bachelors are less encumbered by such worries.

However, he also states the fact that married men who have children have an incentive
to think about the future and posterity. They take matters of such importance with
gravity and seriousness.

This empowers them with a commitment to make efforts for improvement. This also
drives them to explore the future consequences of action or inaction in the present. It
can lead to a need to make a better tomorrow for their children and their children

In the same vein, Bacon points at various single people who are lethargic, unmotivated
and wasteful with their time and energy. They abuse their bachelorhood and often lack
sensitivity to various problems of the present and dangers in the future.

They exhibit a level of callousness to the opportunities that they have and have no
regrets about their self-indulgence, inaction, wastefulness and shameless disregard.

Then there are a few who are married but consider their wives and children as a burden
in their own freedom and selfish desires. There are also some wealthy people, who
wittingly decide to not reproduce or have children in fear of losing their riches to their
heirs.

To them, procreation will lead to more number of claimants to their wealth and
property. They refuse to see the need and benefits of a family and leaving a legacy
beyond their material possessions.

They are influenced by the fears of losing their wealth in the upkeep of a large family.
Their greed clouds their better judgment and they are swayed by such notions of not
having a progeny.

The Unreliability of the Bachelor

Bacon then points out people who stay single because they believe that marriage only
leads to more fetters, restrictions, responsibilities and obligations.

They have strange convictions that single life can protect them from ever having such
burden of obligations, duties and stresses that bother married people.
They are consumed by a self-created illusion of a blissful and fulfilling single life that
does not suffer from the bondage and shackles of marriage. They are forever on the run
from the prison of marital responsibilities and commitments

Therefore, unmarried men are always a flight risk, prone to just run away and desertion.
They are often good employees, better friends, as they have ample time for their
employees and friends.

Their ambitions, desires and jobs are their only considerations. However, it is their
volatile existence without any anchors of the family that make them unreliable. They
float without any roots to ground them.

A Discipline in Humanity

Bacon then described the need for men of justice like judges and magistrates to espouse
the qualities of honesty, reasoning and fairness.

While an unrestrained and unanchored bachelor can be unpredictable, reckless and

discretionary in his thought and judgment, a married man is more suited for the
responsibility of a judge.

He has the necessary understanding and regard for commitment and responsibility as he
has a wife and family to keep secure. He is more likely to be careful and patient with his
decision and less vulnerable to making rash judgments and errors in this thinking.
In military organizations, the generals use the whole premise of ‘a family to protect’
when they address their soldiers. The married soldiers are committed to ensuring
security if their wives and children.

The lofty ideals of virtues and chivalry, patriotism and duty are praised and encouraged
when soldiers take to the battlefield.

Bacon observes that in the army of Turks, it is the unmarried soldiers who are prone to
debase, perverse and the vilest behaviour when it comes to conducting with the
defeated opposition army and prisoners of war.

Thus, in a way having a wife and children are necessary restraints on the animalistic and
baser side of men and humanity. It curtails the Freudian basic and animal instincts and
desires.

Marriage has a way of establishing a loving home. Single men may be richer and more
capable of making massive charitable donations but they clack the empathetic and
sensitive side that comes from genuine companionship.

It is one’s wife and children that provide them with a moral understanding of their limits
of conduct and behaviour. Bachelors lack these terms of engagement and often
consumed by moral corruption, vulgar thoughts and cruel intentions.

They lack the need and ability to evaluate the moral significance and correctness of their
thoughts and action.

The Good Husband and Wife

Men with ethics and morals are good husbands. They are not tempted by the pleasures
of infidelity and remain honest and loyal to their wives and marriage.

Here, Bacon gives the example of Ulysses who valued his wife more than an immortal
life. In the same vein, the woman also courts and regarding chastity. They preserve it as
their sense of purity.

They have greater self-respect and value their body as sacred and not just means of
carnal pleasures of the flesh. Therefore, a woman of chastity is proud of her worth and
the worth of his loyal husband.

Their relationship is strong, durable and enriched with mutual respect. The vice of
jealousy can weaken this bond as the wife will not feel the trust of her husband if he is
envious and susceptible to doubt and suspicion.

The Apt Time for Marriage

Bacon points out the different roles a wife plays in a man’s life. When he is young and
passionate, she becomes his lover. She pleasures him sensually and her love and
devotion make him feel more virile and strong.

In his middle age, she is his companion in weal and woe, good or bad and triumph or
disaster. She becomes his constant, a pillar of strength. As he enters old age and
becomes weak and weary, his becomes a nurse and a caregiver. She nourishes him at his
most vulnerable.

Bacon says that deciding the correct time for marriage can be tricky for young and
desirous men. For them, it is the pleasures of the body that are most pressing.
Therefore, he suggests that young men should be patient and not rush into important
decisions.
Marriage demands commitment and total devotion and thus men must wait for the
opportune time. On the flipside, when a man is old and suffering, he must not rush to
get a wife even if there are beautiful young women who are available to marry.

Old age brings its share of problems and issues and may lead to unwanted situations.
Bacon beautifully uses a philosopher’s quote to answer the question about the correct
age and time to marry, “a young man not yet, an elder man not at all”

The Failed Husbands

Bacon feels that we often see some the most tyrannical and cruellest men with the
noblest and most generous wives. These women endure great hardships and are happy
with even the smallest gestures of affection from their mean husbands.

They are devoted and committed to securing their marriage even if they suffer many
sacrifices and pains during the process. But, it is the husbands who do not value such
great and loving wives, who are the biggest losers of all.

Their inability to value the affection and care of their wives makes them a failure both as
husbands and human beings. Bacon advises such husbands to mend their errant ways
and duly regard and honour their doting wives.

Of Marriage and Single Life: Key Thoughts

In Of Marriage and Single Life, Bacon is able to compare single life and married life
through different lenses. He puts forward the pros and cons of marriage in terms of how
it is viewed by society and how it affects an individual.

Even though he enlists the burdens and limitation of marriage, he extols the benefits of
marriage and how it shapes a person.
Bacon insists that having a family can make a man generous and merciful. It teaches a
form of discipline that single men, lack and thus are more cruel and reckless.

----------------------------------------

OF REVENGE: A CRITICAL APPRECIATION

Posted on 12 June 2014 at 13:46

“OF REVENGE” is a masterpiece of Bacon who in the eyes of Hugh Walker is: "First of
English essayists, as he remains for sheer mass and weight of genius, the greatest...”

“OF REVENGE” is a testimony of Hugh Walker's statement. It contains "counsels civil and
moral". It contains strange mixture of utilitarianism and high ideals as Bacon declares
that revenge is ignoble and that forgiveness is noble, but almost immediately adds that
in certain circumstances, revenge is tolerable. He does not consider below his dignity to
offer a piece of advice i.e. pragmatic to those who would take revenge, telling them to
be careful not to get into trouble with the law themselves while taking revenge . It is
right to conclude that “OF REVENGE” is "a handbook of practical wisdom". However, this
essay has "the pith and pregnancy in the communication of thought" that shows Bacon's
profound knowledge of human nature and behaviour. Moreover, this essay is rich in its
stylistic features that are the typical of Bacon and it is presented with an attitude of
formal dignity.

In the beginning of the essay, “OF REVENGE”, we come across a sentence of aphoristic
quality as: "REVENGE is a kind of wild justice."
It means that revenge is not recommended by Bacon as to him revenge is uncivilized and
leads to anarchy. Revenge is out of place where the rule of law must prevail. Any
tendency towards this arbitrary kind of justice should be firmly controlled. Arguing in the
favour of forgiveness, Bacon says that to forgive an enemy shows moral superiority and
to brood over a wrong done in the past is to neglect the demands of present and future.
In this respect, Bacon remarks: "... and wise men have enough to do with things present
and to come."

Bacon considers the wrong doer a thorn, so he must be neglected. It seems that Bacon's
logic here is a faulty one. One cannot help removing the thorn, which has caused pain.
More faulty logic is expressed by Bacon that a wrong doer does wrong out of selfish
reasons out of his love for himself. There is no point in being angry with such a man
because he loves himself. Indeed Bacon has gone too far for forbidding revenge.

It is interesting to note that in one breath, Bacon forbids avenging and in the other, he
starts advising how is to take revenge. This type of morality is typical of Bacon. He says:
"The most tolerable sort of revenge is for those wrongs which there is no law to
remedy."

However, he advises that this revenge should be taken with great care i.e. that avenger
should not be caught by law; otherwise, his enemy would have double advantage over
him. In taking revenge, Bacon, suggests that it is generous on the part of the avenger to
reveal his identity to the victim, because the pleasure of revenge lies not so much in
causing pain than in making the enemy realize to repent of his mistake. Bacon does not
approve of the people who are crafty cowards; they do not reveal their identity to their
victim. In this way, purpose of revenge is not served. In this regard, imagery used by
Bacon is very apt when he says about these people: "But base and crafty cowards are
like the arrow that flieth in the dark."

Revealing another aspect of taking revenge, Bacon compares the views of Cosmus and
Job. According to Cosmus, a wrong done by a friend is more unpardonable than the
wrong done by an enemy while Job is of the view that if we expect benefits from friends,
we should also be ready to forgive any injuries we receive from them. Therefore, it is
generous to forgive our friends that is implied by Bacon and this behaviour will
strengthen the bonds of society.

Penetrating deep over the subject of revenge, Bacon presents an undeniable

psychological truth as he observes: "...that a man that studieth revenge keeps his own
wounds green."

Indeed, it is a witty saying of proverbial quality. Continuous brooding over revenge

torments the man keeping alive the memory of what he has suffered.

In the end of the essay, astonishingly, Bacon differentiates between public revenges and
private revenges. Revenges taken for the murder of certain public figures have resulted
in prosperity. Bacon asserts rightly that the assassination of Caesar, Pertinax, Henry III of
France and others have been avenged successfully and their avengers have prospered
and flourished; moreover, their nations have won honour in this respect. However,
Bacon is not in favour of private revenge. According to him a revengeful person spends
his lifetime contemplating and doing harm, is like a witch. A witch comes to an
unfortunate end and a revengeful person, certainly meets sad fate.

“OF REVENGE” is the indicative of Bacon's wide learning. He uses a number of historical
and Biblical allusions to illustrate his ideas. Figures of speech used by Bacon are
revealing and delightful such as secret avengers are like the arrow "that flieth in the
dark". There is no obscurity of thought in this essay. Sentences are short and loaded with
meaning. Style is compact having sentences with quotable quality. “OF REVENGE” may
be described as a critic remarks "infinite riches in a little room". Overall, this essay "OF
REVENGE” is rich regarding insight, advice and style as a critic observes about “OF
REVENGE”: "There has been no more active stimulant to the wit and the understanding."

------------------------------

“Of Revenge” as the name suggests is about a revengeful person, who thinks to take
revenge from an enemy. Sir Francis Bacon, in a didactic tone, talks about merits and
demerits of revenge. The essay is full of wisdom but it is of a strange kind. He gives
examples from the past, quotes opinions of philosophers and uses allusions to clear his
point of view. This essay although has morality yet it is limited to worldly wisdom. He
also uses similes, metaphors, and illustrations so that his readers can better understand
his message. He puts the pros and cons of taking revenge. Sir Francis Bacon explains
some situations, in which revenge is allowed. He also elucidates us why people harm
others. Let us see what else he has to say to his readers.

Revenge and its Cons: Views of Sir Francis Bacon:

He starts his essay while saying, “Revenge is a kind of wild justice”. He believes that
revenge comes in the category of justice but it is certainly rough kind of justice. Firstly,
Sir Francis Bacon tries to convince every revengeful person not to take revenge but if
someone has decided to take it then he should adopt a legal method. In his eyes,
breaking the law is not a rational act. Moreover, a person should do his best to forget the
bad deeds of his enemy; by doing so, he will get two benefits; one of them is moral
superiority. Forgiveness makes a person noble. He quotes the wise words of Solomon,
who said, “It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence.” Secondly, a loss is loss forever.
Revenge cannot recover a loss.

Moreover, wise men do not think about past; they concentrate on the present and
future. Sir Francis Bacon considers a person unwise if he remembers worst days of the
past to take revenge. Moreover, it is a fruitless effort.

Why People Harm Others?

There are certain reasons due to which people harm others; “profit”, “pleasure”,
“honour”, “or the like”. Some people harm others to make financial gain; some do it to
pleasure themselves or their near and dear ones; whereas some do it to get the honour.
All these acts show the selfishness of a person. If a person is selfish then not everyone
should follow him. Sir Francis Bacon here suggests that a revengeful person should
ignore him. He does not need to keep a selfish person in his mind for the whole life as by
doing so, he just wastes his time. There is also another reason due to which people harm
others; “ill-nature”. If a person is of ill-nature, then it is better to ignore him. Bacon calls
him “thorn or briar, which [only] prick[s] and scratch[s]”. He cannot damage a person at
the largest level; therefore, there is no need to think about an ill-natured person.

In Which Situation, a Person Can Take Revenge?

There is a situation when a person can take revenge from his enemy. Where the law
does not provide any remedy a person can take revenge. However, precautions should
be kept in mind. Firstly, he should keep in mind that law does not go against him.
Otherwise, he will still be at disadvantage as compared to his enemy. Moreover, identity
should be revealed while doing any harm to an enemy. The true meaning of revenge lies
in seeing the miserable condition of the victim. Revenge completes only in case the
enemy repents on his wrongdoings. He should know that why harm is being done to
him; and it is possible only if the revengeful person has revealed his identity to his
enemy. A person who does not reveal his identity while taking revenge is a coward in the
eyes of Sir Francis Bacon.

Anyone Is Pardonable but Not friends:

Francis Bacon has deeply studied “Cosmus, Duke of Florence” and “Job”. He quotes their
words. Dosimo de Medici (Cosmus) has said that anyone is forgivable but a traitorous
friend. It is unwise to pardon treacherous and unfaithful friends. Job, on the other hand,
thinks the opposite. He has said that if a person obtains benefits from friends then he
should forgive them for their misconducts. Bacon supports Job in this regard while
saying that “But yet the spirit of Job was in a better tune”. Here too, readers can witness
the worldly wisdom of Sir Francis Bacon. If a person gets favours from his friends then it
is necessary for him to ignore the disloyalty of his friends.

Why Revenge is Harmful?

First of all, it wastes time. Secondly, it keeps vengeful person’s wounds fresh. Thirdly, it
mentally tortures him as he always thinks of doing harm to his enemy; therefore, he lives
a miserable life. Bacon calls this kind of life “the life of witches”. However, there are
some revenges, which are necessary to be taken. Sir Francis Bacon named them “public
revenge s”. He supports his assertions by referring a “public revenge” from Roman
history. Julius Caesar was assassinated for the murder of “Pertinax, and “Henry III of
France”. Another kind of revenge is “private revenges”. “Public revenges are for the most
part fortunate….. But in private revenges it is not”.

The conclusion of “Of Revenge” By Sir Francis Bacon:

Sir Francis Bacon highly criticizes a revengeful person. He suggests that he should either
forget his past or ignore his enemy. Otherwise, he is going to live a miserable life.
Nevertheless, we see Bacon’s worldly approach. The essay is moral in nature but
nowhere in the essay is morality related to spirituality. This essay is only thoughtful from
worldly perspectives rather than religious perspectives. Bacon adds relevant quotations
of ancient philosophers and makes his essay rich. The advice of not taking revenge,
which Sir Francis Bacon gives to his readers, is not new, but his arguments and
references makes it fresh. Indeed, this essay is worth reading especially it is dedicated to
those persons, who are living an unhappy life while having revenge in their minds.

--------------------------------

Of Death By Sir Francis Bacon | Complete Summary and Analysis

BY ANWAAR AHMED JANUARY 23, 2019

1243 0

Sir Francis Bacon has written “Of Death” in order to end the fear of death from human
minds. He suggests that a person should either nip the fear of death in the bud or at
least overpower it. Sir Francis Bacon has written “Of Death” in order to end the fear of
death from human minds. He suggests that a person should either nip the fear of death
in the bud or at least overpower it. Sir Francis Bacon fully explains the fear of death and
elucidates its different perspectives. He also speaks against false preaching of Monks and
religious scholars. In his views, they have exaggerated death, due to which it has become
dreadful. The essay has many ideas; he supports every idea through an example. He also
mentions proverbs of old philosophers, through which he strengthens his stance. Style
of the poet is simple and lucid yet his arguments are solid. At the end of the essay,
readers feel that the author has convinced them. Ultimately, readers thank Sir Francis
Bacon because fear of death, at least for the time being, diminishes from the minds of
the readers.

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Why Do People Fear from Death?

It is true that people afraid of death just like children afraid of the darkness. Why do
they fear? Bacon answers it. Children listen stories of ghosts; elders tell them that ghosts
appear at night; therefore, they feel afraid of darkness. Similarly, agonies of death are
told to human beings due to which they fear from it. When a person thinks about death,
he imagines it from one of the two perspectives: religious and natural. If he is thinking
that death is a procedure to travel from one world to the other and he would be
punished because of his sins, then he is thinking from a religious perspective.
Conversely, a person may think from a natural perspective; he may think that death is
certain; it is the law of nature. However, Bacon thinks that in case of natural death, fear
is an act of cowardliness.

Bacon then criticizes religious beliefs. He believes that scholars have mixed religion with
superstition. There are some books, in which it is mentioned that death is painful
suffering. He then quotes an example of squeezing a finger; “a man should think with
himself what the pain is if he has but his finger’s end pressed or tortured, and thereby
imagine what the pains of death are, when whole body is corrupted and dissolved”. In
Sir Francis Bacon ’s eyes, death has been exaggerated due to which people are afraid of
death. Death Vs. Its Concept:

Death Vs Its Concept in the Eyes of Sir Francis Bacon:

What is more horrifying? Death or its concept? The author refers to Roman Philosopher
Seneca, who said that it is not the death but its concept, which is fearful. When people
put their feet in shoes of the person, who is near to death, they become frightened; his
groans, his face and his convulsions increase the fear of people. Moreover, the dead
body of near and dear one also enhances the fear of people. Death itself is not as
dreadful as circumstances and funeral ceremonies are. Thus, it is not death but its
concept, which is horrible. Furthermore, Sir Francis Bacon believes that anyone can
overpower the fear of death. However, he should have the wish to do so. If he has, he
can control his fear. Even the feeblest desire of a person subdues the fear of death.

Who are the Fearless People?

Sir Francis Bacon has prepared a list of people, who do not afraid of death. Even they
deliberately pursue death. Here is the list of those people.

A person who wants revenge has no fear of death. Even if he knows that his enemy
would kill him. What he wants is just revenge.

Passionate lover; he can die for his beloved.

A man of honor; he can die to protect his honor.

Downtrodden man (a sufferer); he would prefer death to sufferings.

Bacon has also quoted an incident of Roman Emperor Otho, who committed suicide. His
followers also killed themselves because they were his true supporters. Afterwards, the
author again refers Seneca, who says that a person may commit suicide if he is fed up
from life. Similarly, due to boredom and feelings of monotony, a person may kill himself.

Some Brave Men from the History:

Sir Francis Bacon then mentions those people who do not afraid of death, even when it
approaches them. Here is the list of those people who remained calmed at the time of
death.

Augustus Caesar, Roman Emperor; he was so calm that he gave a compliment to his wife.
Tiberius, Roman Emperor; died during maintaining up appearances. His death was
fearless.

Vespasian, Roman Emperor; he said, he was going to be a god and died.

Galba, Roman Emperor; he was killed. He died gladly for the welfare of his people.

Septimius Severus, Roman Emperor was curious to die after realizing that death is
approaching him.

Numerous similar examples are there in the world when people died gladly.

Should we afraid of death: Suggestions of Sir Francis Bacon:

Sir Francis Bacon supports the opinion of Juvenal, a Roman writer, who has said that we
should not afraid of death. It is natural; it is certain. When a person came into the world,
he bore pain; the same pain which the elders go through at the time of death. Bacon
does not support the concept of preparing for death. In Athens, Stoics used to prepare
for death. Bacon is of the view that it just increases the fear. A person, who remains busy
in his works and suddenly dies, suffers less pain as compared to a person, who prepares
for it. A person should concentrate on doing good deeds; if he does so, he would suffer
less pain at the time of death.

The last example, which Bacon quotes, is of Simeon. He wished to see Christ and when
he achieved his goal of seeing Christ, he happily died. Thus, everyone has goals in this
world. If a person achieves them, he can gladly die.

Remarks of Sir Francis Bacon on Benefits of Death:

The first benefit of death, which Sir Francis Bacon, mentions is that people glorify good
deeds of the dead. This custom is very common in every society. When a person dies,
people appreciate him. However, in his life, fewer people talk about his good deeds. The
second reason, which Bacon has mentioned is sarcastic. He says that when a person
dies, his enemies do not feel jealous for him.

Conclusion of “Of Death” by Sir Francis Bacon:

Moto of the essay is very much clear. Sir Francis Bacon encourages his readers to accept
death as a law of nature. Instead of being cowards and running away from death, people
should become brave and feel its beauty. The author has a good knowledge of Roman
history and Greeks philosophy. He makes references from ancient Roman history. He has
also read philosophy of ancient Romans; therefore, he supports his depositions through
examples and solid references. Latin phrases have also been illustrated in this essay. In
short, the essay is highly optimistic, as death has been presented as a natural thing.

------------------------------------------

Of Studies by Sir Francis Bacon | Complete Summary and Analysis

BY ANWAAR AHMED JANUARY 25, 2019

1258 0

“Of Studies” is one of the most quoted essays of Sir Francis Bacon. He has analyzed the
importance of studies; therefore, in this essay, he convinces his readers to know its
vitality. He does not only talk about bookish knowledge but also demonstrates the
importance of experience; without experience, the studies cannot help a person, means
Sir Francis Bacon. Moreover, in his eyes, studies and education are two separate things.
However, he agrees that education is the name of studying books and experiences of
life. He answers some common questions that arise in every common mind. For
instance, he answers why we should read books; what are the impacts of studies in one’s
life; why study without experience is useless; and many other such like questions.

He elaborates each assertion through either reference or example. Style of the author is
simple but his arguments are much effective. Further, he uses concise sentences, similes,
and Latin phrases to strengthen his stance.

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Three Types of studies in the Eyes of Sir Francis Bacon:

From the very beginning of the essay, Sir Francis Bacon divides studies into three
categories; in fact, these three types are benefits of studies. Studies serve three
purposes, says Sir Francis Bacon, “delight”, “ornament” and “ability”. In Bacon’s times,
the drama was banned; drama may have a moral purpose but it is certainly a source of
entertainment. It was forbidden in that era; therefore, people had no other option
except to rely upon books; thus, books replaced stage. From that point of view, if we
think, then books are the source of entertainment. It may be the reason that Bacon has
used the word “delight”. From modern views, there are still people in the world, who
find delight in books instead of movies and plays.

However, in next lines, he has explained the word “delight” while saying, “their chief use
for delight, is in privateness and retiring”. Hence, only words are different but the
purpose is same i.e. entertainment.

Ornaments:

The second purpose that studies serve is “ornaments”. A person, after learning from
books, can present himself in a good manner. Studies also help a person learn
etiquettes. His societal impression is improved and he becomes wise in the eyes of
people. However, Bacon has used only one word to explain, “ornament” i.e. “discourse”.
Thereby, studies increase the speaking power of a person but the word “discourse” also
needs explanation. It has many meanings; discourse has different types; romantic,
professional, religious, motivational, debate etc. Nevertheless, considering in view the
worldly approach of the author, he may have used it as a professional speaking power or
perhaps, he is talking about impressive discourse in every field of life whether it is
profession, religion or romance.

Elaboration of the third purpose of studies, according to Sir Francis Bacon is “judgment
and disposition of business”. It is somewhat professional. Studies can help a person in
dealing with business matters. Thereby, studies support a person in professional life. Sir
Francis Bacon has also used the word “judgment” to infer that studies enhance mental
eyesight of a person. His vision becomes strong and he takes quick as well as accurate
decisions in business matters.

Experience is the Key Factor:

All three purposes are useless without experience, says Bacon. Too much study for
“delight” makes a person lazy; ornamentation makes him showcase; similarly, cramming
bundle of rules from books does not increase his ability nor does it help him enhancing
his thinking capacity. Everyone has natural abilities and studies make them perfect but
along with studies, the experience is also required to gain perfection. It actually
improves the mentality of a person. In order to elaborate it further, Bacon uses similes,
which are worth mentioning:-

“the natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning by study; and studies
themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by
experience.”

Sir Francis Bacon

Hence, studies show a person thousands of paths to walk but experience helps choosing
the right one. Additionally, different types of men see studies differently; some people
do not give studies any value; some appreciate them; but wise are those, who perfectly
use them.

Why and What Kind of Books should We Study?

After describing the importance of study, Francis Bacon gives his own opinions,
“read….to weigh and consider”. A person should not read books to win over a debate or
to oppose arguments of others; nor should he read to believe on each and everything
written in the book; rather he should study books to know the difference between right
and wrong. Moreover, not every book is worth reading. He divides books, too, into three
categories; “tasted”, “swallowed”, and “chewed and digested”. “Tasted” books are those,
which require no special attention. A reader just needs to go through them; books that
come in the category of “swallowed” need a little attention. Category, “Chewed and
digested” is self-explanatory. These kinds of books need the full concentration of the
readers. Each word and every line should be chewed completely and then digested.

Some Subjects and Their Purposes:

If a person has a habit of reading books then Bacon guarantees improvement in his
temperament. If he is used to exchanging dialogues then his wit is going to be enhanced.
Above all, if he reads books and then writes down every important suggestion or advice
then this method will definitely increase his intellectuality. Francis Bacon, at the end of
the essay, creates a list of different subjects and sorts them by their benefits. Here is the
list of books and their benefits:-

History increases wisdom.

Poetry enhances imagination.

Mathematics makes a person subtle.

Philosophy deepens thinking.

Logic and rhetoric help to contend.

Thus, a person needs to study the relevant subject as per his choice or requirement. If
he wants wisdom, history can help him. If he wants imaginative powers, his concern
should be poetry. Similarly, mathematics, philosophy, and logic serve their specific
purposes. In Bacon’s eyes, a person can improve himself as much as he can; he just
needs to focus. He actually wants to say that, “reading is to the mind what exercise is to
the body”. With body, the mind also needs exercise; therefore, every person needs to do
an exercise of the mind; he can do it by studying books.

Conclusion of “Of Studies” by Sir Francis Bacon:

The whole essay proves the intellectuality of Sir Francis Bacon. It is full of wisdom. Every
line, written by the author, is philosophically rich. His philosophy is definitely
praiseworthy. Moreover, he is called the father of English prose not only because of his
deep philosophy but also because of his writing style. He uses exact words to summarize
his viewpoint. He tries to demonstrate his thinking in concise words. This essay is well
knitted. There is no denying the fact that “Of Studies” is the pure creation of Sir Francis
Bacon. In short, this essay is enough to regard him as the father of English prose.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gulliver’s Travels: A Critical Analysis

A Satire, a Parody, and a Comic Masterpiece

The book called Gulliver’s Travels is a satire on four aspects of man: the physical, the
political, the intellectual, and the moral. The book is also a brilliant parody of travel
literature; and it is at once science fiction and a witty parody of science fiction. It
expresses savage indignation at the follies, vices, and stupidities of men, and it shows an
awareness of man’s tragic insufficiency. At the same time it is a great comic masterpiece,
a fact which readers of solemn temperaments often fail to recognize.

The Book Neither Morbid, Nor the Work of a Madman

It would not be absolutely correct to think that Gulliver’s Travels expresses despair or
that the book is nihilistic in its outlook. All Swift’s satire was certainly written in anger,
contempt, or disgust; but it was written to promote self-knowledge in the faith that self-
knowledge could lead to right action. Some commentators have wrongly called this book
morbid, and some have gone so far as to think that it is the work of a man who was
going mad at the time he wrote it. But the fact is that the gaiety and comedy of the
voyages described in the book are an indication of Swift’s essential intellectual and
spiritual good health. This book was written when Swift was at the height of his
intellectual powers; and the comic spirit of the book as a whole rules out the view that it
is morbid and that it shows the mental illness of the author.

Occasions on Which We Laugh in the Course of Our Reading the Book

As we go through this book, we laugh frequently. We laugh and were meant to laugh at
the toy kingdom of the Lilliputians; at the acrobatic skill of the politicians and the
courtiers; at the absurd jealousy of the diminutive minister who suspects an adulterous
relationship between his wife and the giant Gulliver. We laugh at the plight of Gulliver in
Brobdingnag: one of the lords of creation, frightened by a puppy, rendered ludicrous by
the tricks of a mischievous monkey, in awe of a dwarf; embarrassed by the lascivious
antics of the maids of honour; and at last content to be tended like a baby by his girl--
nurse. We laugh at the abstractness of the philosophers of Laputa, and at the mad
experimenters of Balnibarbi. And we are right in at least smiling at the preposterous
horses, the Houyhnhnms, so limited and so positive in their knowledge and opinions, so
skilled in such improbable tasks as threading needles or carrying trays, so complacent in
their belief that they are “the perfection of nature”. Much of the pleasure that we feel in
this book is due to this gay, comic, fanciful inventiveness. However, we should also keep
in mind the fact that, beyond the mirth and liveliness of the book, are gravity, anger,
anxiety, and frustration, and Swift intended that we should experience these also in full
measure.

Our Laughter, Silenced by the Spectacle of Corrupt Human Nature

We can put the case by saying that, while the surface of the book is comic, at its centre is
tragedy, transformed by means of style and tone into cold irony. Swift is a great master
of shock. With perfect control of tone and pace, and with perfect timing, he startles us
into an awareness of a dark abyss, the abyss of corrupt human nature. Swift forces us to
look into the stupid, evil, brutal heart of humanity and, when we do, our laughter is
abruptly silenced. Swift’s irony makes some readers call him a hateful misanthrope, but
others have found this irony wholesome and invigorating.

Events Which Established the Tones of the Four Voyages

The title of the book tells us that it is an account of Gulliver’s travels into several remote
nations of the world. The four voyages of Gulliver are so arranged in the book as to show
an intensification of tone as we travel through increasing darkness into the black heart
of humanity. But the forward movement of the book is interrupted by the third voyage
which is a grim comment on science, politics, economics as practised by madmen. (Swift
uses the term madmen for those who misuse human reason.) The tone of each voyage is
established by the nature of the event that brings about the adventure. In the first
voyage (which is the gayest and the most benign), it is accident, or the carelessness of
the look-out, which accounts for the shipwreck. In the second (which is much more
savage in tone), Gulliver is left alone in a strange land through the cowardice of his
shipmates. In the third, he is captured and later abandoned by pirates. In the fourth, his
crew of cutthroat revolts, seizes the ship, and leaves him to starve on a nearby island.

The Idea of the Great Chain of Being Used by Swift in the First Two Voyages

The first two voyages show how effectively Swift uses the idea of the great chain of
being. The philosopher Pascal had asked what is man in nature, and had thus answered
the question: “A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the
Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything.” Swift translates this theme into a
different key, and makes it the major instrument of his satire. In the first two voyages,
Gulliver is made aware of the disproportion which Pascal had found in man. Placed on
the isthmus of a middle state, Gulliver in his voyage to Lilliput looks down the chain of
being and finds himself an awkward giant in that delicate kingdom. In the voyage to
Brobdingnag he looks up the chain and discovers a race of superior beings among whom
his pride melts on account of his humiliating knowledge of his own physical
insignificance. Although the emphasis in these two voyages is upon physical size, it is
notable that Lilliput calls into operation Gulliver’s kindliness and gentleness, and that
Brobdingnag brings out his moral and physical courage. This means that, although man
is comically and tragically disproportioned, man has moral virtues which he can exercise
and which he does exercise.
The Disproportion in the Lilliputians

But the satire of Swift is a double weapon. The inhabitants of these two strange lands
(Lilliput and Brobdingnag) are also disproportioned. From the start the Lilliputians
arouse our interest and win our liking. The pigmies of Lilliput ingeniously capture the
giant whom chance has cast on their shore. They humanely solve the problem of feeding
him. Their pretty land and their fascinating little city capture our fancy. But in the end
they prove to be proud, envious, rapacious, treacherous, cruel, revengeful, jealous, and
hypocritical. Their social and political systems have become corrupt. They are governed
by an emperor who aims at destroying the neighbouring kingdom. The courtiers and
ministers here are chosen not for their fitness but for their skill in walking on the tight
rope and leaping over sticks or creeping under them. The pigmies of Lilliput are an
example of the disproportion of man like Gulliver himself. Their vices, their appetites,
their ambitions, and their passions are too big for their small stature. They appear to
Gulliver to be venomous and petty, even as Gulliver and his kind must appear to some
higher order of beings.

The Enlightened and Benevolent Brobdingnagians

In Brobdingnag we meet creatures ten or twelve times the size of Europeans, and we
share Gulliver’s anxiety lest their moral natures be as brutish as their bodies. But the
reverse is true. Through a violent shift of simple tone and point of view Gulliver, who
seemed to be lovable and humane among the Lilliputians, appears disgraceful and
morally insensitive in contrast to the enlightened and benevolent people of this land.
Since Gulliver represents us (all human beings), his shame and ludicrousness are ours.
When the peasants of Brobdingnag discover Gulliver, they feel both curiosity and dislike.
The farmer picks him up with the caution of one who tries to catch a small dangerous
animal in such a way that it shall not be able to scratch or bite him. Gulliver fears that his
captor may dash him to the ground.

The Reaction of the Brobdingnagian King to Gulliver’s Description of England

Gulliver is subjected to one humiliation after another, but he is still blind to the defects
of European society. When he is questioned by the King about England, he describes,
with enthusiasm, the class system, the constitution, the laws, the military glory, and the
history of that country. In the King’s questions we hear the voice of morality condemning
the institutions of the modem world. And the verdict of a moral being on European man
is given in the following words in which we can perceive the King’s contempt:

“But, by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much
pains wringed and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to
be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl
upon the surface of the earth.”

(Part II, Chapter 6, Page 173)

Such a conclusion is inescapable because the King is high-minded, benevolent, and

rational. The King and his people think practically, not theoretically; concretely, not
metaphysically; simply, not intricately. Brobdingnag is Swift’s utopia of common good
sense and morality; while Gulliver, conditioned by the corrupt society nom which he
comes, appears to be blind to moral values. Gulliver’s account of the history of England
in the seventeenth century draws the following crushing retort nom the King:

“It was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions,

banishments; the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness,
cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice and ambition could produce.”

(Part II, Chapter 6, Page 172)

Gulliver’s Adverse Comments on the King’s Views

When Gulliver offers to the King a complete control over his subjects by teaching him to
manufacture gunpowder, the King is horrified. Thereupon Gulliver, speaking as a
European, feels surprise and contempt, and explains the King’s rejection as “a strange
effect of narrow principles and short views”. The King is baffled by the concept of
political science. He cannot understand how the art of government can be reduced to a
science. This is how Gulliver comments on the King’s attitude:

“He confined the knowledge of governing within very narrow bounds, to common sense
and reason, to justice and lenity, to the speedy determination of civil and criminal
causes, with some other obvious topics which are not worth considering. And he gave it
for his opinion that whoever could make two ears of com or two blades of grass grow
upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind,
and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put
together.”

(Part II, Chapter 7, Page 176)

The learning of the Brobdingnagians is simple and practical, “consisting only in morality,
history, poetry, and mathematics”. It is noteworthy that Swift omits metaphysics,
theoretical science, and theology nom the category of useful knowledge.

Swift’s Attack on Human Pride and Vanity

Swift makes a brilliant use of the chain of being in order to make his attack on pride in
the first two voyages more powerful. As we are expected to recognize ourselves in the
Lilliputians, and also in Gulliver when he arrives in Brobdingnag, we become aware of
our own pettiness; we become aware of the disproportion of the human race and of the
shocking difference between what we profess and what we are. But Swift uses the good
giants to strike a blow at human vanity and to introduce a motif which afterwards he
employs with a terrible effect in the last voyage. That motif is disgust, of which Swift is a
great master. Philosophers of the time were never tired of admiring the beautiful
perfection of the human body, its intricateness, its perfect power of speech and
expression, its happy appropriateness to the particular place which men occupy in the
scheme of things. But how does this glorious human body appear to inferior creatures
like insects? Swifts wants us to understand the answer by making us share Gulliver’s
disgust at the cancerous breasts and lousy bodies of the beggars, and at the blotched
colour, the huge pores, the coarse hairs, and the nauseating odours of the maids of
hon9ur. Such is the skin, perhaps, that the Borbdingnagians love to touch. Human
beauty is only apparent, while human disproportion is real.

Part III, Loosely Episodic

The account of the third voyage of Gulliver has generally been regarded as the least
successful. However, as at least one critic points out, it is the funniest account in the
whole book. Structurally this account is loosely episodic, lacking a unity of action and
tone. In this account we have the details of Gulliver’s visit to Laputa or the flying island,
to Lagado (which is the capital of Balnibarbi), to Glubbdubdrib, to Luggnagg, and to
Japan. It is because Gulliver visits several countries in the course of this voyage that his
account appears to be sprawling and not well-knit. It would seem that Swift has put all
the material here which he could not work into the other three voyages. This third
voyage is a kind of fantasia on two themes which Swift treats under a single metaphor.
The metaphor is science, and the themes are politics and the abuse of reason.

The Comic Obsessions of the People of Laputa (in Part III)

The people of Laputa or the flying island visited by Gulliver in the course of his third
voyage are obsessed with only two branches of knowledge––namely, mathematics and
music. These obsessions render these people awkward and clumsy so far as the common
actions and behaviour of life are concerned. They are very bad reasoners; and
imagination, fancy, and invention are alien to them. The tailor who is ordered to make a
suit of clothes for Gulliver first takes Gulliver’s altitude with a quadrant; and then, with
rule and compasses, sketches the dimensions and outlines of Gulliver’s whole body on a
sheet of paper. After six days, the tailor brings a suit of clothes which is very badly made
and which is quite out of shape because he had made a mistake in his calculations. The
obsession with music makes these people think that they can hear the music of the
spheres. Besides, these people are in a state of constant fear because of the changes
which they think would take place in the heavenly bodies. They apprehend that the
earth would, in course of time, be swallowed up by the sun or that the face of the sun
would by degrees become dark and therefore give no more light to the world. The
astronomers on this island have been able to make discoveries beyond those made by
European astronomers. The astronomers here have made a catalogue of ten thousand
fixed stars; they have discovered two satellites revolving about Mars; and they have
observed ninety-three different comets. All this is intended to be a satire on the
scientific experiments of the time, because Swift was no believer in science.

Satire on New Agricultural Methods Prevailing in Lagado (in Part III)

The satire on scientific research continues when Gulliver is informed by Munodi that the
new agricultural methods, introduced in Lagado by those who had fallen under the
influence of life in Laputa, have proved to be a complete failure. Munodi points out that
the new methods had yielded no results, so that the whole country now lies in a state of
neglect, with the houses in ruins and the people without food or clothes. By the new
schemes which were introduced into Lagado, Swift may have meant the new agricultural
methods in vogue in England in the beginning of the eighteenth century. It is noteworthy
that the various projects introduced by the persons who had visited Laputa and fallen
under the influence of the Laputans are impractical. One such project is that “all the
fruits of the earth shall come to maturity at whatever season we think fit to choose, and
increase a hundredfold more than they do at present.”

Satire on Preposterous Scientific Projects in Lagado (in Part III)

The scientific experiments in this part of the book also include the various researches
that are in progress at the Academy of Projectors in Lagado. The projects at this
Academy are fantastic and preposterous. Experiments are being made to extract
sunbeams out of cucumbers, to convert human excrement into its original food, to build
houses from the roof downwards to the foundation, to obtain silk from cobwebs, and to
produce books on various subjects by the use of a machine and without having to use
one’s brain.

Satire on Politicians in Lagado (in Part III)

So far as politics is concerned, Swift makes us laugh at the foolishness and selfishness of
the favourites of monarchs and others engaged in the game of politics. There is a school
of political projects at the Academy of Lagado. Swift ironically tells us that the professors
at this school have a scheme for persuading Kings to choose favourites on the basis of
wisdom, capacity, and virtue; for teaching ministers of the government to be guided by
the public good; for rewarding merit and ability; for choosing for employment persons
who are properly qualified; and so on. One ingenious professor has proposed that every
legislator should be given a certain medicine which will keep him in a fit mental
condition so that he should not talk any nonsense during the whole session of the
legislative assembly. Another professor has suggested that the favourites of kings should
be given suitable medicines to stimulate their memories so that they should not forget
their promises to the public. Another suggestion is that every legislator, after stating his
opinion and arguing in defence of it, should be compelled to give his vote directly
contrary because, if that is done, the result would be in the interests of the public. A
method involving a surgical operation to bring about a reconciliation between the views
of two opposing parties in a country has also been developed. Furthermore, methods
have been devised for raising funds through taxation without upsetting the members of
the public. One of the professors has devised ways and means for discovering plots and
conspiracies against the government. These ways and means include an investigation of
the diet of all suspected persons, their times of eating, upon which side they lie in bed,
with which hand they wipe their posteriors, and so on.

Satire on Historians, Literary Critics, and Others (in Part III)

In addition to the two major targets of satire in Part III, we also have a criticism of
historians and historical researches. Alexander and Hannibal, for instance, give to
Gulliver different versions of certain events from those found in books of history. The
commentators and critics of Homer and Aristotle are also ridiculed for having grossly
misrepresented these two great authors to the world. Swift also mocks at men and
women of great families who had married persons of the lowest classes, thus injecting
inferior blood into their families. Those who have risen to worldly greatness by adopting
shameful methods are also the objects of Swift’s satirical attack. And, finally, there is the
grim and corrosive satire on the human longing for immortality which is symbolized by
the Struldbrugs.

The Fourth Voyage, a Target of Attack

The fourth voyage in Gulliver’s Travels marks the climax of the book. This great section
has provoked violent attacks on Swift and his book. The reason for these attacks is that
this portion of the book has been misunderstood. This portion has offended the
unreflective and pious Christian, the sentimentalist, and the optimist. According to
Thackeray, the meaning of this part of the book was that “man is utterly wicked,
desperate, and imbecile, and his passions are monstrous and his boosted power mean,
that he is and deserves to be the shame of brutes, and ignorance is better than his
vaunted reason.” Thackeray adds: “It is Yahoo language, a monster gibbering shrieks and
gnashing imprecations against mankind, filthy in word, filthy in thought, furious, raging,
obscene.” The view that Swift was a savage, mad, embittered misanthrope is largely
based upon this misinterpretation of the last voyage. Actually, the account of the last
voyage is the work of a Christian-humanist and a moralist.

Reasons for the Attack on the Account of the Fourth Voyage

The reasons why the account of the last voyage has been misunderstood are as follows:

1. The sheer intensity and violent rhetoric of the voyage are overwhelming and may
almost paralyze the critical faculty of certain readers.

2. Gulliver in the frenzy of his mad misanthropy has been too easily identified with Swift
himself. Actually, Gulliver is speaking for himself, and not for Swift. A careful reading
would reveal the fact that Gulliver becomes the victim of Swift’s irony as he grows to
hate the human race. The final pages of the book are grimly comic.

3. The primary symbols of this voyage have been totally misunderstood. The
Houyhnhnms have been regarded as Swift’s ideal for man, and the Yahoos have been
identified as his representation of what men are in actual fact. Neither of these opinions
seems to be correct.

Gulliver, Situated on the Isthmus* of a Middle State

In the first two voyages Gulliver is shown uncomfortably situated on the isthmus of a
middle state between the very small (Lilliput) and the very large (Brobdingnag). In the
last voyage also he stands on an isthmus, but now the isthmus exists between the purely
rational and the purely sensual-between Houyhnhnm and Yahoo. Neither of these
symbols can stand for men, because Gulliver is himself the symbol of mankind.
Unfortunately, Gulliver shares somehow in the nature of both extremes. Swift simply
isolates the two elements that combine in the duality of man; the middle link, in order
to allow Gulliver to contemplate each in its essence.

The Portrayal of the Houyhnhnms (in Part IV)

Swift does not recommend that Gulliver (who represents us also) should try to become a
Houyhnhnm. We find that in every sense Houyhnhnm-land is a rationalistic paradise.
The Houyhnhnms are the embodiment of pure reason. They know neither love nor grief
nor lust nor ambition. They cannot lie, and they do not understand the meaning of
opinion. Their society is an aristocracy, based upon the slave labour of the Yahoos and
the work of a specially-bred servant class. They face the processes of life, such as
marriage, child-birth, accident, and death with a stoical calm. Their society is a planned
society that has achieved the mild anarchy which many utopian dreamers have aspired
to. They practise eugenics and they control the size of their population. Children are
educated by the State. The agrarian economy is supervised by a democratic council. The
government is conducted entirely by periodic assemblies. The Houyhnhnms feel natural
human affection for one another, but they love every one equally. This picture is all very
admirable, but it is remote from the possibilities of human life.

The Houyhnhnms’ Way of Life Not Ideal

Nor does Swift intend us to accept this as an ideal way of life. The Houyhnhnms are
obviously Cartesians,* and obviously stoics. Swift was antiCartesian from the beginning
for the simple reason that he held that Descartes was self-deceived and that man’s
reason was incapable of the feats that Descartes attributed to it. Similarly, Swift was
opposed to stoicism, and he recorded his adverse view of it elsewhere in his work. “The
stoical scheme of supplying our wants, by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our
feet when we want shoes,” Swift has written. It is Gulliver, not Swift, who is greatly
impressed by the Houyhnhnms and who aspires to rise above the human condition and
to become pure intelligence as these horses are.

The Yahoos, Symbolic of the Bestial Element in Human Nature

The Yahoos constitute the most powerful single symbol in the entire work of Swift. They
do not represent Swift’s view of man; they rather represent Swift’s view of the bestial
element in man, the unenlightened, unregenerate, irrational element in human nature.
That is the reason why the Houyhnhnms classify Gulliver with the Yahoos. That is why
the female Yahoo wishes to copulate with him. That is why, despite his instinctive
shrinking from them, Gulliver has to admit with shame and horror that he is more like
the Yahoos than like the Houyhnhnms. Because of his neglect or misuse of human
reason, the European man has sunk nearer to the Yahoo pole of his nature than he has
risen toward the Houyhnhnm pole. The seeds of human society and of human depravity,
as they exist in Europe, are clearly found in the society and conduct of the Yahoos.
Gulliver looks into the ugly abyss of human nature unlighted by the frail light of reason
and of morality; and the sight drives him mad.

Gulliver’s Misanthropy, Resulting from His Experience of the Yahoos

It is Gulliver, not Swift, who, feeling repelled by what he sees, identifies the Yahoos with
men, and so he, not Swift, turns a misanthrope. Since he does not want to be a Yahoo,
he seeks to become a Houyhnhnm as nearly as possible. But he can do so only by
denying his place in and responsibility to the human condition, by aspiring above the
middle link, which is man, to the next higher link which is that of the purely rational. The
wise Houyhnhnm, to whom he gives a terrifying account of European man and society,
concludes that the corruption of reason is worse than brutality itself, and that man is
more dangerous than the Yahoo. This is profoundly true. But its effect on Gulliver is to
awaken a loathing of all that is human.

Gulliver’s Alienation from the Human Race

Although the Houyhnhnms never acknowledge that Gulliver is more than an unusually
gifted Yahoo, he aspires to their rationality, stoicism, and simple wisdom. Thinking that
he has attained these qualities, he feeds his growing misanthropy on pride, which
alienates him not only from his remote kinsmen, the Yahoos, but eventually from his
brethren, the human race.

Gulliver, a Changed Man at the End

From the moment that the banished Gulliver in despair sets sail from Houyhnhnm-land,
his pride, his misanthropy, and his madness become apparent. Deceived by his worship
of pure reason, he commits the error of the Houyhnhnms in equating human beings
with the Yahoos. When he is captured by a Portuguese crew and forced to return from
sullen solitude to humanity, he trembles between fear and hatred. The Captain of the
ship, Don Pedro de Mendez, like Gulliver himself, shares the nature of the Houyhnhnm
and the Yahoo, and like the Gulliver of the first voyage he is tolerant, sympathetic, kindly,
patient, and charitable. But Gulliver can no longer recognize these traits in a human
being. With the short-sightedness of the Houyhnhnms, he perceives only the Yahoo and
is repelled by Don Pedro’s clothes, food, and odour. Gradually, however, he is nursed
back to partial health, and is compelled to admit, in the very tones of his admired
horses, that his benefactor has a “very good human understanding”. But the Gulliver
who writes this book is still under the control of his obsession, and when we last see him
he prefers the smell and conversation of his two horses to the company of his wife and
children. This is misanthropy in the manner of Timon* of Athens, not in the manner of
Swift. In the ironic coda with which the book ends, Swift directs his savage, comic gaze
straight at Gulliver and his insane pretensions:

“My reconcilement to the Yahoo-kind in general might not be so difficult, if they would
be content with those vices and follies only which nature has entitled them to. I am not
in the least provoked at the sight of a lawyer, a pick-pocket, a colonel, a fool, a lord, a
gamester, a politician, a whore-monger, a physician, an evidence, a suborner, an
attorney, a traitor, or the like. This is all according to the due course of things. But when I
behold a lump of deformity, and diseases both of body and mind, smitten with pride, it
immediately breaks all the measures of my patience; neither shall I ever be able to
comprehend how such an animal and such a vice could tally together”.

(Part IV, Chapter 12, Page 345)

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Gulliver’s Travels: An Introduction

Swift’s Possible Debt to the Scriblerus Club

Gulliver’s Travels is the most famous of all the works of Swift. The germs of this book
have been traced to the celebrated Scriblerus Club which came into existence in the last
months of Queen Anne’s reign, when Swift joined with Arbuthnot, Pope, Gay, and a few
other writers in a scheme to ridicule all false tastes in learning.

This literary group was strongly Tory in character and functioned as a kind of
counterbalance to the Whig circle which had grown up about Addison and Steele. The
Club was organized in the autumn of 1713. It was proposed that the Club should
undertake some sort of joint satiric composition, and finally it was settled that this
should take the form of a mock biography of a universal pedant who was given the name
“Martinus Scriblerus”. Years were to pass before the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus
appeared in print. Pope published it in 1741, but much of it must have been written
during the period of the Club’s greatest activity, which fell between February and June
1714. Swift’s part in this joint enterprise has not been definitely established. The
sixteenth chapter of the Memoirs as published in 1741 gives an account of Martinus
Scriblerus’s travels, four in number. According to Pope, Swift took the first hints for his
Gulliver’s Travels from that chapter. However, the connection of Gulliver’s Travels with
the original scheme is very slight, and appears chiefly in Part III of the work.

Part III of “Gulliver’s Travels” Written last of All

Swift’s correspondence with some of his friends shows that he was at work on Gulliver’s
Travels in 1721, that Parts I and II were finished by the end of 1723 and Part IV by
January 1724, and that in the latter year he was engaged on Part III. In August or
September 1725 he told Pope that he was correcting and completing the work.

The Date of Publication and the Enormous Success of the Book

The full title of Swift’s famous work is Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World,
in Four Parts, by Lemuel Gulliver, first a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships.
The book was published anonymously by the end of October 1726, negotiations with the
publishers having been carried on by Swift’s friends, Charles Ford and Erasmus Lewis.
The book proved an immediate and tremendous success. In November 1726, Arbuthnot
wrote that the book was in everybody’s hands, and that many were led by its
verisimilitude to believe that the incidents narrated in the book had really occurred.
However, one Irish bishop said that it was full of improbable lies and; for his part, he
hardly believed a word of it. The first edition of the book was soon exhausted, and
before the end of the year two more were called for. But this was only the beginning.
There were further editions in London; two different publishers brought the book out in
Dublin; it was summarized and abridged, serialized in the newspapers, and in course of
time translated into French, Dutch, and German.

The Appeal of the Book to Young Readers

Gulliver’s Travels has not only become a classic as a satire on the human race but also a
classic as a children’s book. It has delighted the young people from the day of its earliest
appearance. Soon after its publication, Pope and Gay wrote to Swift that the book was
being universally read, from the cabinet-council to the nursery. Its appeal to the young
people is not difficult to understand. The first two Parts of the book have a certain fairy-
tale quality about them. The juvenile imagination readily believes Gulliver’s adventures
among the pigmies and the giants. For the adult mind, however, the appeal of the book
lies in its serious purpose.

The Object of the Book: “To Vex the World”

Swift had written to Pope that his chief object was to vex the world rather than divert it.
What he meant was that he wanted to arouse among his readers a feeling of
dissatisfaction with themselves and their fellows for their vices and follies and thus to
stimulate them to amend themselves, if possible, in the light of this comic exposure of
the faults and shortcomings of mankind. While the book does succeed in vexing, and
even disturbing and shocking its readers, there is also much in it to divert and amuse
them. The satire is often cruel, and in Part IV it is almost horrifying. But there is plenty of
pure fun and comedy in the book also.

Gulliver Not to Be Wholly Identified with Swift

It should be kept in mind that Gulliver is a purely imaginary character, not to be

identified with Swift himself. Of course, at many points in the course of the story,
Gulliver does serve as a spokesman and mouthpiece for Swift, but at many other points
he remains a separate and distinct individual in his own right. In Part IV, especially,
Gulliver’s reactions to the Houyhnhnms and his changed attitude towards members of
the human race in the closing stages of the story are not at all to be attributed to Swift
himself.* Imaginary Voyages by an Imaginary Character

The book has been divided into four parts, describing Gulliver’s voyages to different
countries. Just as Gulliver is an imaginary character, so the voyages and the experiences
of Gulliver in different lands are also imaginary. And the lands visited by Gulliver are
imaginary too (except Japan). Part I describes Gulliver’s voyage to a country called
Lilliput, and his experiences among the Lilliputians (that is, the people inhabiting that
country). Part II describes his voyage to Brobdingnag and his experiences in that country.
Part III describes his voyage to several countries which include Laputa, Balnibarbi,
Glubbdubdrib, Luggnagg, and Japan. And Part IV describes his voyage to the country of
the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos.

The Realistic Effect

Apart from Gulliver’s experiences among these different nations, much circumstantial
detail is given to us in connection with the different voyages of Gulliver. These details
include references to the latitude and longitude of the position of Gulliver’s ship at
different times, allusions to geographical locations, and similar other matters which have
the effect of lending an air of realism to the story. At the very outset, Gulliver gives some
account of himself and his family, and his desire to see the world and visit unknown
countries. At the end of every voyage, Gulliver tells us of his return to his family, and
here again he gives us certain details to strengthen the realistic effect.

An Allegorical Satire, Intended to Instruct Mankind

Gulliver’s Travels is an allegorical work. In other words, everything in it cannot be taken

literally except by children. The mature reader will understand that Swift has a serious
moral purpose in writing these accounts of the voyages of Gulliver to different lands. An
allegory conveys its meaning in a veild and hidden manner, not in an obvious manner. In
other words, the real meaning in an allegory does not lie on the surface but is hidden
below the surface which we must probe. Swift is here mocking at the way human beings
behave. We find in the book a merciless exposure of different categories and classes of
people-kings, queens, politicians, lawyers, physicians, scientists, and others. There is
hardly any institution in the civilized life of the European countries that escapes the
scrutiny and the scathing criticism of Swift. Much of the condemnation of human society
and human institutions is expressed in comic terms, but much of it is offensive and
corrosive. In Part IV especially, the satire and the condemnation become extremely
indignant, and are insulting to the human race. As a commentator points out, to amuse
was not Swift’s sole object. His other object was to instruct the race of mankind by a
witty exposure of human follies, absurdities, errors, defects, etc.

The Voyage to Lilliput in Part I

In the voyage to Lilliput, religious and political divisions are humorously burlesqued. The
folly of political and religious fanatics is exposed with reference to the, constant quarrels
between the High-Heels and the Low-Heels, and between the Big-Endians and the Little-
Endians, in which the blood of thousands of people has been shed. Besides rejections of
a general nature, the voyage to Lilliput contains particular allusions to the royal court
and the politics of England. Sir Robert Walpole is caricatured as Flimnap; the High-Heels
and Low-Heels, represent the political parties of Tories and Whigs; the Big-Endians, and
the Little-Endians represent the religious sects of Catholics and Protestants. When the
emperor’s heels are described as lower than those of anybody else at the court, the
reference is to the preference shown by King George I to the Whigs. Many other
allusions may also be traced. In addition to all this, some of Gulliver’s remarks, on the
institutions of Lilliput serve as useful comments upon the legal policy of his own country,
England: for instance, when he mentions that the Lilliputians treated fraud as a greater
crime than theft, and alludes to their policy in rewarding merit as well as punishing vice.

The Voyage to Brobdingnag in Part II

In the voyage to Brobdingnag, Swift turns the opposite end of the telescope, and shows
us in what manner a people of immense stature, and gifted with a sound and cool
judgment, look at the principles and politics of Europe. In this Part of the book the satire
is of a more general nature; there are few particular references to political events; and
no circumstances are mentioned which are not applicable to all places. While Lilliput
was a land inhabited by pigmies or dwarfs, Brobdingnag is the land of giants or of
persons of an immense stature.

The Voyage to Laputa in Part III

In the voyage to Laputa, the satire is aimed at the abuses of science. The targets here are
those projectors who, leaving their common sense behind them, wander into the vast
regions of speculative philosophy. It must be borne in mind that the satire is not aimed
at true science but at its abuses.

The Voyage to the Land of the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos in Part IV

The satire contained in the voyage to the Houyhnhnms in Part IV is more intense than in
any of the earlier voyages. This voyage exhibits mankind in a light too degraded for
contemplation, and the satire is too exaggerated. However, if the picture of the Yahoos is
disgusting, that is exactly what the author intended. But, the author has failed to make
the portrayal of the Houyhnhnms to be very attractive or inviting as he aimed at doing.
The representation of the Houyhnhnms is cold and insipid. These beings have their
virtues, but these virtues are all negative. The Houyhnhnms, are devoid of all those
tender passions and affections without which life becomes a burden. No doubt these
beings possess some noble virtues and even some splendid accomplishments. For
instance, in poetry they excel all animals; and they have exalted notions of friendship
and benevolence. In spite of all this, the Houyhnhnms somehow fail to appeal to us as
models of perfection.

---------------------------------

Gulliver’s Travels: The Four Voyages in Brief

The Ridiculousness of the Lilliputians

The first part of Gulliver’s Travels is occupied with Lilliput. This has always been the most
popular portion of Gulliver’s Travels, and it has added a word to the language, the word
“Lilliputian” which means something diminutive or small. “Lilliputian” implies that
human society and its affairs have been made to look ridiculous by being represented as
very small.

Those who know the history of Swift’s time can detect the references in this part of the
book to real events and persons. In the preparatory letter by Captain Gulliver, Dampier is
referred to by name as his cousin and his book cited by its title. The Emperor of Lilliput
has reigned seven years, and so had George I when Swift wrote his book. The inventory
of the contents of Gulliver’s pockets, when the “Man-Mountain” is examined, is a parody
of the findings of the secret committee to examine the Jacobite dealings of Oxford,
Bolingbroke, and Ormond. The qualification for high office is rope-dancing, at which the
most skilful performer is Flimnap who represents Walpole (the Prime Minister of
England at that time).

Awards and Titles in Lilliput

The prizes awarded were coloured ribbons which represent the ribbons of the Order of
the Garter, the Thistle, and the Bath. They were sheer nonsense. But since donkeys need
carrots to be lured, Walpole had introduced or invented the Order of the Bath. There
were not enough Garters to go round for the assess who wanted them. It caused a lot of
heart-burning to those who were not awarded a Garter. So Walpole created what his
clever son Horace called a “bank” of honours-a red ribbon instead of a blue-as a
compensation to unsuccessful candidates, and condescended to accept a red ribbon
himself, instead of a blue, to set the example and to encourage others.

The Big-Endians and the Little-Endians

A civil war was waged between the Big-Endians and the Little-Endians, on the vital issue
whether to break an egg at the big end or the small end. In these disputes one emperor
lost his life, another his crown. The two emperors are obviously Charles I and James II:

“It is computed that eleven thousand persons have, at several times, suffered death
rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end. Many hundred large volumes
have been published upon this controversy; but the books of Big-Endians have been long
forbidden, and the whole party rendered incapable by law of holding employments.”

This refers to the proscription of Catholics by Protestants after the Reformation, and the
hundreds of volumes of senseless religious controversy. Of course, Catholics had burnt
to death thousands of people for denying the “truth” of Transubstantiation, as
Protestants had hanged hundreds of Catholics for upholding Papal supremacy. Eleven
thousand in Lilliput was a small number compared with those who killed, or were killed,
for these stupid disputes. Here they were reduced to their proper perspective.

Gulliver’s Act of Extinguishing a Fire

At the Royal court of Lilliput, Gulliver extinguished a fire in the Empress’s apartment by
urinating upon it. He was not forgiven for this:

“The Empress, conceiving the greatest abhorrence of what I had done, removed to the
most distant side of the court, firmly resolved that those buildings should never be
repaired for her use and, in the presence of her chief confidants, could not forbear
vowing revenge.” (Page 92)

Queen Anne’s confidant in religious matters was Archbishop Sharp. (In A Tale of a Tub,
Swift had urinated on their religious beliefs.)

Absurd Beliefs of the Lilliputians

The beliefs of the people of Lilliput were absurd:

“They bury their dead with their head directly downwards because they hold an opinion
that, in eleven thousand moons, they are all to rise again, in which period the earth-
which they conceive to be flat––will turn upside down; and by this means they shall, at
their resurrection, be found ready standing on their feet. The learned among them
confess the absurdity of this doctrine, but the practice still continues, in compliance to
the vulgar.” (Page 94)

We are not told exactly what this implies as to the Christian doctrine of the resurrection
of the dead, but Swift makes very clear the obvious distinction between what is thought
by the intelligent sections of society and what is believed by the idiotic people.

Their Views about Children

The people of the Lilliput did not recognize that a child had any obligation to his parents
for bringing him into the world because, considering the miseries of human life, to beget
a child was neither a benefit in itself nor intended to be so by the parents whose
thoughts during the sexual intercourse were otherwise occupied. The second
proposition is true enough. Hence the conclusion. They thought that nothing could be
more unjust than for the people, in subservience to their own appetites, to bring
children into the world and leave the burden of supporting them to the public. In Lilliput,
poor people contributed a small portion of their monthly income, by way of insurance,
to maintain their own children. (We can imagine what Swift would have thought of to
day’s society where people have devised all kinds of insurance and where they have
recourse to it from birth till death.)

The Reversal of the Scale in Brobdingnag

Gulliver had set sail on his second voyage in a ship commanded by a Cornishman,
Captain John Nicholas, in 1702. East of the Moluccas they were driven off course in a
great storm which gave Swift the opportunity to incorporate a page of technical sea-
terms, which is very laughable. They were driven “five hundred leagues to the east, so
that the oldest sailor on board could not tell in what part of the world we were”. They
held on course till they discovered the land of Brobdingnag. In this new land of giants,
Gulliver looked small like a Lilliputian. The scale was reversed in the other direction, so
that the horrors for a human being were magnified. A child in this new land picked up
the tiny-looking Gulliver to play with, as if Gulliver were a toy. Gulliver at this time felt
afraid lest the horrid child might do some harm to him like mischievous children treating
young birds callously.

The Disgusting Features of the Brobdingnagians

The large scale of Brobdingnag showed up human imperfections under the magnifying
glass. A woman giving suck to a child disgusted Gulliver by her exposed breast:
“It (the breast) stood prominent six feet, and could not be less than sixteen in
circumference. The nipple was about half the bigness of my head, and the hue both of
that and the dug so varified with spots, pimples, and freckles that nothing could appear
more nauseous.” (page 130)

This enabled Swift to reflect on the fair skin of English ladies who appeared so beautiful
because they were of the normal human size, and because their defects were not seen
through a magnifying glass. (Swift applied the magnifying glass in some of his poems,
such as The Progress of Beauty and A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed, in which he
undresses a woman completely, with her false hair, false eyebrows, false teeth, and false
complexion, and where the so-called nymph is revealed as a poxed prostitute.) In
Brobdingnag, size showed up every horror. Here is another example:

“There was a woman with a cancer in her breast, swelled to a monstrous size, full of
holes, in two or three of which I could have easily crept. There was a fellow with a wen
in his neck, larger than five wool-packs. But the most hateful sight of all was the lice
crawling on their clothes. I could see distinctly the limbs of these vermin with my naked
eye, much better than those of a European louse through a microscope, and their snouts
with which they rooted like swine.” (Page 151)

The Maids of Honour

Smells were similarly heightened and aggravated. The maids of honour at the court

“would often strip me naked from top to toe, and lay me at full length in their bosoms;
wherewith I was much disgusted; because, to say the truth, a very offensive smell came
from their skins.” (page 157)

He (Gulliver) believed that to their lovers in Brobdingnag these maids of honour must be
perfectly agreeable and acceptable. One of these large creatures took liberties with
Gulliver. She was a playful girl of sixteen who would sometimes set him astride upon one
of her nipples, and play many other tricks.

Gulliver’s Account of English Institutions

The King of Brobdingnag inquired into the institutions of Gulliver’s native country,
particularly into parliament. Gulliver described the House of Lords, with lords temporal
and lords spiritual. (The eighteenth-century House of Lords was much smaller,
immensely more powerful than now-a-days, and the bishops formed a very important
part of it.) With reference to the lords spiritual, Gulliver gave the following piece of
information to the King:
“These were searched and sought out through the whole nation, by the Prince and his
wisest counsellors, among such of the priesthood, as were most deservedly
distinguished by the sanctity of their lives, and the depth of their erudition; who were
indeed the spiritual fathers of the clergy and the people.”

(Page 168)

As for the House of Commons, Gulliver described its members as “principal gentlemen”,
selected by the people “for their great abilities and love of their country, to represent
the wisdom of the whole nation”.

The King’s Comments on Parliamentary Institutions

The King of Brobdingnag was not impressed by Gulliver’s account. The King wanted to
know why people were so anxious to get into parliament. Would not an outsider with
more money prevail on the vulgar voters against the better man? Was the claim to
greater public spirit always sincere, and was not humbug more successful? The King
could not also understand how a country could become bankrupt and run short of funds
like any private individual. The King asked who were the creditors of Gulliver’s country.

The King’s Views about the Art of Government

One day, when Gulliver happened to say that there were several thousand books in his
country written upon the art of government, the King formed a very low opinion of the
understanding of Gulliver’s countrymen. The King did not think that the government
needed endless discussion and dispute. What the government needed most was
common sense, reason, a sense of fairness and a capacity for quick action. According to
the King, whoever could make two ears of com or two blades of grass grow upon a piece
of ground where only one grew before, would be doing more essential service to his
country than the whole race of politicians put together.

More Diversified Targets of Satire in Part III

The voyage to Laputa was made in a ship commanded again by a Cornishman, this time
a man called William Robinson. This third part of Gulliver’s Travels has more diversity
and a less unified impact than the other three parts, and has from the beginning been
less appreciated. Its targets are more diversified or, we might say, more specialized.
Some critics find it the most diverting portion of the book, and even more suited to
targets of present day relevance.

Philosophical People of Laputa

The inhabitants of Laputa were philosophers. “There heads were all inclined either to
the right or to the left, one of their eyes turned inward, and the other directly up to the
zenith”. The minds of those people were so occupied with intense speculations that they
could neither speak nor attend to the discourse of others, unless their attention was
attracted by a flapper[*] hitting them with a blown-up bladder. They were so wrapped in
cogitation and so absent-minded, that they needed a flapper to prevent them from
falling off the pavement.

Their Interest in Mathematics

The court in Laputa was devoted to mathematics. The King paid no attention to the
intruder from another sphere, for “he was then deep in a problem, and we attended at
least an hour before he could solve it”. When dinner appeared, “there was a shoulder of
mutton, cut into an equilateral triangle, a piece of beef into a rhomboid[†] , and a
pudding into a cycloid**.” Clothes were scientifically calculated. When a suit was made
for Gulliver, the tailor first took his altitude with a quadrant, and then with a rule and
compasses described the dimensions and outlines of his whole body, all which he wrote
down upon a paper; and in six days brought his clothes very ill made, and quite out of
shape because the tailor had made a mistake in the calculation. However, such accidents
being very frequent, Gulliver did not feel uneasy about the matter.

The Defects of These People

In Laputa people did not make their own music; they listened only to the music of the
spheres. The houses of these intellectual people were very ill-constructed, with the walls
sloping, without one right angle in any apartment, this defect being due to the contempt
which those people felt for practical geometry which they despised as vulgar and
mechanical. Gulliver goes on to say that these people were “dexterous enough upon a
piece of paper in the management of the rule, the pencil, and the divider” but that he
had never seen “a more clumsy, awkward, and unhandy people, nor so slow and
perplexed upon all other subjects”.

Conceited and Arrogant

These intellectuals, so useless in the practical concerns of life, were yet intolerably
conceited and arrogant about public affairs. They were for ever arguing and discussing,
“giving their judgments in matters of state, and passionately disputing every inch of a
party opinion”. Swift here makes an acute observation. The disciplines of mathematics
and politics, and the abilities required for either, are utterly different, so that those who
are qualified for one are practically disqualified for the other.
Impractical Schemes

Naturally, in a society run by such intellectuals, their subject country of Balnibarbi was
neglected and in a squalid, run-down condition, while they were given up to their
projects. Some of the resources in Lagado (the capital of Balnibarbi) went into extracting
sun-beams out of cucumbers. Then there was the agricultural projector who had found
“a device of ploughing the ground with hogs, to save the charges of ploughs, cattle and
labour”. Swift describes the technique with gravity, and then says: “It is true, upon
experiment they found the charge and trouble very great, and they had little or no crop”.

The School of Political Projectors

Lagado had a school of political projectors, one of whom proposed that members of
parliament should deliver their speeches and then vote directly contrary. In his account
of the Academy in Lagado, Swift exposes the nonsensical view of perfectibility held by
the progressives. Then there was a short cut to the attainment of proficiency in art and
sciences. By this contrivance, “the most ignorant person at a reasonable charge, and
with a little bodily labour, may write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, law,
mathematics and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study”. The
projectors were also bent on a “universal language to be understood in all civilized
nations”.

Nor did Swift subscribe to the worship of science, and the veneration accorded in his
time to Newton:

“New systems of nature were but new fashions which would vary in every age; even
those who pretend to demonstrate them from mathematical principles would flourish
but a short period of time, and be out of vogue when that was determined.”

However, Swift’s deepest concerns were political and social. He ends with a scathing
account of the nobility and family pride:

“I confess it was not without some pleasure that I found myself able to trace the
particular features, by which certain families are distinguished, up to their originals. I
could plainly discover from whence one family derives a long chin, why a second hath
abounded with knaves for two generations, and fools for two more; why a third
happened to be crack-brained, and a fourth to be sharpers ……Neither could I wonder at
all this, when I saw such an interruption of lineages by pages, lackeys, valets, coachmen,
gamesters, fiddlers, players, captains, and pickpockets.”

(Pages 243-44)
The Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos

Gulliver’s last voyage takes him to the country of the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos. The
Houyhnhnms are horses, while the Yahoos are the human beings subject to those
horses. The Yahoos are the beasts of burden. (The word “Yahoo” is another contribution
by Swift to the English language.) We should here note that Swift’s disgust is directed
towards Mass-Man, because the Yahoos are hardly individualized, and this is in itself a
sufficient reflection on the mass of men. The first distinction made is that the horses
have no word for lying: they can only call it “the thing that is not”. (Lying is a human
tendency. Swift was disgusted by it. Not only do ordinary people tell lies, but they can
hardly ever describe an event correctly. In statement, they do not care whether what
they say is true or not; and as for thinking, in the exact sense of the word, they are
mostly incapable of it.)

Gulliver’s (or Swift’s) Analysis of the Causes of War

Gulliver’s equine master wants the fact of human war, and the causes for the killings, to
be explained to him, because it is not understood in the world of horses. Gulliver-Swift
explains that in the long European war that had gone on through William Ill’s and Queen
Anne’s time, almost without a break from 1689 to 1713, “about a million of Yahoos
might have been killed in the whole progress of it, and perhaps a hundred or more cities
taken, and thrice as many ships burnt or sunk”. Swift’s analysis of the causes of war is
noteworthy. Sometimes the cause is the ambition of princes who never think they have
land or people enough to govern. There are, too, religious or ideological wars:

“Difference in opinions* hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be
bread, or bread be flesh; whether the juice of a certain berry be blood or wine
Sometimes the quarrel between two princes is to decide which of them shall dispossess
a third of his dominions, Sometimes a war is entered upon, because the enemy is too
strong, and sometimes because he is too weak, Sometimes our neighbours want the
things which we have, or have the things which we want;”
(page 292)

The Portrayal of the Yahoos

Gulliver’s equine master observed that “the Yahoos were known to hate one another
more than they did any different species of animals”. But, though the Yahoos could hurt
each other with tooth and nail, they did not have the advantages of civilized men: “They
seldom were able to kill one another for want of such convenient instruments of death
as we** had invented.” Swift also makes Gulliver point out that, for want of a foreign
war to engage their attention, the Yahoos engage in a civil war among themselves. Thus
the Yahoos are recognizably men all right. And such is the case in other respects also.
Swift disliked extravagance, all forms of waste, and vulgar ostentation. He makes the
following radical observations on the subject:

“The rich man enjoyed the fruit of poor man’s labour, and the latter were a thousand to
one in proportion to the former. That the bulk of our people was forced to live miserably,
by labouring every day for small wages to make a few live plentifully.”

(Page 298)

There is a further stricture on the absurdity of magnifying human wants. The Yahoos are
as idle and lazy as they are mischievous and vicious. Work is good for them, and so they
do their utmost to avoid work. Their sexual appetites are similarly inordinate and
uncontrolled. Swift here finds an opportunity to express his disgust for female sexuality.
One day, when Gulliver takes off all his clothes to take a bath in the river, a female
Yahoo, inflamed with desire, pursues him into the water. Gulliver had already noticed
that, on such occasions, a female Yahoo had a most offensive smell; and when any of the
males advanced, she would slowly retire, looking often back and, with a pretence of fear,
run off into some convenient place where she knew the male would follow her. Now, on
this occasion, Gulliver finds himself embraced in a most fulsome manner, and has to be
rescued from his humiliating plight. Swift felt a disgust for normal copulation also. That
explains Gullivers horror at the “fact of life” on his return home, when he begins to
consider that, by copulating with one of the Yahoo species, he had become a parent of
more Yahoos. The thought fills Gulliver with “the utmost shame, confusion, and horror”.

Control of Population by the Houyhnhnms

In the country of the horses (or the Houyhnhnms), numbers are regulated: “Caution is
necessary to prevent the country from being overburdened with numbers”. The
Houyhnhnms realized that reproduction is a matter for the exercise of rational control
because otherwise there would soon be overpopulation.

Governed by Reason

“Controversies, wranglings, disputes, and positiveness in false or dubious propositions”

are unknown in the country of the Houyhnhnms. Similarly, systems of philosophy all
differing among themselves, are of no account. In a sentence which gives the whole clue
to Swift we read:

“Neither is Reason among them a point problematical as with us, where men can argue
the plausibility on both sides of a question; but strikes you with immediate conviction, as
it must needs do where it is not mingled, obscured, or discoloured by passion and
interest.”

(Page 315)

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Friday, November 19, 2010

Gulliver’s Travels: Its Structure

Uncertainties and Surprises in the Narrative

The book Gulliver’s Travels is a satirical work which embraces many levels of intention
and execution. Most accounts of imaginary societies sooner or later give themselves
away by allowing their underlying logic to become too apparent, so that when there are
no further surprises in store the effect becomes monotonous.

In this sense there is nothing obvious about Gulliver’s Travels. The book keeps our
interest at every point because we are never able to anticipate what is going to happen,
and when something does happen we are not always sure what our response should be.
The contradictory details and incongruities in the narrative add to our perplexities.
Despite all the differences between A Tale of a Tub and Gulliver’s Travels, the two books
are similar in creating tension by means of the uncertainties and surprises to which the
reader is exposed.

Two Contrasts in the Book

Gulliver’s Travels begins like a genuine account by an actual ship’s surgeon, and the
reader of 1726 might well have wondered, until he came to Gulliver’s awakening after
coming to shore, whether this was not a book of sober fact. Gulliver is perfectly in
character––a Cambridge man, scientifically-minded, curious to observe the manners and
dispositions of foreign lands, and a competent linguist. The world was full of just such
professional sailors who felt that, in publishing accounts of their travels, they were
contributing to scientific knowledge. Gulliver’s prose style is of the kind which had the
approval of the Royal Society; it is seemingly matter-of-fact, free of literary colouring,
recording observed details with the fullness and precision of some scientific instrument.
As an imaginary voyage, Gulliver’s Travels is a superb parody, which preserves much of
the spirit and the imaginative principle of the real voyages. But if this is the main
contrast that runs through the book, we are sometimes aware of another contrast.
There are moments when we have to ask ourselves whether our imaginary voyage is not
becoming a parody of itself-whether, for instance, the utopian elements ate not slyly
humorous. Furthermore, as the political allegory comes and goes we are left with
further questions and further points of reference to keep track of. The tone modulates
from that of a harsh indictment of crime and folly to one of good-natured fantasy. It was
once assumed that Gulliver and Swift were, to all intents and purposes, the same
person; but subsequently it was realized that Swift had created a fictional character.
However, this realization has not put an end to our troubles. To say that Gulliver is not
Swift but an imaginary character, merely raises a new set of questions. Who is Gulliver?
What is it that happens to him? How have he and his experiences been contrived by this
satirist who has succeeded in writing an amusing book that has never ceased to “vex”
the world?

Three Strands in the First Pattern

We can understand the structure of Gulliver’s Travels by considering certain patterns

that seem to run through the book. The most obvious of these patterns has already
been indicated above. Three strands enter into this: the account of actual travels, the
imaginary voyage, and a parody of the latter. In other words, we have a basic theme, a
variation on the basic theme, and sometimes a variation on the variation. The utopian
passages in both Part I and Part IV look in two ways at once. The Lilliputians have––or
once had––many admirable institutions, but these sometimes overreach themselves in
the way that utopian institutions have always done ever since the time of Plato. The
nurseries for children of noble and high birth are run on admirable principles, and it is no
doubt that there are provisions which make it impossible for these children to be spoiled
by their doting parents, but only a confirmed utopia-maker could have devised one in
which the parents can see their children only twice a year, with their visits lasting not
more than an hour, where they are allowed to kiss the children only at meeting and
parting, where they are not allowed to whisper to their children or use any affectionate
expressions or bring any presents in the shape of toys and sweetmeats. The utopia of
horses, filled with the sound of whinnying, hoof-beats, and the champing of oats, is a
rational community, true enough, but in outdoing all other utopias in point of
consistency the satire directed at man’s irrationality suggests that it might extend itself
to include his dreams of the good society.

The Second Pattern, Underlying the Sequence of the Four Voyages

A second pattern is the one underlying the sequence of the four voyages. It seems to be
a weakness in the structure that Part III should intervene between Gulliver’s experiences
in Brobdingnag and his later experiences in the country of the Houyhnhnms. But what
appears to be a fault from the purely logical point of view seems to justify itself from the
artistic point of view. In the first voyage (in Part I), we are not sure for some time, nor is
Gulliver, about the true nature of the Lilliputians and their civilization, and though,
eventually, Gulliver has good cause to conclude that these diminutive people are as
contemptible morally as they are small in stature, this discovery does not leave him
inwardly moved. Part II is more rigorous than this. Not only are the experiences less
ambiguous but they bite more deeply into Gulliver’s sensibilities. Part IV really begins,
psychologically, where the second leaves off, for the intensity of Gulliver’s reactions
produces in him a state of shock which causes him to lose his self-esteem as one of the
human race. The intervention of the third voyage, scattered in its effects and only once
(in the episode of Struldbrugs) producing a marked psychic reaction on Gulliver’s part, is
almost a functional necessity. Like the scherzo in a traditional four-movement
symphony, it comes between the second and the fourth movements to break the
tension and prepare the way for a stronger climax than could otherwise be achieved.
This is only one of several details which it is easy enough to make out in this sequential
pattern. The contrast given to us in the first two voyages between little men and big men
may be an obvious one, but into it has gone the cosmic imagination of an age which had
produced Boyle, Locke, and Newton––an age which thought of man as situated on the
isthmus of his middle state, but permitted to catch glimpses through the microscope and
the telescope of the created forms that filled the universe. But, if the pigmy-giant
sequence might have occurred to almost anyone, the final sequence which takes us from
societies of human beings into a world of animals is worthy of Swift’s comic wit. Rational
animals were not new in literature. Nor was the idea that man, in abdicating reason,
sinks lower than the beasts. Swift’s originality lies in devising a series of experiences of
which the last is a violent and preposterous variation of those which have preceded.
Gulliver, having seen himself in relation to little men in Part I and then big men in Part II,
is finally and suddenly forced into comparison not with men at all but with animals in
Part IV. This last situation is further complicated in so far as the comparison is not simple
but complex, because there are two orders[†] of animals between which poor Gulliver
stands dubiously. For Swift and his original readers what was essentially involved in Part
IV was an outrageous paradox. Man and animal belonged to different levels of creation;
they were forms for ever separate, related to one another not through any natural
principles of growth and continuity but as links in the chain of being. The resolution of
the paradox is afforded by the obvious moral symbolism which is present throughout the
fourth voyage; man may so live as to be worthy of his God-given status; on the other
hand he may, be forfeiting his humanity, become repulsive and bestial.

The Third Pattern: The Ironic Mode

The third pattern might be described as the ironic mode in which much of Gulliver’s
Travels has been cast. By means of this pattern, control is exercised over the book as a
whole and over many of the details. The irony here is of a kind that came naturally to
more than one eighteenth-century writer, Goldsmith being another who understood its
use. The narrative and dramatic literature of the Enlightenment dealt freely with current
ideas, but did so in its own way. Theories about man and society appear constantly in
the plays and narratives of the period, and frequently assume major importance as a
thematic element. These concepts and principles are often brought before us in a
perfectly direct and straightforward manner, and are to be understood as generalizations
to which everyone subscribes as a matter of course. But there is another method of
presentation which is also employed and which often alternates with the first in the
same work. In the latter case, the ideas are introduced through the distorting medium of
some character who is made to voice them in his own fashion or to colour them with his
own experience. The question where direct and public statement ends and dramatic
presentation takes over is sometimes difficult for the reader to decide. The question is:
What is straightforward and what is ironic (by virtue of a double point of view brought
into play)? It is through the use which Swift has made his central character, Lemuel
Gulliver, that he has created a masterpiece of eighteenth century comic art. The positive
doctrines and precepts appearing in this book were all of them familiar to Swift’s time. It
is the ironic refraction supplied by Gulliver that gives rise to the extraordinary effects.

The Comedy of Exploration and Exclusion

Comedy, in Swift, is sometimes the comedy of discontinuity. We strip, we analyze, and

we are shocked by the discrepancy which we find between appearance and reality.
Again, we have what we come to recognize as comedy in terms of a special situation: a
certain state of affairs begins to define itself, becomes increasingly and arrogantly
certain of its own identity, and grows, expands, improvises, aggrandizes itself at the
expense of everything within reach. The digressions in The Tale of a Tub and the
enthusiasm of Peter and Jack as depicted in the fable of the coats illustrate this second
mode. But the comedy of Gulliver’s Travels is something different from both these types.
It is a comedy of what we may call exploration and exclusion. Only once in the course of
all the four voyages do we have an episode which turns upon sudden exposure. When
Gulliver, on hearing of the Struldbrugs, assumes that they are universally envied for their
immortality he is permitted by his hosts to indulge in eloquent praise of the blessings of
long life before being shown the repulsive truth. Ordinarily Gulliver is not deceived in
this manner by outward appearances only to learn the actual state of affairs in a
moment of horrible revelation. Nor has he created any of the situations in which he
finds himself. He is projected by the forces of Nature into a number of strange societies
which he proceeds to explore somewhat in the manner of a modem cultural
anthropologist. He is a perfectly normal Englishman who has never known what it
means to be a misfit or an unacceptable eccentric. When he awakens to find himself
among the Lilliputians his first feeling is one of mingled astonishment and curiosity. The
earlier experiences which he undergoes leave him of two minds about this society, for
he sees the shortcomings of the little people and at the same time acquires genuine
respect for their original institutions. But on further acquaintance the Lilliputians reveal
themselves as thoroughly contemptible. They have, meanwhile, turned against the giant
in their midst, but by this time Gulliver’s self-esteem is not to be affected by any
judgment which such people can pass against him. He has made his explorations; he
finds himself an object of hatred; but he in turn has rejected this entire society. Back
again in England, he is psychologically quite unaltered. But Brobdingnag produces a
different kind of reaction. Again there is exploration, and again an element of
uncertainty in the earlier stage. The first of the giants whom Gulliver encounters are not,
except the nine-year girl who becomes his nurse, particularly admirable people, and his
first master almost works him to death out of sheer greed. Are the Brobdingnagians to
prove as coarse in sentiment as they are big in size? When Gulliver reaches the court he
finds that the aristocracy bear an entirely different character. Yet throughout his entire
stay among the giants, the sense of security which he has in the presence of this amiable
race is mixed with a feeling of nausea caused by the sights and smells, which he must
endure. There is, however, nothing ambiguous about the judgment which is eventually
passed, not upon Gulliver as an individual but upon Europeans as a people, who are
declared to be “the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered
to crawl upon the surface of the earth.” This is a new experience for Gulliver who for the
first time in his life finds himself rejected as an unwholesome deviate, though hitherto
he has been a normal and acceptable person. His response to the situation is to seek
protection in a newly-acquired pride and to convince himself not only that the estimable
characteristics of the Brobdingnagians are absurd but that European civilization has
virtues which these people clearly do not possess.

The Third Pattern in the Climactic Fourth Voyage

This pattern of ironic refraction and the comedy of exclusion almost drops from sight in
Part III but it becomes the compositional principle behind the climactic fourth voyage.
Here the exploratory element has been reduced to a minimum. From the first, by a flash
of intuition, Gulliver is convinced of the moral virtues of the Houyhnhnms, and the
recognition scene in the second chapter leaves him under the necessity of
acknowledging the close physical resemblance between himself and the detestable
Yahoos. Part IV is almost entirely exclusion––the overwhelming emotional experience of
one who is brought to see himself and his class as hopelessly tainted and deserving
banishment from any rational society. However, Gulliver remains a figure in a comedy
even though he suffers a sudden conviction of guilt and displays an extraordinary
capacity for self-torture. That is the paradox which many readers fail to grasp. Gulliver’s
Travels vexes; but it is still, in more ways than one, the merry work that Dr. Arbuthnot
called it. In this book Swift’s comic vision found a perfect expression.

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Friday, November 19, 2010

Gulliver’s Travels: Meaning and Significance

The Secret of Its Appeal for Children

Gulliver’s Travels is Swift’s most comprehensive and brilliantly worked out satire on man
and civilization. At the same time this book has become a children’s classic. It is not hard
to understand why the first two Parts of this book, describing the hero’s adventures first
among tiny little people and then among enormous giants, should attract children for
whom dolls and small-scale models of things always have a special attraction. Among
the Lilliputians, Gulliver is among dolls, and among the Brobdingnagians he is himself a
doll.

Satire on Mankind in General and on Particular Abuses of the Time

Swift’s object in Part I is to deflate human pride by showing all the pomp and
circumstance of human pretension, all the stylization of cruelty, the vanities, rituals,
political catchwords, meaningless controversies, that characterize man in society,
existing in a community of minute creatures and so appearing as wholly contemptible.
Conversely, when Swift places his hero among giants and makes him, now himself a tiny
creature, boasts about the way his civilization works to contemptuously amused grown-
ups, they can only react to his absurd boastings with the crushing comment that
Gulliver’s people must be “the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature
ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth”. But Swift’s attack is not simply on
mankind in general. Nor does he make his points only by reducing the scale of the world
we know and so making man ridiculously petty. The enormous size of the
Brobdingnagians, who are observed with minute closeness by Gulliver as he is handled
by them, enables Swift to vent his disgust with the flesh, with man as a physical animal
who sweats and excretes-a disgust which grew on Swift until it became thoroughly
obsessive. The Brobdingnagians are sometimes shown as living in a state of simple virtue
in sharp contrast to the corruptions of European civilization; at other times their
grossness simply emphasizes the horribleness of the human animal. Again, Swift is as
much concerned to expose particular abuses of his own time as to attack mankind, and
though most of the detailed political satire is lost on the ordinary reader today, there is,
especially in Part I, a complex political allegory at work, based on Swift’s own experience
of politics in Queen Anne’s reign. But even without a knowledge of these experiences,
the full power of the work can be felt.

Lilliput Depicted Sometimes as Utopia and Sometimes as 18th Century England

In Part I there is a deliberate inconsistency in the way in which the satire operates.
Sometimes the Lilliputians ways are described in such a way as to make the reader
realize how stupid and vicious the European ways are. “The nurseries for males of noble
or eminent birth are provided with grave and learned professors and their several
deputies. The clothes and food of the children are plain and simple. They are bred up in
the principles of honour, justice, courage, modesty, clemency, religion, and love of their
country; they are always employed in some business, except in the times of eating and
sleeping, which are very short, and two hours for diversions, consisting of bodily
exercises. They are dressed by men till four years of age, and then are obliged to dress
themselves, although their quality be ever so great.” Lilliput is sometimes utopia and
sometimes eighteenth-century England made utterly contemptible by the small size of
the people who exhibit the same vices and follies as the English. The account of
Lilliputian politics, with the quarrel between the High-Heels and the Low-Heels and
between the Big-Endians and the Little-Endians is clearly a parody of English politics. On
the other hand, the chapter on Lilliputian laws and education is almost wholly utopian.
“In choosing persons for all employments, they have more regard to good morals than to
great abilities. They thought the want of moral virtues was so far from being supplied by
superior endowments of the mind, that employments could never be put into such
dangerous hands as those of persons so qualified.” The irony lies not so much in that
here is a utopian system which exposes that of England, but rather that here, put into
actual practice, is what the English people profess to believe in but nobody would ever
dream of acting on.

Gulliver the Object of a Farmer’s Contempt in Brobdingnag

In Brobdingnag everything is of enormous size. The first man whom Gulliver sees
“appeared as tall as an ordinary spire steeple, and took about ten yards at every stride”.
Gulliver realizes that he appears as ridiculous to these people as the Lilliputians had
seemed to him. He is discovered by a farmer who “considered a while with the caution
of one who endeavours to lay hold on a small dangerous animal in such a manner that it
shall not be able either to scratch or bite him, as I myself have sometimes done with a
weasel in England. I apprehended every moment that he would dash me against the
ground, as we usually do any little hateful animal which we have a mind to destroy.” In a
few words Swift has rendered man as an animal contemptible and cruel.

A Satirical Exposure of Human Pride and Pretension (in Part II)

Gulliver becomes the domestic pet of the farmer’s nine-year-old daughter, and his
experiences are detailed in the same circumstantial way as the Lilliputian adventures,
with a careful account of the scale of everything and the means adopted to enable
Gulliver to manage in this enormous world. Gulliver is treated as partly a pet, partly a
freek of nature to be exhibited for profit, partly a baby, and partly a doll. In each of these
aspects his experiences enable the author to indulge in a satirical exposure of human
pride and pretension. Gulliver is then summoned to the royal court where the Queen
buys him. He pleads his cause before her (having learned the language from the farmer’s
daughter), and the Queen is “surprised at so much wit and good sense in so diminutive
an animal”. The King at first conceives him to be a clock-work toy, but on hearing him
speak admits that he is a rational creature-an ironic conclusion in the light of the rest of
the book. Gulliver becomes a poet of the royal family, and has his own miniature
furniture and utensils in a portable wooden box that serves as a bed-chamber for him.
He tells the King about the English civilization. After he has described his country, its
political parties, its religious conflicts, its wars, its trade, etc., the King lifts Gulliver with
his right hand and, stroking him gently with the other, after a hearty fit of laughter, asks
him whether he is a Whig or a Tory.

The Views of the King of Brobdingnag

Swift’s attack on human pride is relentless. The King observes “how contemptible a thing
was human grandeur, which could be mimicked by such diminutive insects as I”. And
thus the King continues “while my colour came and went several times, with indignation
to hear our noble country, the mistress of arts and arms, the scourge of France, the
arbitress of Europe, the seat of virtue, piety, honour, and truth, the pride and envy of the
world, so contemptuously treated”. Gulliver’s education has barely begun. It proceeds
rapidly in Chapter 7 where he boasts of his country and its customs only to arouse in the
King extreme contempt. “Nothing but an extreme love of truth”, this chapter begins,
“could have hindered me from concealing this part of my story”. It tells of the ultimate
humiliation not only of himself but of the civilization he represents. Here is corrupt man
facing humane reasonableness: “I remember very well, in a discourse one day with the
King, when I happened to say there were several thousand books among us written
upon the art of government, it gave him (directly contrary to my intention) a very mean
opinion of our understanding. He professed both to abominate and despise all mystery,
refinement, and intrigue either in a prince or a minister. He could not tell what I meant
by secrets of state, where an enemy or some rival nation were not in the case. He
confined the knowledge of governing within very narrow bounds; to common sense and
reason, to justice and lenity; to the speedy determination of civil and criminal causes;
with some other obvious topics, which are not worth considering. And he gave it for his
opinion, that whoever could make two ears of com or two blades of grass to grow upon
a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do
more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.”
The ideal nature of the Brobdingnagians becomes ever clearer in this section. Even their
prose style is “clear, masculine, and smooth, but not florid”. Gulliver discovers a book
treating of the weakness of human kind, which was “in little esteem except among the
women and the vulgar”. And reading here further matter to diminish human pride, he is
led for the first time to “believe, upon a strict inquiry, those quarrels might be shown as
ill-grounded among us, as they are among that people.”

Swift’s Recognition of the Kindness and Sympathy of the Two Ships’ Captains

When Gulliver is carried off by an eagle and dropped into the sea, whence he is rescued
by an English ship, the Brobdingnagian adventure comes to an end. But this adventure
leaves more enduring marks on Gulliver than the Lilliputian had done. The kindness of
the ship’s captain to Gulliver passes without comment, although it seems to contradict
the indictment against mankind which runs through the book. (The same can be said
about the even greater kindness of the captain of the Portuguese ship that rescues him
in Part IV.) It takes Gulliver a long time to get accustomed to the smallness of “the
houses, the trees, the cattle, and the people” once he is back in England. That as far as
the people are concerned it is a moral smallness, he is not fully aware until after his last
voyage. And yet the two ships’ captains are models of kindness and sympathy: it is
almost as if Swift were illustrating his remark to Alexander Pope that he hated man but
loved individuals.

The Character of the People of Laputa

Part 1II, the voyage to Laputa, is less interesting both because of its lack of unity and
because the objects of the satire here are more relevant to Swift’s own time. Swift here
attacks every kind of unpractical scholarship, every vain philosophy, and the absurd and
pretentious schemes of economists and promoters. It is here that we see most clearly
how Swift’s exaltation of reason leads to anti-intellectualism. Speculative thought is
depicted here as ridiculous. The Laputan people have servants called “flappers” whose
duty it is to draw their attention to what needs to be seen or heard; these people are
normally indifferent to what goes on around them till they are roused by some external
action upon their organs of speech and hearing. They neglect practical matters in order
to indulge in theory. Their houses are very ill-built,; in the common actions and
behaviour of life they are most clumsy, awkward, and unhandy people; and they are
slow and perplexed in their conceptions about all subjects except mathematics and
music. They are complete strangers to imagination, fancy, and invention, and their
intellectual interests are confined to the two sciences already mentioned, namely
mathematics and music.

A Satire on Inventors and Promoters of New Schemes

From Laputa, Gulliver goes to Balnibarbi and its capital Lagado. In the description of the
Academy of Projectors in Lagado, Swift satirizes inventors and promoters of schemes for
improving everything: “In these colleges the professors contrive new rules and methods
of agriculture and building, and new instruments and tools for all trades and
manufactures whereby, as they undertake, one man shall do the work of ten; a palace
may be built in a week, of materials so durable as to last for ever without repairing.”
Swift has a great deal of fun with his description of the professors of the Academy and
their pursuits: “A new method of teaching was for a proposition and demonstration to
be fairly written on a thin wafer, with ink composed of a cephalic tincture. This the
student was to swallow upon a fasting stomach, and for three days eat nothing but
bread and water. As the water digested, the tincture mounted to his brain, bearing the
proposition along with it.” The satire here is more comic than bitter, except in the
passage explaining their method of proving the guilt of persons suspected of plotting
against the State. The anagrammatic method of exposing a plot is thus illustrated “So for
example, in should say in a letter to a friend, ‘Our brother Tom has just got the piles’, a
skilful decipherer would discover that the same letters which compose that sentence
may be analyzed into the following words: ‘Resist, a plot is brought home; the tour
(tower)’.” The whole thing is preposterous.

The Most Shattering Satire in Part IV

Nevertheless, the satire in Part III is largely confused or trivial. It is in Part IV that Swift’s
satire becomes most shattering, though at the same time it tends to destroy itself. The
Houyhnhnms are a race of noble horses who live according to the laws of “reason and
nature”. Serving them and despised by them are the beastly Yahoos, a degenerate
species of man. Gulliver himself recognizes how detestable the Yahoos are before he
realizes, to his horror and astonishment, that those abominable animals have human
figures in all respects. Gulliver this time makes no attempt to assert the superiority or
even the decency of the human race. He is content to try to persuade the Houyhnhnms
of the relationship between human beings and horses in his own country. In giving an
account of the state of England, Gulliver speaks directly with Swift’s own voice: “Now
your Honour is to know that these judges are persons appointed to decide all
controversies of property, as well as for the trial of criminals, and picked out from the
most dexterous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy and, having been biased all their lives
against truth and equity, lie under such a fatal necessity of favouring fraud, perjury, and
oppression, that I have known several of them to have refused a large bribe from the
side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty by doing anything unbecoming their
nature or their office.” As Gulliver proceeds with his account of England, he speaks more
and more from the point of view of the Houyhnhnms who regard British institutions as
the plain results of gross defects in reason and therefore in virtue. He apologizes to the
reader for “giving so free a representation of my own species”, but explains that “the
many virtues of those excellent quadrupeds, placed in opposite view to human
corruptions, had so for opened my eyes and enlarged my understanding that I began to
view the actions and passions of men in a very different light, and to think the honour of
my own kind not worth managing.” Disgust for the human species increases steadily as
the narrative proceeds, and Gulliver learns to live as a humble admirer and servant of
the Houyhnhnms.

A Dreary Utopia in Part IV

As we read the account of the life of the Houyhnhnms we feel that this life of reason as
led by them is curiously dead. We could even say that the reason which governs the
Houyhnhnms is really a desire for death. These people are exempt from love, friendship,
curiosity, fear, sorrow, anger, and hatred. (The last-mentioned two feelings-anger and
hatred-they experience only towards the Yahoos in their country.) They show no
fondness for their young ones. Their reason rules out any demonstration of love except
an abstract and universal benevolence. They take no pleasure in sex, producing two
children out of rational duty and thereafter abstaining. Their poetry is wholly didactic,
usually containing “some exalted notions of friendship and benevolence, or the praises
of those who were victors in races, and other bodily exercises”. The Houyhnhnms
continue for generation after generation to live prudently, maintaining their population
at exactly the same level, avoiding all passion, suffering from no diseases, meeting death
indifferently, and training up their young ones in the same principles. If their country is
intended as a utopia, it is a dreary utopia indeed.

Swift’s Violent Rejection of Mankind at the End

Swift ends his book by describing Gulliver’s difficulty in reconciling himself to live among
the Yahoos in England after his experience with the noble Houyhnhnm race; and there is
finally an attack on human pride when Gulliver says: “My reconcilement to the Yahoo-
kind in general might not be so difficult, if they would be content with those vices and
follies only which nature hath entitled them to. I am not in the least provoked at the
sight of a lawyer, a pickpocket, a colonel, a fool, a lord, a gamester, a politician, a whore-
master, a physician, an evidence, a suborner, an attorney, a traitor, or the like; but when I
behold a lump of deformity, and diseases both in body and mind, smitten with pride, it
immediately breaks all the measures of my patience.” The catalogue of lawyers,
pickpockets, fools, lords, politicians, etc., is a savage rejection of all human institutions.
The very length of this catalogue and the extremes it contains indicate the violence with
which Swift rejects all human attempts to make any distinction between kinds of
behaviour and of function. All categories of people are covered by a single contemptible
image––the Yahoo, who is proud of his Yahooness. Thus Swift adopts a nihilistic position,
forgetting that all men are not Yahoos, and forgetting also the kindness of the
Portuguese captain. Also, it appears that Swift is himself speaking here through Gulliver.

Important Note

[It should be noted that all critics do not share this opinion. According to some, it is not
Swift himself who is speaking through Gulliver at this particular point in the book.
Gulliver’s thorough-going misanthropy and cynicism are not to be attributed to Swift
himself. Swift was a cynic and a misanthrope no doubt, but not of this extreme kind.
Indeed, from this point of view, we can even say that at this point in the book Swift is
making fun of Gulliver for having become such a thorough hater of mankind.

---------------------------

Friday, November 19, 2010

“Gulliver’s Travels is primarily an adventure story and a fanciful account of strange and
wonderful lands, and therein lies its real charm”. Elaborate and illustrate.

A Classic for Young Readers as an Adventure Story

There is no doubt that Gulliver’s Travels is a story of adventure and that it has several
elements in it of a fairy tale. Both adventure and fairy-elements in a story appeal greatly
to the young mind.

They have some charm even for the adult mind. But it would be an incorrect view to
regard Gulliver’s Travels as merely an adventure story or a fairy tale intended for the
entertainment and diversion of young people. Gulliver’s tale is an allegorical satire. In
other words, there lies below the surface a deeper meaning. Swift’s real purpose was to
expose the follies, absurdities, and evils of mankind in general. However, this book has
established itself not only as a satire on mankind but also as a classic for the young
readers.

Some of the Difficulties Faced by Gulliver in the Course or His Voyages

Let us, then, take a look at Gulliver’s Travels as a tale of adventure which it doubtless is
and as a fanciful account of strange and wonderful lands. The book tells us the story of
the various voyages of a man called Lemuel Gulliver. Every voyage is an adventure in
itself. There is, first of all, the voyage to a country called Lilliput. Gulliver, in the course of
his first principal voyage, gets ship-wrecked, and has to swim to the shore to save his life.
On the sea-shore he falls into a sound slumber and, when he wakes up, he finds himself
a prisoner in chains. In the course of his second voyage, Gulliver’s ship is overtaken by a
fierce storm which threatens to wreck the ship and engulf the sailors including Gulliver.
However, when, after the storm, the ship casts anchor, and a few sailors including
Gulliver himself, are sent to the shore, Gulliver finds himself a captive in the hands of a
giant. In the course of his third voyage Gulliver’s ship is overtaken by pirates. The pirates
treat Gulliver roughly and, after depriving him of all his belongings, put him on a small
boat and set him adrift. Five days later, the boat touches a rocky island where Gulliver
gets down, very low in spirits and feeling tired and desolate. In the course of his fourth
voyage, Gulliver is attacked by the members of the crew of his own ship and is bound
hand and foot. Most of the members of this crew had previously been pirates, and now
they threaten to throw Gulliver into the sea if he puts up any resistance. After a few
days, the ruffians put Gulliver down on the sea-coast and sail away, leaving him alone to
fend for himself. Gulliver finds himself in a new country about which he knows nothing
at all.

A Story of Risks and Dangers

The above brief account of the various voyages of Gulliver shows the difficulties and
dangers that Gulliver faced in the course of his wanderings. Adventure always implies a
risk of life or a danger to life. The man who has the spirit of adventure in him is always
ready to face risks and dangers. Gulliver sets out nom a comfortable life at home in
order to explore unknown countries, knowing full well that he will face many difficulties
and hazards. But every time he goes on a fresh voyage willingly and experiences not only
difficulties and hardships but also serious dangers to his life. It is a miracle that each time
he returns home safely. Such a story is bound to fascinate the young mind because
dangers and difficulties never fail to appeal to young people.

The Amusing Experiences of Gulliver in the Strange Country of Dwarfs

Then there are the strange experiences of Gulliver in various lands. Every land which
Gulliver visits is a wonderful land, and Gulliver’s experiences in every land are strange or
exciting, or amusing. In Lilliput the people are diminutives or dwarfs, hardly six inches in
height. The very idea that there are human beings so small is funny. But more amusing
than that is the manner in which Gulliver is fed. Several ladders are applied by the
Lilliputians to his sides, and about a hundred of them climb up those ladders in order to
carry baskets full of meat and drink and put them close to his mouth. Similarly, it has
taken nine hundred Lilliputians three hours to raise Gulliver to the level of a huge
carriage by which he is carried to the royal court. In the metropolis, Gulliver becomes an
object of curiosity, and people come nom far and near to look at him. He is given the
name “man-mountain”. Gulliver here lends his support to the King and the government
of Lilliput against the island of Blefuscu which has been hostile to Lilliput, and he cripples
the enemy fleet, thus winning the appreciation and admiration of the Lilliputian king.
One of the most amusing incidents in this part of the book is Gulliver’s extinguishing a
fire in the Empress’s apartment by urinating on it. The Empress feels greatly annoyed
with this action of Gulliver and moves nom that apartment to a different location. Some
of the customs of the Lilliputians are also a source of amusement. For instance, they
bury their dead with the heads of the corpses directly downwards because they hold a
belief that after eleven thousand moons the dead would rise from their graves and that
during this period the earth would turn upside down so that the dead would, on coming
back to life, find themselves standing on their feet. Another comic absurdity of the
Lilliputians is their manner of writing which is very peculiar, being neither nom the left to
the right, like that of the Europeans; nor from the right to the left like that of the
Arabians; nor from up to down like that of the Chinese; nor from down to up like that of
the Cascagians; but aslant from one comer of the paper to the other “like the ladies in
England”. Gulliver has to go through an ordeal when, on being informed that he will be
shortly impeached on several charges, he finds it necessary to make good his escape
from this country.

Gulliver’s Exciting Experiences in the Country of Giants

In Part II of the book we find ourselves with Gulliver in another strange and wonderful
land. This land is called Brobdingnag. This land is inhabited by monstrous-looking giants
who are twelve times the height of Gulliver. By contrast with these huge-looking men,
Gulliver thinks himself to be as small as the Lilliputians were by contrast with him. Here
too Gulliver becomes an object of curiosity for the inhabitants, though for the opposite
reason. When Gulliver is first shown by his captor to his wife (who is as huge in size and
proportions as her husband), she screams and runs away as a woman in England might
do at the sight of a toad or a spider. In other words, Gulliver looks like an insect to the
people here. The youngest son in the family of Gulliver’s captor lifts Gulliver by the legs
and holds him so high in the air that Gulliver begins to tremble with fear. Then Gulliver
sees a cat which is three times larger than an ox in England, and he feels greatly alarmed
by its fierceness. When the lady of the house begins to suckle her child, Gulliver feels
thoroughly disgusted on seeing the huge, monstrous breasts of the woman, with their
nipples about half of the bigness of Gulliver’s head. When Gulliver wakes up from his
sleep, he is attacked by a couple of rats which are of the size of a big dog. When Gulliver
is afterwards bought by the Queen, he becomes a favourite with her. As a consequence,
the royal dwarf begins to feel jealous of Gulliver and plays much mischief with him. On
one occasion, the dwarf makes Gulliver fall into a large bowl of cream. On another
occasion, he thrusts Gulliver’s whole body into a bone from which the marrow has been
taken out. Gulliver also feels uneasy for another reason. There are too many flies in
Brobdingnag. The flies here are very large, like all other creatures, and Gulliver feels
much troubled by them as they hum and buzz about his ears. He is also much tormented
by the wasps, which are as large as the patridges in England. Referring to the royal
kitchen Gulliver says that, if he were to describe the size of the kitchen-grate and the size
of the pots and kettles, the reader would perhaps not believe him and think that Gulliver
is guilty of exaggeration. There are several mishaps during Gulliver’s stay in Brobdingnag.
Once an apple, falling from a tree, hits Gulliver on his back and knocks him down flat on
his face, because the apples here are also very large. On another occasion, when Gulliver
is standing on a grassy plot, there is a sudden shower of hailstones which are nearly
eighteen hundred times as large as those in Europe. Gulliver is badly injured by these
hailstones. The royal maids of honour often play with Gulliver as if Gulliver were a toy.
On one occasion Gulliver is carried off by a monkey which is also very huge, and he is
rescued with great difficulty. Eventually Gulliver is carried off by a huge eagle which
drops him into the sea from where he is picked up by a passing ship. This is Gulliver’s last
adventure on his second voyage.

Gulliver’s Account of the Life in Laputa, Lagado, Etc.

Laputa, the voyage to which is described in Part III of the book, is another wonderful
land. Laputa is an island which keeps flying at a height of about two miles from the earth
over the continent of Balnibarbi. This in itself is a miracle. The people of Laputa have
strange shapes and faces. Their heads are all reclined either to the right or to the left,
one of their eyes being turned inward and the other directly up to the zenith. Many of
the Laputans are followed by flappers who carry in their hands blown bladders fastened
to the ends of short sticks. The function of these flappers is to draw the attention of
their masters to anything that might need their attention, because the minds of their
masters are so occupied with intense speculations that they can neither speak nor listen
to others without being roused by some external action. Another strange feature of life
on Laputa is that mutton, beef, pudding, and other eatables are given geometrical
shapes or the shapes of musical instruments. When these people want to praise the
beauty of a woman or any other animal they do so in geometrical or musical terms. The
men on this island are so busy in their cogitations that their wives feel compelled to
make love to strangers instead of to their husbands. When Gulliver goes to Lagado, he
witnesses the many experiments which are in progress at the Academy of Projectors.
There is a project for extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, a project for restoring
human excrement to its original food, a new method for building houses by beginning at
the roof and working downwards to the foundation, and so on. There are several
schemes being developed at the school of political projects also. These are all very
amusing and impractical schemes. Gulliver’s visit to the island of Glubbdubdrib is also
very interesting because Gulliver here finds himself in a place where ghosts and spirits
are in attendance upon the governor and where Gulliver is enabled to hold
conversations with the spirits of such great men of the past as Alexander, Hannibal,
Aristotle, Homer, and Brutus. Gulliver also sees a group of immortal people in this place.
These immortals are feeling wretched and miserable because they long for death which
does not come to them.

The Charm of These Accounts

The appeal of all the first three voyages for the young reader is manifest from the above
summary. There is plenty of fun and mirth in the accounts of these three voyages.
Indeed, some of the episodes are bound to give rise to boisterous laughter among the
readers. In other words, the description of some of the incidents is really hilarious. No
wonder that one of the early commentators called Gulliver’s Travels a merry work. It is
evident, too, that improbability is the keynote of most of the incidents. The grown-up
readers, for instance, will not even believe in the existence of Lilliputians and
Brobdingnagians. But the young readers are bound to feel excited by descriptions of
these strange people and their doings, and will not doubt the existence of pigmies and
giants. For them the accounts of these people’s life will have a charm of their own.

Yet Another Wonderland in Part IV of the Book

The country of the Yahoos and the Houyhnhnms, described in Part IV, is also a
wonderland. This is a country in which human beings are no better than beasts, while
the horses show themselves to be superior to human beings. The horses or the
Houyhnhnms are the noblest conceivable animals. They are wholly governed by reason;
they have a language of their own which they are able even to teach to a human being
like Gulliver; they have their own excellent customs and methods of government; they
are guided mainly by the principles of benevolence and kindness. These strange or
marvellous beings are free from all kinds of evil, so much so that there is no word in
their language for lying or falsehood. They hold a periodical assembly to discuss their
affairs and to take necessary action to rectify things which have gone wrong; they have
their methods to control their population; and they do not marry for love or for the
pleasures of sex but only to reproduce and yet to keep their members under check. The
Yahoos, who symbolize human beings, are on the contrary despicable creatures who
arouse our disgust and abhorrence. This part of the story is not likely to appeal to the
young mind very much because it is replete with symbolism, the understanding of which
is essential for the appreciation of the entire part. In this part, Swift’s message is more
important than the adventurous elements or the element of wonder and enchantment.

Not Enough to Describe the Book as an Adventure Story

Finally, it must be pointed out that it is not enough to describe Gulliver’s Travels merely
as an adventure story or a tale of wonder. We must recognize that in it Swift has lashed
human institutions and human passions. It is a satiric masterpiece in which Swift exposes
human follies and absurdities, and the consequences of human irrationality.

----------------------------------------

Swift's "Gulliver's Travels": A social satire

“Gulliver’s Travels” is a great work of social satire. Swift’s age was an age of smug
complacency. Corruption was rampant and the people were still satisfied. Thus,
Jonathan Swift tears the veil of smug complacency off which had blinded the people to
realities. In “Gulliver’s Travels”, there is a satire on politics, human physiognomy,
intellect, manners and morality.

In the first voyage to Lilliput, Swift satirizes on politics and political tactics practiced in
England through Lilliputians, the dwarfs of six inches height. He satirizes the manner in
which political offices were awarded by English King in his time. Flimnap, the Treasurer,
represents Sir Robert Walpole who was the Prime Minister of England. Dancing on tight
ropes symbolizes Walpole's skill in parliamentary tactics and political intrigues. The
ancient temple, in which Gulliver is housed in Lilliput, refers to Westminster Hall in
which Charles I was condemned to death. The three fine silk threads awarded as prizes
to the winners refer to the various distinctions conferred by English King to his
favourites. The Lilliputians were highly superstitious:
“They bury their dead with their head directly downwards because they hold an opinion
that after eleven thousand moons they are all to rise again.”

Gulliver’s account of the annoyance of the Empress of Lilliput on extinguishing fire in her
apartment is Swift’s satirical way of describing Queen Anne’s annoyance with him on
writing “A Tale of a Tub”. Swift’s satire becomes amusing when Gulliver speaks of the
conflict between the Big Endians and the Little Endians. In this account Swift is ridiculing
the conflicts between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants. High Heel and Low Heel
represent Whig and Tory – two political parties in England.

In the second voyage to Brobdingnag, there is a general satire on human body, human
talents and human limitations. Gulliver gives us his reaction to the coarseness and
ugliness of human body. When Gulliver gives an account, to the King of Brobdingnag, of
the life in his own country, the trade, the wars, the conflicts in religion, the political
parties, the king remarks that the history of Gulliver's country seems to be a series of
conspiracies, rebellions, murders, revolutions and banishments etc. Kind condemns the
fatal use of gunpowder and the books written on the act of governing. King mocks at the
human race of which Gulliver is the agent.

“The most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon
the surface of the earth.”

Swift here ridicules human pride and pretension. The sight is, indeed, horrible and
disgusting. Among the beggars is a woman with a cancer in her breast.

“It stood prominent six feet, and could not be less than sixteen in circumference … spots
and pimples that nothing could appear more nauseous.”

There is a man with a huge tumor in his neck; another beggar has wooden legs. But the
most hateful sight is that of the lice crawling on their clothes. This description reinforces
Swift views of the ugliness and foulness of the human body.
In the third voyage to Laputa, there is a satire on human intellect, human mind and on
science, philosophy and mathematics. However, his satire is not very bitter. We are
greatly amused by the useless experiments and researches, which are going on at the
academy of Projectors in Lugado. Here scientists wants to extract sunbeams out of
cucumbers, to convert human excrement into its original food, to build house from the
roof downward to the foundation, to obtain silk from cobwebs and to produce books on
various subjects by the use of machine without having to exert one’s brain.

“Their heads were inclined either to the right or to the left, one of their eyes turned
inward, and the other directly up to Zenith.”

Swift amuses us by making a fun of the people whose sole interests are music and
geometry.

“They made a lot of theories but practically nill.”

Swift here ridicules scientists, academics, planers, intellectual, in fact, all people who
proceed, only according to theory which are useless when they come to actual practice.
He satirizes historian and literary critics though Gulliver’s interviews with the ghosts of
famous dead. The point f satire is that historian often distorts facts and literary critics
often misinterpret great authors like Homer and Aristotle.

In the fourth voyage to Houyhnhnms, there is a bitter poignant satire on human moral
shortcomings. Voyage contains some of the most corrosive and offensive satire on
mankind. The description of the Yahoos given to us by Gulliver is regrettable.

“Yet I confess I never say any sensitive being so detestable on all accounts; and the more
I came near them, the more hateful they grew.”
By contrast, the Houyhnhnms are noble and benevolent horses who are governed by
reason and lead an ordered life. It is, indeed, a bitter criticism on the human race to be
compared by the Houyhnhnms. The satire deepens when Gulliver gives an account, to
the master Houyhnhnms, of the events in his country. He tells him that war in European
countries was sometimes due to the ambition of kings and sometimes due to the
corruption of the ministers. He speaks of the numerous deadly weapons, employed by
European nations for destructive purposes. Many people in his country ruin themselves
by drinking, gambling and debauchery and many are guilty of murders, theft, robbery,
forgery and rape. The master speaks of the Yahoo’s love of shinning stones, their
gluttony and their weakness for liquor. The master also speaks of the lascivious
behaviour of the female Yahoos. By contrast, the Houyhnhnms are excellent beings.

“Here was neither physician to destroy my body not lawyer to ruin my fortune; no
informer to watch my words and actions … here were no … backbiters, pickpockets,
highwaymen, house-breakers … politicians, wits … murderers, robbers … no cheating
shop-keeper or mechanics, no pride, vanity or affectation.”

They hold meetings at which the difficulties of their population are discussed and solved.
They regulate their population and do not indulge in sexual intercourse merely for
pleasure.

“Everything is calculated as the Plato’s Utopian land ‘The Republican’.”

Swift’s purpose here is to attribute to horses certain qualities which would normally be
expected in human beings but which are actually lacking in them. Gulliver’s reaction o
Houyhnhnms fills him so much admiration for them and with so much hatred and
disgust for human beings that he has no desire even to return to his family.

Thus we see that “Gulliver’s Travels” is a great piece of art containing social satire in it.
Every satirist is at heart a reformist. Swift, also, wants to reform the society by
pinpointing the vices and shortcoming in it. And he very successfully satirizes on political
tactics, physical awkwardness, intellectual fallacies and moral shortcomings.
---------------------------------

Swift’s Satire in Gulliver’s Travels:

A satire is a literary device in which the author exposes and ridicules the follies,
absurdities and incongruities of individual or society. Swift in his preface to ‘The Battle of
the Books’ points out that “Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally
discover everybody's face but their own; which is the chief reason…very few are
offended with it.”

Swift was a prolific writer, notable for his biting satires. Swift’s polemical tour de force,
Gulliver's Travels satirizes mankind on many levels. He wrote the scathing satire on
behalf of human dignity that is famous for being full of reminders of human filth. The
book is also a brilliant parody of travel literature and a witty parody of science fiction.

Swift employs both comic and corrosive satire in his satirical masterpiece. The other
literary devices used in his satire are irony, humour, invective exaggeration, mockery,
parody, allegory etc.

Gulliver's Travels, is a complicated, unblinking criticism of humanity, written, Swift said,

“to vex the world rather than divert it.” “I wrote for their(men’s) amendment and not
their approbation”, says Gulliver in his prefatory letter to cousin Sympson. Within the
framework of his travels, very little of human social behavior, pretensions, or societal
institutions escape the deflating punctures of Swift's arrows.

In the first voyage, Swift mounts a dark and violent assault on the political institutions
and the politicians of his time. The juxtaposition of physical delicacy and mental brutality
of Lilliputians is all the base of satire and irony in the story of Lilliput. The six inches high
midgets constitute the ‘moral midgets’ in the Court and Parliament of Swift’s day. Swift
portrays them as being only six inches tall because it is an excellent way to trivialize the
significance of their wars, the political jousting, their endless infighting and their
sycophancy over honours and rewards.

The first voyage in particular is a satirical romp in which Swift takes some memorable
shots at English political parties and their antics. Flimnap’s dancing on the tight rope
symbolizes Sir Robert Walpole’s dexterity in parliamentary tactics and political intrigues.
The phrase “one of the king’s cushions” refers to one of King George’s mistresses who
helped to restore Walpole after his fall in 1717. High Admiral Skyresh Bolgolam which
turns out to be Gulliver’s ‘mortal enemy’ represents earl of Nottingham while Reldresal
may symbolize Lord Carteret who was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland by Walpole.

Gulliver’s extinguishing the fire of queen’s palace is a reference to Queen Anne’s

annoyance with him on writing “A Tale of a Tub”. In highlighting the conflict between the
Big-Endians and the small-Endians; “it is computed that eleven thousand persons have,
at several times, suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller
end”, Swift is actually ridiculing the theological disputes between Roman Catholics and
the Protestants.

Swift also pokes fun at the differences between ‘Whig’ and ‘Tory’—the Low-Church and
High-Church political parties—by distinguishing them by their low heels and high heels
respectively. The enmity between Lilliput and Blefuscu refers to England’s rivalry with
France.

Also when the King of Blefuscu offers Gulliver his "gracious Protection" if he will serve
him, Gulliver becomes the mouthpiece of Swift’s satire and comments: "I resolved never
more to put any confidence in Princes or Ministers, where I could possibly avoid it."

In the second voyage of Gulliver, there is the satire of more general kind. At times it
seems a satire on human physiognomy and at times through the king of Brobdingnag,
Swift ridicules the running of British parliament:

"My little friend Grildrig; you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country.
You have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice are the proper ingredients for
qualifying a legislator. That laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those
whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them.”

When Gulliver gives an enthusiastic account of the life in his own country, the trade, the
wars, the conflict in religion and the rift between the political the political parties in the
last century, the king remarks that the history of Gulliver’s country “was only a heap of
conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions and banishments” etc. The king
mocks and observes how contemptible is human grandeur which is being mimicked by
such diminutive insect as Gulliver. When Gulliver reveals the secret of gun-powder, the
king is horrified and dismissively concludes that “the bulk of your natives to be the most
pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the
surface of the earth.”

In the third part of Gulliver’s travels, Swift takes us to an imaginary floating island of
Laputa, and there is a comic satire on human intellect, misuse of his sagacity in science,
philosophy and mathematics. Gulliver observes that the inhabitants are wholly
engrossed in their fruitless meditation:

"Their heads were all reclined either to the right, or the left; one of their eyes turned
inward, and the other directly up to the zenith.”

Here Swift mocks at the diverted intellect of scientists, academics, planners and all those
who often get lost in theoretical abstractions and exclude the more pragmatic aspects of
life. The various researches that are in progress at the Academy of Projectors in Lagado
are fantastic and preposterous. Experiments are being made “to extract sunbeams out
of cucumbers, to convert human excrement into its original food, to build houses from
the roof downwards to the foundation, to obtain silk from cobwebs.”

And, finally, there is the grim and poignant satire on the human longing for immortality
which is symbolized by the Struldbrugs. Gulliver describes himself as “struck with
inexpressible delight” when he hears about the Struldbruggs, while Swift silently mocks
his naivety. When he hears how they must live and sees for himself their condition he
describes them as “the most mortifying sight (he) ever beheld”

In the Fourth voyage to the country of Houyhnhnmms there is a sharp pointed satire on
human moral shortcomings. This voyage contains the most corrosive and offensive satire
on mankind. The sheer intensity and violent rhetoric are simply overwhelming. Swift’s
clinical dissection of the utopian ideal is at best in the description of Houyhnhnms. At
first, these improbable horse-like creatures seem to be the embodiment of pure reason.
They know neither love nor grief nor lust nor ambition. These are in sharp contrast with
the loathsome Yahoos, brutes in human shape. Swift’s impeachment of human nature
becomes extremely cruel when he says:

“Upon the whole, I never behold in all my travels so disagreeable an animal, nor one
against which I naturally conceived so strong an antipathy.”

Gulliver maintains:

“I had hitherto concealed the secret of my dress, in order to distinguish myself ,as much
as possible, from the cursed race of Yahoos.”

Houyhnhnmsland virtually constitutes Swift’s utopia as it is governed by rational

Houyhnhnms:

“Here was neither physician to destroy my body, nor lawyer to ruin my fortune; no
informer to watch my words and actions…here were no gibers, censurers, backbiters,
pickpockets, highwaymen, house-breakers…gamesters, politicians, wits…ravishers,
murderers, robbers …”

Swift ingeniously cracks the smug self-confidence of the contemporary society and
makes it clear that his chief adversary is man's pride:

“When I behold a lump of deformity, and diseases both of body and mind, smitten with
pride, it immediately breaks all the measures of my patience.”

Every satirist is at heart a reformist. Swift, also, wanted to reform the society by
pinpointing the vices and shortcoming in it. "I write for the noblest end, to inform and
instruct mankind…I write without any view to profit or praise", he concludes his travels
on a philanthropic note.

-------------------------------------

Is swift a misanthrope?

Swift is not a misanthrope rather he is a philanthrope. It is the misconception of those

who think Swift as a misanthrope. Swift only wants to reform mankind out of their follies
and stupidities. He says that the chief end of all his labour is:

“to vex the world rather than divert it”.

Secondly, he declares that:

“I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities and all his love is towards
individuals.”

Thirdly, though Swift does not believe that:

“Man is a rational animal”.

Yet he believes that:

“Man is capable of becoming rational if he makes the necessary efforts.”

But we see that Swift is notorious for being misanthrope. He was subjected to this
allegation during his lifetime because the critics, identifying Gulliver with Swift,
attributed Gulliver’s blunders to Swift. That Gulliver, in the last voyage, becomes a
misanthrope is undeniable and indisputable. Prima facie, it appears that by developing a
negative view of mankind, he starts preferring horses to men, but a solid reason of Swift
underlies this act of Gulliver.

We observe that in the fourth voyage, Gulliver reaches a country of animals, ruled by
animals. There are two categories of animals living there in: ugly and repulsive brutes –
Yahoos:

“Yahoos who are unteachable brutes, cunning, gluttonous and disposed to great
mischief”.
And comparatively better and nice-looking animals – Houyhnhnms. The moment he
enters the country he is confronted with Yahoos and they give him such a nasty and
obnoxious treatment that he develops a disliking for them in his heart, which is later
converted into hatred owing to their disgusting physical appearance and their filthy and
mischievous way of life. But his first meeting with Houyhnhnms, on the other hand,
proves a nice experience. And this:

“First impression proves the last impression”.

They secure him against Yahoos, behave properly and gracefully escort him to their
abode.

“The behaviour of horses shows him to be animals with an extraordinary power of

understanding.”

Naturally, this kind of treatment creates a sort of fondness in Gulliver's heart for
Houyhnhnms and their way of life. Upto this time, nothing is objectionable, but his fault
begin when he become so enamored of Houyhnhnms that he starts hating man or
equating Yahoos with men, he begins to abhor Man. He develops a general hatred
against all men. All the subsequent incidents – his hatred against the Captain, against his
family, etc. – reflect his misanthropy.

The blunder which Gulliver committed is that, he over-idealizes them because Gulliver is
a man who is fed up with Man’s corruption. Therefore, he cannot see corruption in Man.
He finds Yahoos in a detestable and abhorrent condition on account of their being a
slave of emotions, sensuality and sentimentality. He says:

“Yet I confess I never saw any sensitive being so detestable on all accounts; and the
more I came near them, the more hateful they grew, while I stayed in that country.”
Houyhnhnms, in a comparatively better condition, lack that type of corruption that
Yahoos have, for Houyhnhnms have no emotion.

“Houyhnhnms are free from lust and greed.”

Naturally, he attributes whole of Man’s corruption to emotions, passions and

sentimentality. As a remedy, he starts hating emotions, passion and he falls a victim to
pure intellect.

“Here was neither physician to destroy my body, nor lawyer to ruin my fortune, here
were no gibers, …, backbiters, …, bawds, …, ravishers, murderers or … poxes.”

So, he mis-idealize Houyhnhnms, due to their pure intellect, somehow establishes a

subjective ideal before him i.e. to be a man is to have pure intellect. He thinks:

“The only remedy for doing away with Man’s corruption and pollution is to get rid of all
kinds of emotions”.

In the country of Houyhnhnms, when Gulliver has a choice, he adopts for the
Houyhnhnms way of life, completely rejecting Yahoos’ path. But when he is compelled to
leave the country and to break away form his beloved way of life, and to come to
another way of life which he dislikes, it is but natural for him to hate it. In fact, his this
ideal is perfectly erroneous. Swift says:

“Idealism leads towards destruction.”

So, it is wrong to detest Man, equating him with Yahoos and it is again inappropriate to
set up the ideal of perfect man on the basis of Houyhnhnms’ pure intellect because
neither a Houyhnhnms nor a Yahoo is a man, instead, man is a juxtaposition of both
intellect and emotions.

“The best code of conduct is Golden Mean which is ‘balance’.”

So he mis-defines Man. However, the fact of the matter remains whether Swift becomes
a misanthrope or not, but can we impute Gulliver’s misanthropy to Swift? If we virtually
succeed to establish, some identity between Swift and Gulliver, Swift, too, will become a
misanthrope.

But according to Swift a man is he who strikes a balance between rationality and
sensuality and this balance is not gifted by birth. It has to be acquired. That’s why even
Gulliver is subjected to Swift’s satire, for he loses the said balance.

That is the reason we don’t identify Gulliver with Swift and, inspite of Gulliver’s
misanthropy, we call Swift a great philanthropist. As he, himself, says:

“I write for the noblest end, to inform and instruct mankind.”

-----------------------------

Swift’s Misanthropy in Gulliver's Travels:

Gulliver's Travels is an anatomy of human nature, a sardonic looking-glass, often

criticized for its apparent misanthropy. Gulliver's Travels was unique in its day; it was not
written to woo or entertain. It was an indictment, and it was most popular among those
who were indicted.

On the subject of misanthropy Swift famously said, “Principally I hate and detest that
animal called man" Swift called man not the "animal rationale" but only the "rationis
capax”, animal capable of reason.
In a letter to Alexander Pope Swift wrote:

“I have ever hated all Nations professions and Communities and all my love is towards
individuals. . .Upon this great foundation of misanthropy the whole building of my
travels is erected”

He admits that the chief end of all his labour is “to vex the world rather than divert it”.

Swift so violently ‘vexed’ the world that different critics from his own time to this day
have bitterly criticized him.

Thackeray attacked his book claiming it to be “filthy in word, filthy in thought, furious,
raging, obscene.” Walter Scott condemns Swift’s attack on mankind as “severe, unjust
and degrading.”

William Hazlitt however defends Swift against these charges:

“What a libel is this upon mankind! What a convincing proof of misanthropy! What
presumption and what malice prepense, to shew men what they are, and to teach them
what they ought to be!”

Gulliver’s Travel’s serves as a magnifying mirror to show us our faults so that we can see
how far we have strayed from reasonable behavior.

Paul Turner writes of Gulliver’s four voyages: “The four pictures form a series, in which
the view grows gradually darker; that is, they represent stages in Gulliver's
disillusionment.”

In the first part of the book, Swift takes us to the land of midgets, the “human creatures
not more than six inches high”. Lilliput is a miniature empire with a little monarch who
entitled himself as "delight and terror of the universe".

In Lilliput, which is, quite literally, a microcosm, the vices and follies not merely of
England but of all mankind are epitomized. The human race viewed in miniature, at first
seems rather charming; but the tiny creatures soon turn out to be cunning, malicious,
treacherous and revengeful. They are ready to sacrifice all humane feeling, whether
towards Gulliver or the Blefuscudians, to their own petty ambitions.

In Brobdingnag, however, it is as if we are looking at humanity through a magnifying

glass. Gulliver is often repulsed by both the size and coarseness of the physical bodies of
the Brobdingnagians. But Swift throws in a nice twist with the first two parts of Gulliver's
Travels. Though the Brobdingnagians are more repulsive physically because of their size,
they are categorized by Gulliver as "the least corrupted".

When Gulliver gives brief description of the political and legal institutions of England to
Brobdingnagian King, the King dismissively concludes "the bulk of your natives to be the
most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the
surface of the earth."

Swift was certainly not one of the optimists typical of his century. He did not believe that
the ‘Age of Science’ was a triumph. Science and reason needed limits, and they did not
require absolute devotion. In order to satirize mankind in general and science in
particular, Swift takes us to an imaginary floating island where the inhabitants were
wholly engrossed in their fruitless meditation."Their heads were all reclined either to the
right, or the left; one of their eyes turned inward, and the other directly up to the
zenith.” The various researches that were in progress at the Academy of Projectors in
Lagado were fantastic and preposterous. Experiments were being made “to extract
sunbeams out of cucumbers, to convert human excrement into its original food, to build
houses from the roof downwards to the foundation, to obtain silk from cobwebs”

Swift’s alleged misanthropy reaches its crescendo in the fourth voyage of Gulliver. As
Gulliver reaches the land governed by philosophical horses Houyhnhnms, he is instantly
confronted with a pack of Yahoos which give him such an obnoxious and disgusting
treatment that he develops an intense hatred for them, owing to their vile physical
appearance and their filthy and mischievous way of life. Gulliver highlights:

“Upon the whole, I never behold in all my travels so disagreeable an animal, nor one
against which I naturally conceived so strong an antipathy.”
The Houyhnhnms, on the other hand, are “endued with a proportionable degree of
reason” and “orderly and rational, acute and judicious”. They know neither love nor grief
nor lust nor ambition for they face each of these phenomena with stoical calm. Their
cardinal virtues are “friendship and benevolence”. The Houyhnhnms are “the Perfection
of Nature” while “the Yahoos … were observed to be the most unteachable of all brutes”

Gulliver’s epiphany occurs he identifies himself with the detestable Yahoos:

“My horror and astonishment are not to be described, when I observed in this
abominable animal, a perfect human figure.”

The theme of Gulliver’s hatred of mankind is climaxed when he told he must leave
Houyhnhnmland. He exclaims “that the certain prospect of an unnatural death was the
least of my evils, for…how could I think with temper of passing my days among Yahoos”.
Thus Gulliver would rather die than live among his own race of Yahoos. Nonetheless, he
must leave. But he plans not to go home, but to find some small uninhabited island so
that he can, in solitude, “reflect with delight on the virtues of those imitable
Houyhnhnms.” Yet, fate would not allow it. He is discovered by Portuguese Captain and
seamen and is forcibly rescued and given passage to Lisbon. With the short-sightedness
of the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver perceives only the Yahoo and is repelled by Captain Don
Pedro de Mendez’s clothes, food, and odour as he remarks: “I wondered to find such
civilities from a Yahoo. However, I remained silent and sullen; I was ready to faint at the
very smell of him and his men.”

Gulliver’s frenzy of his extreme misanthropy has driven him into madness as can no
longer bear his own wife and children:

“I began last week to permit my wife to sit at dinner with me, at the farthest end of a
long table…. Yet the smell of a Yahoo continuing very offensive, I always keep my nose
well stopped with rue, lavender, or tobacco leaves. “

Gulliver concludes his travels on a misanthropic note:

“When I behold a lump of deformity, and diseases both in body and mind, smitten with
pride, it immediately breaks all the measures of my patience.”
While the character of Gulliver eventually reveals himself to be a misanthrope, the
author Jonathan Swift does not. The reader must be conscientious to see that Gulliver’s
idealized glance of Houyhnhnms’ logical approach to life is not always consistent with
Swift’s. A carful denotation suggests that the author is just as satirical toward Gulliver
and the Houyhnhnms as he is toward the Yahoos. Gulliver remains true to his gullible
nature as he seems unable to discern the negative aspects of the Houyhnhnms’ rational
philosophy. Swift, on other hand, uses these quadrupeds to show how reason
untouched by love, compassion, and empathy is also inadequate to deal with the myriad
aspects of the human life.

--------------------------------

Jonathan Swift : A Misanthrope or Hater of Mankind in The Gulliver’s Travels

June 26, 2012

“I hate and detest that animal called man…” This is a portion of a sentence from a letter
of the world famous satirist Jonathan Swift to Alexander Pope. “The Gulliver’s Travels” is
Swift’s masterpiece, a universal satire satirizing the mankind as a whole. However, Book I
of this satire is actually directed to the political circumstances and corruption of the then
England. Yet, it is also applicable to general tendency of the political leaders of other
countries alike. Again, the Book II shows the abuse of power. But Swift most violently
attacks the human being and shows his utter hatred towards the whole mankind in the
Book IV. For this reason, Swift is called a misanthrope, a hater of mankind. Now let us
evaluate the point giving references from the text and comments of different critics.

At the very first travel, Gulliver, Swift’s mouthpiece, appears to such a land where lives
an unbelievable ‘human creature not more than six inches high’ . Actually, Swift’s this
presentation of an impossible physical smallness of the human race is desired to show
the possible mental smallness.

At the second book of the travels, Swift introduces us with a dangerous ‘rope-dance’
among the political competitors, which may cause their serious physical injury, in
performing their ‘dexterity and magnificence’ in front of the king to achieve his favour.
Even, “Flimnap would have infallibly broke his neck if one of the King’s cushions that
actually lay on the ground had not weakened his fall.” This symbolical story ironically
means Walpol’s (Flimnap’s) keeping his power ok by using one of the King’s mistresses
(King’s cushions), with whom he had an illegal relationship. Though it seems a personal
attack, it actually aims at the common human tendency to keep power by unfair means.

The human beings have an instinct to make quarrel and war. The long war between the
‘Lilliputians’ and the ‘Blefuscus’ on a trivial issue for a long time proves their love for war.
They continue the war for many years on the point that which end of an egg to break,
larger or smaller end.

Swift’s mouthpiece of misanthropy now is the king of Brobdingnags who having heard an
account of Gulliver’s native people throws a pungent attack on the whole mankind-

“I can not but conclude the bulk of your natives, to be the most pernicious race of little
odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.”
Swift’s most serious attack on mankind lies in the fourth book, A Voyage to the Country
of the Houyhnhnms, where he introduces us with two sorts of inhabitants- Yahoos or
monkeys, representing mankind and Houyhnhnms, representing horses. But the most
objectionable thing is that Yahoos have been shown to be deformed, ugly and inferior in
both physical and mental make-up, while the Houyhnhnms are ‘endued with a
proportionable degree of reason’ and ‘orderly and rational, acute and judicious’ . The
Houyhnhnms are ‘the Perfection of Nature’ while “the yahoos … were observed to be
the most unteachable of all brutes”

“Part IV of Gulliver’s Travels describes man as ‘a lump of deformity and disease both in
body and mind, smitten with pride’.”

Swift has so much hatred towards mankind that he makes Gulliver tell-

“I expressed my uneasiness at his giving me so often the appellation of Yahoo, an odious

animal, for which a had so utter an hatred.”

Gulliver having described to the master Houyhnhnm of how the human being or Yahoos
of his country travel upon the seas by ships, the master Houyhnhnm gets surprised to
hear such a thing. Gulliver says-
“He asked me who made the ship, and how it was possible to that the Houyhnhnms of
my country would have it to the management of brutes.”

Can any human being bear such a pungent attack on the whole human being as ‘brutes’?

Gulliver did not, any time, want to disclose his body in front of the Houyhnhnms for
he always wanted to distinguish himself ‘as much as possible from the cursed race of
Yahoo’. But once the secret of his dress is discovered and he is asked to put off his
dresses in front of them. But he feels ashamed ‘ to expose those parts that nature taught
us to conceal’. However , the master surprises in not wanting to disclose the dress.

Hence, the use of the phrase ‘the cursed race of Yahoo’ and the incident demand a
religious interpretation:

According to the ‘Doctrine of Original Sin’ of St. Augustine, who has a great
influence on Christianity, human being is originally of sinful nature sharing the sin of
Adam and Eve who were ‘cursed’ and expelled from the garden of Eden. Again Adam
and Eve felt ashamed of their nakedness in front of God after experience of having the
forbidden fruit. Same is the case of Gulliver in front of the Master Houyhnhnm after his
‘original’ state having been discovered. But the Yahoos of the land actually represent the
pre-fallen or innocent state of mankind. So they do not have any shame of nakedness.

Therefore, from the theological point of view, this can not have any satirical
purpose, but just a religious interpretation. But Swift’s misanthropy is expressed in his
own words in a letter to Pope (Sep. 29, 1728) after finishing the travels. Swift says-

“I have ever hated all Nations professions and Communitys and all my love is towards
individuals …… I hate and detest that animal called man , although I heartily love John,
Peter , Thomas.”

That is, he hates the ‘cursed’ race of ‘man of original sin’, but loves some individuals. But,
don’t Peter, John and Thomas bear the original sin? ... So Swift is here self-contradictory.
Actually his “chief end … is to vex the world rather than to divert it”. “Upon this great
foundation of misanthropy the whole building of my travels is erected”, Swift himself
says.

Swift’s misanthropy reaches the climax when Gulliver says,

“I began last week to permit my wife to sit at dinner with me…. Yet the smell of a Yahoo
continuing very offensive, I always keep my nose stopped with rue, lavender, or tobacco
leaves. “

He has no anti-climax of his misanthropy. Rather he speaks against human pride,

“When I behold a lump of deformity and disease both in body and mind, smitten with
pride, it immediately breaks all the measures of my patience.”

But is Swift without pride? - ‘No’ can be the appropriate answer according to Swift’s own
letter to Charles ford (Jan 19th, 1724). In that letter, he feels proud of his ‘Abilityes’.
Moreover, having corrected his sins by keeping company with Houyhnhnms, now
Gulliver tries to keep himself aloof from the ‘cursed’ race of Yahoos, i.e. from mankind.
But as far as the Doctrine of Original Sin is concerned, how can he, being a descendant
of Adam and Eve, be apart from the basic fallen nature of human being? … Therefore,
Swift himself is the irony of his treatment, and he is completely a misanthrope.

However from the book I to the book IV of this travel story, we can draw a progress
in the religious perspective. In the book I, Gulliver discharged his urine to extinguish the
fire and left his stool without any shame. It became possible for he was in the state of
innocence. But in the book IV, he feels very much ashamed to disclose his dresses for he
is now in the experienced stage. Gulliver in the first book was a superior man but now
inferior. The first was pre-fallen state of Adam and Eve while the fourth is post-fallen.

Swift so violently ‘vexed’ the world that different critics from his own time the 18th
century to the 20th century bitterly criticized him. Even his defenders could not but
consider the 4th book to be most objectionable.

Among the 18th century critics, there was Earl of Orrey, Swift’s earliest biographer,
who says,

“no man [was] better acquainted [than Swift] with human nature, both in the highest’
and in the lowest scenes of life.” (p. 338)*

Yet he considers Swift’s misanthropy in book IV ‘intolerable’ and says “voyage to the
Houyhnhnms is a real insult upon mankind” (p. 190)** Another was Partrick Delany
calling the book IV to be ‘moral deformity’, ‘defiled imagination’. Thus, the 18th century
critics, taking a high moral line, considers that Swift’s misanthropy led him to write ‘a
monostrous fiction’ which was actually ‘an artistic failure’.

Of the 19th century commentators who were less harsh than the 18th century
commentators, Gosse was the harshest. He uses some phrases indicating Swift’s
tendency, Swift himself and his book- ‘the horrible satisfaction of disease’ , a brain ‘not
wholly under control’ and ‘the horrible foulness’. The softest critic of this century was W.
E. H. Lecky who tries to answer Gosse in a differet angel. He sees Swifts misanthropy as a
constitutional melancholy “mainly due to a physical malady which had long acted upon
his brain”. But this answer is not suitable to us for Swift survived for a long time even
after writing this book. However, Thackeray advised us not to read the book. Walter
Scott in his edition of Swift’s Works (1814), says “the nakedness with which Swift has
sketched this horrible outline of mankind degraded to a bestial state” (1883 ed., I, 315)

However, the 20th century psychoanalysts have found an attractive subject for their
study in Swift as well as Gulliver and tried to explain in terms of neuroses and
complexes. The following quotation can be quoted from the ‘Psychoanalytic Review of
1842’ –

“It furnishes abundant evidence of the neurotic makeup of the author and discloses in
him a number of perverse trends indicative of fixation at the anal sadistic stage of
libidinal development. Most conspicuous among those perverse trends is that of
coprophilia, although the work furnishes evidence of numerous other related neurotic
characteristics accompanying the general picture of psychosexual infantilism and
emotional immaturity.”
 Now, from the above discussion it must be said that Jonathan Swift is completely a
misanthrope for he has expressed his utter hatred towards the whole mankind in his
writing as well as in his letters to his acquaintances. However, he has been so bitterly
criticized that we sometimes feel pity for him.

----------------------------------------

Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or
concepts.

Lilliputians

The Lilliputians symbolize humankind’s wildly excessive pride in its own puny existence.
Swift fully intends the irony of representing the tiniest race visited by Gulliver as by far
the most vainglorious and smug, both collectively and individually. There is surely no
character more odious in all of Gulliver’s travels than the noxious Skyresh. There is more
backbiting and conspiracy in Lilliput than anywhere else, and more of the pettiness of
small minds who imagine themselves to be grand. Gulliver is a naïve consumer of the
Lilliputians’ grandiose imaginings: he is flattered by the attention of their royal family
and cowed by their threats of punishment, forgetting that they have no real physical
power over him. Their formally worded condemnation of Gulliver on grounds of treason
is a model of pompous and self-important verbiage, but it works quite effectively on the
naïve Gulliver.

The Lilliputians show off not only to Gulliver but to themselves as well. There is no
mention of armies proudly marching in any of the other societies Gulliver visits—only in
Lilliput and neighboring Blefuscu are the six-inch inhabitants possessed of the need to
show off their patriotic glories with such displays. When the Lilliputian emperor requests
that Gulliver serve as a kind of makeshift Arch of Triumph for the troops to pass under, it
is a pathetic reminder that their grand parade—in full view of Gulliver’s nether regions—
is supremely silly, a basically absurd way to boost the collective ego of the nation.
Indeed, the war with Blefuscu is itself an absurdity springing from wounded vanity, since
the cause is not a material concern like disputed territory but, rather, the proper
interpretation of scripture by the emperor’s forebears and the hurt feelings resulting
from the disagreement. All in all, the Lilliputians symbolize misplaced human pride, and
point out Gulliver’s inability to diagnose it correctly.

Brobdingnagians

The Brobdingnagians symbolize the private, personal, and physical side of humans when
examined up close and in great detail. The philosophical era of the Enlightenment
tended to overlook the routines of everyday life and the sordid or tedious little facts of
existence, but in Brobdingnag such facts become very important for Gulliver, sometimes
matters of life and death. An eighteenth-century philosopher could afford to ignore the
fly buzzing around his head or the skin pores on his servant girl, but in his shrunken state
Gulliver is forced to pay great attention to such things. He is forced take the domestic
sphere seriously as well. In other lands it is difficult for Gulliver, being such an outsider,
to get glimpses of family relations or private affairs, but in Brobdingnag he is treated as a
doll or a plaything, and thus is made privy to the urination of housemaids and the sexual
lives of women. The Brobdingnagians do not symbolize a solely negative human
characteristic, as the Laputans do. They are not merely ridiculous—some aspects of
them are disgusting, like their gigantic stench and the excrement left by their insects, but
others are noble, like the queen’s goodwill toward Gulliver and the king’s commonsense
views of politics. More than anything else, the Brobdingnagians symbolize a dimension
of human existence visible at close range, under close scrutiny.

Laputans

The Laputans represent the folly of theoretical knowledge that has no relation to human
life and no use in the actual world. As a profound cultural conservative, Swift was a critic
of the newfangled ideas springing up around him at the dawn of the eighteenth-century
Enlightenment, a period of great intellectual experimentation and theorization. He much
preferred the traditional knowledge that had been tested over centuries. Laputa
symbolizes the absurdity of knowledge that has never been tested or applied, the
ludicrous side of Enlightenment intellectualism. Even down below in Balnibarbi, where
the local academy is more inclined to practical application, knowledge is not made
socially useful as Swift demands. Indeed, theoretical knowledge there has proven
positively disastrous, resulting in the ruin of agriculture and architecture and the
impoverishment of the population. Even up above, the pursuit of theoretical
understanding has not improved the lot of the Laputans. They have few material
worries, dependent as they are upon the Balnibarbians below. But they are tormented
by worries about the trajectories of comets and other astronomical speculations: their
theories have not made them wise, but neurotic and disagreeable. The Laputans do not
symbolize reason itself but rather the pursuit of a form of knowledge that is not directly
related to the improvement of human life.

Houyhnhnms

The Houyhnhnms represent an ideal of rational existence, a life governed by sense and
moderation of which philosophers since Plato have long dreamed. Indeed, there are
echoes of Plato’s Republic in the Houyhnhnms’ rejection of light entertainment and vain
displays of luxury, their appeal to reason rather than any holy writings as the criterion
for proper action, and their communal approach to family planning. As in Plato’s ideal
community, the Houyhnhnms have no need to lie nor any word for lying. They do not
use force but only strong exhortation. Their subjugation of the Yahoos appears more
necessary than cruel and perhaps the best way to deal with an unfortunate blot on their
otherwise ideal society. In these ways and others, the Houyhnhnms seem like model
citizens, and Gulliver’s intense grief when he is forced to leave them suggests that they
have made an impact on him greater than that of any other society he has visited. His
derangement on Don Pedro’s ship, in which he snubs the generous man as a Yahoo-like
creature, implies that he strongly identifies with the Houyhnhnms.

But we may be less ready than Gulliver to take the Houyhnhnms as ideals of human
existence. They have no names in the narrative nor any need for names, since they are
virtually interchangeable, with little individual identity. Their lives seem harmonious and
happy, although quite lacking in vigor, challenge, and excitement. Indeed, this apparent
ease may be why Swift chooses to make them horses rather than human types like every
other group in the novel. He may be hinting, to those more insightful than Gulliver, that
the Houyhnhnms should not be considered human ideals at all. In any case, they
symbolize a standard of rational existence to be either espoused or rejected by both
Gulliver and us.

England

As the site of his father’s disappointingly “small estate” and Gulliver’s failing business,
England seems to symbolize deficiency or insufficiency, at least in the financial sense
that matters most to Gulliver. England is passed over very quickly in the first paragraph
of Chapter I, as if to show that it is simply there as the starting point to be left quickly
behind. Gulliver seems to have very few nationalistic or patriotic feelings about England,
and he rarely mentions his homeland on his travels. In this sense, Gulliver’s Travels is
quite unlike other travel narratives like the Odyssey, in which Odysseus misses his
homeland and laments his wanderings. England is where Gulliver’s wife and family live,
but they too are hardly mentioned. Yet Swift chooses to have Gulliver return home after
each of his four journeys instead of having him continue on one long trip to four
different places, so that England is kept constantly in the picture and given a steady,
unspoken importance. By the end of the fourth journey, England is brought more
explicitly into the fabric of Gulliver’s Travels when Gulliver, in his neurotic state, starts
confusing Houyhnhnmland with his homeland, referring to Englishmen as Yahoos. The
distinction between native and foreign thus unravels—the Houyhnhnms and Yahoos are
not just races populating a faraway land but rather types that Gulliver projects upon
those around him. The possibility thus arises that all the races Gulliver encounters could
be versions of the English and that his travels merely allow him to see various aspects of
human nature more clearly.ahoos

The Yahoos symbolize a complete loss of rationality in a primitive state, but they also
show how ongoing oppression can drive humans into this primitive state. Ample
evidence of their propensity for violence appears in the novel; Yahoos fight one another;
they hoard stones; and on one occasion a female tries to sexually accost Gulliver. At the
same time, the Yahoos have little and are subject to abuse, enslavement, and rejection
by the Houyhnhnms, which introduces a chicken-and-egg scenario: Are the Yahoos
rejected because they are primitive, or are they violent because they have been
rejected? Perhaps, as the Houyhnhnms claim, the Yahoos are a lost cause. On the other
hand, the Yahoos have very little means for survival, which drives them to extreme
measures.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Culture and Imperialism - Some Notes

Edward Said – Introduction

Edward W. Said was born in Jerusalem, Palestine and attended schools there and in
Cairo. He was a Christian Arab. He received his B.A. from Princeton and his M.A. and
Ph.D. from Harvard. He is University Professor at Columbia. He is the author of
Orientalism, The Question of Palestine, Covering Islam, After the Last Sky, and Culture
and Imperialism.

He delivered his speech Culture and Imperialism at York University, Toronto, February 10,
1993. He was an influential writer, speaker and teacher. 1950’s he went to the USA and
studied at Princeton and Howard. His writings have been translated into 26 languages.
Orientalism is his most influential book which presents the Western view of the Islamic
World. It is limited to the Middle East only but it covers the whole landscape occupied by
19th and 20th century. He had been a teacher of Literature (Comparative) and made
critical and literary analysis of most writers literary allusions are frequently found in his
political works. He died on 25th September, 2003.

Said’s views on Culture and Imperialism

Culture and Imperialism is a lecture by ES. It briefly surveys the formation of Western
Culture to show that the process itself was a result of imperialism. In defining the two
terms he says that

Culture:

The learned, accumulated experience of communities and it consists of socially

transmitted patterns of behavior. According to the anthropologist Cliff Greety, Culture
is: An ordered system of meanings and symbols in terms of which social interaction take
place.

Imperialism: (According to OED may be defined as): aggressive expansion of peoples at

the expense of the neighbors. This has been going on for years.

Imperialism implies some sort of collective premeditation which means a policy formed
at home by the imperialistic force before launching an offensive against another nation.

The Historian Solomon Modell, “Imperialism is a policy extending a country’s power

beyond its own borders for the purpose of exploiting other lands and other peoples by
establishing economic, social and political control over them.”

Introduction to the Book

Culture and Imperialism is an important document. ES explains his own concepts of
Culture and Imperialism. ES explains Imperialism as “the practice, the theory and the
attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center that rules a distant territory.” Imperialism
originated with the industrial revolution in 19th century. The British and the French held
sway over a large part of the globe.

For the industrial revolution, cheap raw material and labor was needed so for the
development of the backward countries, loud claims imperialism were made out to be
need of the nations. The slave nations were taught to regard it as a blessing. 1st world
war ended the European Imperialism to some extent, but the 2nd world war brought
about it. The two hot wars initiated a major cold war between USSR and the USA. Thus,
Imperialism took a new shape. The USA reduced USSR and came to be the sole super
power. It the USA-based Imperialism that ES targets in his works.

The book also has its literary merits like Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, E.M. Forster’s A
Passage to India and many others.

Important Textual areas of his Speech

The 19th century is rise of the west for its for its dominating posture.

It grabbed lands so largely and abundantly as never before.

The industrial revolution caused imperialism.

Colonialism, almost always a consequence of imperialism, is the implanting of

settlements on distant territories. Imperialism is simply the process or policy of
establishing or maintaining an empire.

Direct colonialism of the British in India, the French in Algeria and Morocco has largely
ended but Imperialism exists. Russia acquired bordering lands and the British and the
French jumped thousands of miles for occupation.

The Soviet Union’s and America’s super power status which was enjoyed a little less than
half a century derives from very different histories than those of Britain and France in
the 19th century. In the expansion of western empires, profit and the hope of further
profit was important – spices, sugar, slaves, cotton etc. gold. There was very little
domestic resistance to foreign dominations in Britain & France because the superior
thought it a metaphysical obligation to rule the inferior. According to them, their
imperialism was different from that of the Romans who were for the loot but they went
there with an idea of civilizing and improving their life.

We see in the empire nothing but a mitigated disaster for the native people. It was their
native, cultural design and need that matured imperialism and they regret it now.
Imperialism has caused dislocations, homelessness for the Muslims, Africans and the
West Indians. They have created the troubles for Britain and France and also caused the
emergence of Soviet and later today America.

According to Arno Mayer’s telling phrase, “of the old regime” The Willy Brandt Report,
entitled North-South: A program for the survival published in 1980. It says that the
needs of the poorest nations must be addressed. Hunger must be abolished and other
problems solved. The main purpose is power-sharing in decision making within the
monetary and financial institutions.

It is different to disagree with it. But how will the changes occur? The post-war
classification of all nations into 3 worlds, Ist, Second and the third.

The solution is the revised attitude to education, to urge students on insistence of their
identity, culture and democracy, thus nationalism is the solution.

The relationship between culture and empire is one that enables disquieting forms of
domination. Imperialism considered the mixture of cultures and identities on a large
scale, but its worst and the most paradoxical gift was to allow people to believe that
there only white, black, western or oriental.

Imperialistic allusions from literature

He believes that novel has been important in formation of imperialistic attitudes,

references, and experiences. He calls Robinson Crusoe “the prototype of modern
realistic novel”. He draws his arguments particularly from the novel because he believes
that “Narrative is crucial to my argument here, my basic point being that story are at the
heart of what explorers and novelists say about strange regions of the world, they also
become the method colonized people use to assert there an identity and the existence
of their own history.” Said further argues that narratives of emancipation and
enlightenment mobilized the people to rise against the yoke of imperialism. The stories
of Sir Walter Scott charged the Scottish nation against the British rule. Said cites Mathew
Arnold who says that culture is each society’s reservoir of the best that has been known
and thought. Literature is, no doubt, the mirror that faithfully captures and reflects the
picture of culture.
He says that his entire life was devoted to teaching culture. He developed the habit of
looking for the imperialistic implications in the stories. He says that in Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens “What Dickens envisions for Pip, being Magwitch’s London
gentlemen is roughly equivalent to what was envisioned by English benevolence for
Australia.” Said believes that nearly all Dickens’ businessmen, wayward relatives and
frightening outsides have a fairly normal and secure connection with Empire.

Said highly admired Joseph Conrad – a star novelist of the late Victorian period for his
superb criticism of Imperialism, especially in the Heart of Darkness which is still highly
relevant to the situation across the world.

Said’s message is that Imperialism is not about a moment in history, it is about a

continuing interdependent discourse between subject peoples and the dominant
empire. Said’s view of the empire and colonialism is best expressed through Fanny and
Sir Thomas from Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park which is the story of Fanny’s being taken
into Sir Thomas’s life at Mansfield Park where she eventually adjusts into the role of
mistress of “estate”. Fanny was poor. Her parents are not capable managers of wealth.
These skills she acquires when she goes to Mansfield Park to live at 10. Said’s comment
on Jane Austen’s writings highlight the extent to which he sees in her the reflection of
empire.

-----------------------

Sunday, October 17, 2010

What is Culture and what is Imperialism and how does Said relate the Two in the Literary
Context? (P.U. 2003)

Edward Said, a brilliant and unique amalgam of scholar, literary critic and political
activist, examines the roots of imperialism in the Western culture and traces the
relationship between culture and imperialism. Imperialism has always fascinated the
literary writers and political thinkers as a subject. It was a major theme of nineteenth
and twentieth century native and non-native novelists and poets. Different writers have
different perception about the phenomenon. A lot has been written on the subject in
the past but Edward's book Culture and Imperialism attracted everybody's attention.
This book was read and discussed in all parts of the world and was hailed by reviewers
and critics as a monumental work.

In the Introduction to Culture and Imperialism, Edward states that his previous work
Orientalism was limited to Middle East, and in the present book he wanted to describe a
more general pattern of relationship between the modern West and its overseas
territories. This book, he says, is not a sequel of Orientalism, as it aims at something
different.

According to Edward there are two types of attitudes towards culture. One that
considers culture as a concept that includes refining and elevating element, each
society's reservoir of best that has been known and thought. The other is the aggressive,
protectionist attitude viewing culture as a source of identity that differentiates between
'us and 'them', and power with which we can combat the influences of the foreign
cultures. Such an attitude is opposed to liberal philosophies, as multiculturalism and
hybridism, and has often lead to religious and- nationalist fundamentalism. Culture
conceived in this way becomes a protective enclosure that divorces us from the
everyday world.

"I have found it a challenge not to see culture in this way- that is, antiseptically
quarantined from worldly affiliations, but as an extraordinary field of endeavour."

Edward Said sees the European writing on Africa, India, Ireland, Far Hast and other lands
as part of European effort to rule distant lands. He says that Colonial and post-Colonial
fiction is central to his argument. These writings present the colonised lands as
'mysterious lands' inhabited by uncivilized barbarians, who understood only the
language of violence, and deserved to be ruled. This is a misrepresentation of the native
people and their cultures, and needs to be redressed. Edward Said finds a connection
between these narratives and the imperial process, of which they are a part. These
writing ignore the important aspect of the reality- the native people and their culture.

Edward Said refers to two novels in order to explain what he had in mind: Dickens' Great
Expectations, and Joseph Conrad's Nostromo. Dickens' Great Expectations is a primarily
a story about Pip's vain attempt to become a gentleman. Early in life Pip helps a
condemned convict, Abel Magwitch, who after being transported to Australia, pays back
Pip with huge

sums of money through his lawyer. Magwitch reappears illegally in London after
sometime. Pip does not welcome him and rejects him as an unpleasant criminal.
Magwitch is unacceptable being from Australia, a penal colony designed for
rehabilitation of English criminals. This is a remarkable novel,

according to Said, but the focus of the narrative is London, not Australia. Dickens did not
bother to discuss the plight of the convicts in Australia, from where they could never
return. In Said's judgment the prohibition placed on Magwitch's return is not only penal
but also imperial. These ugly criminals could not by allowed to return to England-the
land of decent people.

Conrad's Nostromo, the second example picked up by Said, is set in a Central American
Republic, independent, but dominated by outside interests because of its immense silver
mines. In this novel Holroyd, the American financer tells Charles Gould, the British
owner of a mine:

‘We shall run the world's business whether the world likes it or not.

The world can't help it- and neither we can, I guess.'

This is the general thinking of the imperialists. Much of the rhetoric of 'The New World
Order' with its self-assumed responsibility of civilizing the world, seems to be originated
from this thinking, says Edward Said,

The problem with Conrad is that he writes as a man whose Western view of Non-
Western world is so ingrained in as to blind him to other histories, other cultures and
other aspirations. He could never understand that India, Africa and South Africa had lives
and cultures of their own, not totally controlled by the imperialists. Conrad allows the
readers to see that imperialism is a system and it should work in a proper fashion. There
are certain obvious limitations of Conrad's vision. Conrad was both imperialist and anti-
imperialist, progressive in rendering the corruption of overseas domination, deeply
reactionary in ignoring the fact that Africa and South America had independent history
and culture, which the imperialist violently disturbed but by which they were ultimately
defeated.

All such works, says Edward Said, seem to argue that source of world's significant action
and life was the West, and rest of the world was mind-deadened, having no life, history
or integrity of its own. It is not that these westerners had no sympathy for the foreign
cultures; their real drawback was their inability to take seriously the alternatives to
imperialism. The world has changed since Conrad and Dickens due to imperialistic
globalisation. Now various cultures have a closer interaction and have become
interdependent. The colonisers and the colonized do not exist in separate worlds. So,
one-sided versions cannot hold for long. Even those who are on the side of those
fighting; for freedom from imperialists need to avoid narrow-mindedness and
chauvinistic trends. One has to listen to what people are saying on other side of the
fence. (This is what Seamus Heaney says in Redress Of the Poetry.) This, says, Said, is a
positive development. One should always suspect the impressions of an exclusive
consciousness. Most of the Western writers, for example, could never imagine that
those 'natives' who appeared either subservient, or uncooperative were one day going
to be capable of revolt.

In the last part of the Introduction to 'Culture and Imperialism' Said makes some other
points about the book. The purpose of his book, he says, is so trace the relationship
between culture, aesthetic forms and historical experience. His aim is not to give a
catalogue of books and authors, "Instead, I have tried to look at what I consider to be
important and essential things." My hope is that readers and critics of this book will use
it to further the lines of enquiry and arguments about the historical experience of
imperialism put forward in it." Moreover, he has not discussed all the empires. He has
focused on three imperial powers: British, French, and American. This book is about past
and present, about 'us' and 'them', he says.

Said says that the origin of current American policies can be seen in the past. All powers
aspiring for global domination have done .the same things. There is always the appeal to
power and national interest in running the affairs of 'lesser peoples', and the same
destructive zeal when the going goes rough. America made the same mistake in Vietnam
and Middle East.

The worst part of the whole exercise has been the collaboration of intellectuals, artists
and journalists with these practices. Said hopes that a history of imperial adventure
rendered in cultural terms might serve some deterrent purpose.

Said makes it clear that the criticism on imperialism does exempt the aggrieved
colonized people from criticism. The fortunes and misfortunes of nationalism, of what
can be called separatism and nativism, do not always make a flattering story. Narrow and
dogmatic approach to culture can be as dangerous to culture as is imperialism. Secondly,
culture is not the property of the East or the West.

Edward Said, by necessity, was in a position to be objective in his approach, as he lived

most part of his life in exile and had the personal experience of both the cultures. He
was born in Middle East and lived as an exile in America, where he wrote this book. He
sums up his position in following works.

“The last point I want to make is that this is an exile’s book. Ever since I remember, I have
felt that I belonged to both the Worlds, without being completely of either one or the
other”, He says.

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EDWARD SAID'S PROSE STYLE

Edward Said's Prose Style

Introduction

Style is a fundamental aspect of prose. It is the literary element that describes the
ways that the author uses words, sentence structure, figurative language, and sentence
arrangement which work together to establish mood, images, and meaning in the text.
Style describes how the author describes events, objects, and ideas. An author's style is
what sets his or her writing apart and makes it unique. Edward Said is a distinguished
prose writer of 21st century. Most of his writings are about discourses of imperialism,
Islam, Palestinian colonization by Israel and music. Said's style of writing can be studied
in thematic analysis of his essays and books. Paradoxical nature of identity, celebration
of of exile, repetition of ideas, writer as theorist, interrogative introduction, imperialistic
allusions, musicality of text and coining new terms are the salient features of Said's
prose style.

1. The Paradoxical Position

As critic, political commentator, literary and cultural theorist or New York citizen,
Edward Said demonstrates the often paradoxical nature of identity in an increasingly
migratory and globalized world. In him, we find a person located in a tangle of cultural
and theoretical contradictions: contradictions between his political voice and
professional position; contradictions between the different ways in which he has been
read; contradictions in the way he is located in the academy. The intimate connection
between Said's identity and his cultural theory, and the paradoxes these reveal, show us
something about the constructedness and complexity of cultural identity itself.

2. Celebration of Exile

Said deliberately celebrates exile in his prose. Whatever he writes, we see an

intangible effect of nostalgia and thrust for rootlessness, because of all the trauma and
pain of homelessness he has suffered. This places the exile in a singular position with
regard to history and society, but also in a much more anxious and ambivalent position
with regard to culture: "Exile ... is 'a mind of winter' in which the pathos of summer and
autumn as much as the potential of spring are nearby but unobtainable. Perhaps this is
another way of saying that a life of exile moves according to a different calendar, and is
less seasonal and settled than life at home. Exile is life led outside habitual order. It is
nomadic, decentered, contrapuntal; but no sooner does one get accustomed to it than
its unsettling force erupts anew."
3. Repetition of Ideas

Another important feature of Edward Said's writing is repetition of ideas. Repetition

imposes certain constraints upon the interpretation of the text; it historicizes the text as
something which originates in the world, which insists upon its own being. Said's work
constantly rehearses the features of his own peculiar academic and cultural location, or
the 'text' of his own life -- exile, politicization, the living of two lives, the insistent
questions of identity, and the passionate defense of Palestine. All his essays in one or
other way talk about same thing even he keeps stressing on one thing in one essay. For
example his essays like "Islam as News" and "Orientalism" talk in a language of "binary
opposition" to undermine the western culture and imperialism and its operation in the
entire globe.

4. Writer As Theorist

Out of the issue of Palestine grows one of the most important themes in Said's theory
-- the role of the intellectual. From the position of a professional literary theorist
established in the elite academic environment of Columbia University, Said has been
required to adopt the role of a spokesperson, called out to talk about political issues for
which he had no special qualification. This confirmed his belief in the value of
amateurism, but much more than that it gave him a vision of the importance of exile in
empowering the intellectual to be detached from partisan politics in order to 'speak
truth to power'. The sense of 'non-belonging' has confirmed his own sense that the
public intellectual needs to speak from the margin. It is his unique characteristic of being
a prose writer whom invents new positions and roles for a writer than just being a critic.

5. Interrogative Introduction

The style of Said seems to be discursive, conversational and even repetitive, but his
writings are quite thought provoking. The most striking feature of his essays is that he
begins his essay with a questions like statement to set a course of discussion in the mind
of reader. In Representations of the Intellectual, while discussing the role of an
intellectual, Said poses an important questioning the beginning: how far should an
intellectual go in getting involved? Is is possible to join a party or faction and retain a
semblance of independence? This question asking style has positioned Said's writings at
a unique height of literary canon.

6. Imperialistic Allusions From Literature

In Said's writing while talking about relation between imperialism, colonization and
culture we come across references of different Victorian novels like Robinson Crusoe,
Great Expectations, Heart of Darkness and Mansfield Park to understand the underlined
imperialist ideologies. Said believes that novel has been important in formation of
imperialistic attitudes, references, and experiences, In Said's writing, novels are not the
ones which caused imperialism, but that the novel is the cultural artifact of bourgeois
society. He argues that the narratives of emancipation and enlightenment mobilized the
people to rise against the yoke of imperialism. In short, illusions of previous time's
fiction is a very striking feature of Said's writing.

7. Musicality of Text

Said was a music lover and a musician himself. Said was fascinated by the connection
between memory and music, by how remembrances of things played, as he once put it,
are enacted. Music for Said was inspiring. When he played Schubert's Fantasie in a film
about him directed by Salem Brahimi, his face quivered with every note that his hands
transported on the keyboard. Indeed, Said would always make connections and
references to Palestine, even in his more esoteric essays about literature, theory, or
music. Fantasie might also have served as a kind of premonition for Said that it would be
his swansong, his passion for music always made him feel nostalgic about his past and
homeland. Even in his text structure we see a very smooth pattern making his writing bit
musical.

8. Coining New Terms

Said coined some useful terms like Orientalism and contrapuntal. In his book
"Orientalism", Said defines orientalism as the acceptance in the West of "the basic
distinction between East and West as the starting point for elaborate theories, epics,
novels, social descriptions, and political accounts concerning the Orient, its people,
customs, mind, destiny and so on". Borrowed from music, where it refers to the
relationship between themes, the term "contrapuntal reading" is used by Edward Said in
"Culture and Imperialism" to describe the relationship between narratives set in
metropolitan centres, or at least in the countryside, of the dominant colonial nations
such as England and France, and the colonies upon which the great powers depended
for their wealth.

Conclusion

Edward Said's prose style is inspiring, generative and eloquent. For writers striving to
create structures of clarity and meaning, Said has few competitors. He is different from
all other prose writers in sense of content and text. The concepts which he deals with
are not discussed by any other prose writer. Underneath the self-posturing verbiage
there is an acute analytic mind at work. Said is not only a critic but a socialist and a
reformer as well. By dealing with sensitive issues like colonization, imperialism and
trying to counter Islamophobia presented by the West, he mostly focuses on themes. In
short, the most prominent features of Said's prose style are his use of imperialistic
illusions and coining of new terms.

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