Stylistic Analysis of Francis Bacon’s Selected Essays

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to analyze stylistically Bacon’s essays.  The main purpose of this study is to analyze the writing style of Francis Bacon in the following selected essays (Of Studies, Of Revenge, OF Ambition, and Of Marriage and Single Live).  Researchers analyzed the writing style of Bacon in these essays, specifically the aphoristic style. One of the most crucial characteristics of Bacon’s essays style is aphorism. It is a style which specified by the direct, straightforward, pithy and concise language. Apart from this, utilitarianism which is another feature of Bacon’s essay style, has been clarified clearly. Utilitarianism is a philosophy of thought that maintains and supports that the foremost actions are those that create the most happiness for the greatest number of people. In fact, researchers have found some elements regarding the selected essays such as didacticism, mannerism as well as worldly wisdom that introduce Francis Bacon as a utilitarian writer. Moreover, other crucial elements of Bacon’s essays such as quotations, impersonality, as well as paragraphs have been analyzed very briefly in this paper. Actually, this study is based on qualitative research. The research design was the textual analysis in order to analyze the text. The main instrument was the text of Francis Bacon’s selected essays. The data were in the form of lines, sentences, phrases and words. To analyze the text, the researchers have used steps such as paraphrasing, analyzing, identification and classification. Finally, the result of this study shows the writing style of Francis Bacon which is based on aphoristic, utilitarianism and other significant elements, like the usage of impressive quotations, unique paragraphs and Bacon’s objectivity regarding his essays.