Running Head: AN IDEO-STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF BACON’S ESSAYS 1

An Ideo-stylistic Analysis of Bacon’s Essays

Malik M. Farhan

National University of Modern Languages

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Abstract

The research is an attempt to analyze stylistically Bacon’s essays, Of Marriage and Single

Life, Of Friendship and Of Parents and Children in order to highlight the ideological

perspectives. The research creates a link between the use of stylistics devices at word level,

phrases/sentences level and Discourse level. The main focus is the usage of punctuation marks

especially semicolon in Bacon’s writings in order to extract the ideological purpose of Bacon. To

fulfill this purpose, Van Dijk (1998), Wright et al. (1996) and Widdowson’s (1976) studies are

used as a framework for inducting research. The essays abound in wisdom, even though the

wisdom is mostly of a practical nature. They show their writers’ immense observation and

experience of human life and affairs, and his deep insight into human nature and the motives that

govern human actions. Each of his essays gives evidence of his close observation and personal

interest in the things he writes about.

Introduction

Francis Bacon was an author, orator, jurist, scientist, English philosopher and a statesman

who served as Attorney General and as Lord Chancellor at the same time in England. Bacon is

considered as the father of empiricism, inductive reasoning, worked on scientific knowledge and

carefully observed the events of nature to uncover the truth of nature. According to the

philosophical theory of Empiricism, knowledge only comes from sensory experience or

knowledge depends upon experience. While Baconian method or inductive reasoning can be

defined as “When the general principles are derived for specific observation no matter the

sources agrees or not is called inductive reasoning.” In Novum Organum (1620), Bacon

developed the scientific method which was influenced by Inductive method. According to this
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method, first of all Bacon suggests to observe the variable minutely and produce quality facts

then proceeds towards induction which would general towards specification and then gather

necessary data to establish the necessary research work on particular subject. In the search of

truth, Bacon argues in Novum Organum that there is only one authentic way to find out the truth

and that is to follow the inductive method or scientific method presented by him through which

researchers can get the accurate knowledge slowly.

The present research is a combination of dual terms i.e. ideology and stylistics which are

ultimately applied on Sir Francis Bacon’s selected essays. The term ideology was first used by

Destutt de Tracy in 1801. Destutt de Tracy was a French philosopher while the research is also

on a British statesman and philosopher, Sir Francis Bacon. A person’s ideas, beliefs and aims

which are set before him is called ideology and Ideology is divided into two categories: political

ideologies and epistemological ideologies. As concerned to the political ideologies, it deals with

a country’s ethical ideas which locate that on which parameters the country should be run and

how its rules and regulations would be set before the individuals. While on the other side

epistemological ideologies are concerned with the set ideas about the universe, people’s

decisions and about the philosophy. As the present research would deal with the later kind of

ideologies through which Bacon’s essays would be dealt and analyzed with a blend of stylistics

and ideology in parallel medium hence philosophical ideas, people’s decisions and set ideas of

the universe with the Bacon’s point of view would be extracted by applying linguistics devices.

To discuss about the stylistics, first of all literature would be discussed in order to make a

clear understanding of stylistics on which the present research is based upon. According to Terry

Eagleton, an imaginative fragment of writing is literature while in Oxford dictionary “a form of

writing whose value lies in the beauty or the emotional effects is literature.” Therefore every
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human expression whether written or oral is a form of literature. Poetry, drama, prose, novel and

criticism are the branches of literature. As concerned to the stylistics, it is a linguistics analysis

of a text to uncover the hidden meanings from the particular text. When literature is treated as a

text, there are two main reasons that attracted the linguists to analyze the particular fragment; one

is to uncover the hidden meanings of the text and the other is to evaluate the deviations in the

text. The language of administration, culture and science is entirely different from the language

of common people hence the study of style is called stylistics while the expression manner, the

sum and the set of linguistic features, items choice or the deviation from set norms in writing or

speaking is style.

As concerned to the Bacon writing style, Macaulay takes extract from Of Studies (1597)

and Of Adversity (1625) by noticing that Bacon’s early essays and later essays have a marked

difference of writing style. Hugh Walker (1915) says that the first English essayist is the Francis

Bacon. The first essays were not rich in language wit but later on the essays were abound in wit

and intellectual genius, the style became more eloquent and phrasing became pithy. The essays

of Bacon are in aphoristic style where the sentences are brief, rapid, compact and condensed. The

antithetical statements make his style balanced by which Bacon gives equal weight to his

sentences or phrases. Another main feature is a rhetorician through which Bacon opens a front

upon the reader to think about the subject according to his own perspectives and thus Bacon uses

rhetorical questions, classical mythology, Biblical references, astronomy, domestic objects, war

imagery and personal experiences of everyday life. Allusions and quotations are another style of

Bacon’s writing where he uses various sources from classical fables, History, ancient Greek, the

Bible and Roman writers by adding his own interpretation to fit the quotation in the situation of

the essay. For instance, in Of Truth, the references of Pilate, Lucian, Montaigne and Lucretius are
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used while in Of Friendship, he uses a string of historical events by supporting his argument

more strong and giving his own point of view in the essays.

Stylistics analysis in linguistics refers to the identification of usage in speech and writing.

Stylistic analysis in literary studies is usually made for the purpose of commenting on quality

and meaning in a text. The researcher would focus on the sociological status of Bacon’s essays

while the social status indicates an individual’s social position in a society which is based on

power differences, prestige and social class, along with the associated rights and duties. The

broadest social class categories are upper, middle and lower classes which correlate with accents

and speech varieties.

Statement of the problem

The present study aims at the punctuation marks in Bacon’s essays especially semicolons

as this is a remarkable power of compressing into a few words an idea which other writers may

express in several sentences. This would be the reason that essays of Bacon in fact have to be

read slowly because of the compact and condensed thought.

Research objectives

 To apply ideo-stylistic term with a reference to Bacon’s writing style.

 To analyze Bacon’s style in sociological perspectives.

Significance of the study

As there is a few work done on the stylistic grounds on Bacon’s essays that actually

makes his style a remarkable hence this study will be highly significant. In the present article the
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researcher would try to give a new dimension to the ideo-stylistic analysis of Bacon’s essays and

their scope in sociological perspectives.

Delimitations

There are various aspects of stylistics and its branches but the researcher intends only

ideo-stylistic and in the same way there are fifty nine essays of Bacon but the researcher chooses

his three essays randomly which are also closely related to sociologically high esteem.

Research Questions

The present research attempts to answer the following main and sub questions.

Main Question

How does ideo-stylistics apply on Bacon’s essays?

Sub Question

What makes Bacon’s essays highly esteemed in sociological perspectives?

Research Methodology

The present research is qualitative in nature as qualitative research is important in

behavioral sciences where the aim is to discover the underlying motives of human behavior.

Through it researcher can analyze the various factors which motivate people to behave in a

particular manner or which make people like or dislike a particular thing.

Theoretical Framework
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To conduct the present research, Van Dijk’s (1998), Wright et al. (1996) and

Widdowson’s (1976) studies are included and then the researcher devised a new model by

extracting different chunks from above writers in order to make this research effective for the

readers.

Literature Review

The present chapter deals with the researches already done on the related topic, key terms

used by researchers and the conclusions made by the researches. The researcher would try to

extract the wholesome pith and marrow of the related topics that leads the Bacon’s essays

towards the endless discussions on the research grounds.

Works Already Done

In this section, the researcher would focus on the related researches chronologically and

how the present research would be different from the previous ones and how the present research

would create a space for itself in the world of literature. Hence, following are the works already

done by the different researchers:

Keiji Nishioka (1996) critically analyzes Noun Phrase Types and Their Distribution in

Francis Bacon’s Essays. He randomly selects the lines from Bacon’s essays, Of Beauty, Of

Expense, Of Friendship, Of Great Place, Of Marriage and the Single Life and Of Studies.

Nishioka focuses on the noun phrases and how the noun phrases effects on the clauses to make

the stylistics effects on prose writing. He tries to explain the aphoristic style of Bacon’s essays by

elaborating that the head of nominalization and generalization of noun phrases makes Bacon’s

style unique and pithy. He categorizes the noun phrases in two, for example:
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NPs having ‘c-e’ (nominalization) type:

“Wives are young men’s mistresses; companions for middle age; and old men’s nurses.

(XLIX. Of Marriage and Single Life L.63-64)

NPs of generalization:

Men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state; servants of

fame; and servants of business. (XI. Of Great Place, L.1-3)

C. Nevin Miller (1968) is of the view that the educational philosophies of Renaissance

England, political and religious academia mark a lasting impression on Bacon genius. He

elaborates that Bacon had high respect for high language discourse. Miller presents the

background for a study of Bacon and literary composition in which all important aspects of

Bacon’s aphoristic style are elaborated related to the age, politics or the religion criteria. He

further demonstrates the Bacon’s style and his language by getting the chunks of his

philosophical, literary and professional works. Miller also demonstrates Bacon and the

commonplace book by discovering the fact that Bacon was chiefly influenced by Ciceronian

rhetoric and Aristotelian logic and Miller proves it by interconnecting the works of Bacon with

the works of Cicero and Aristotle.

Keiji Nishioka (1996) on Francis Bacon and His Contemporary Prose Writers explores

the comparative study between Francis Bacon, Nashe and Lyly who belongs to the Renaissance

age in which experimental works were done by the literary figures. Nishioka gets the chunks

from the works of the three contemporary prose writers and concludes that Bacon experimented

on creating an academic prose; Nashe’s in his romance structure and Lyly’s in prose style,

realism and satire. Some of their experiments succeeded and became the model of later writers as
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in the case of Bacon, while others did not and died away as in the case of Lyly. Generally,

however their characteristics remained and grew up in later literary works.

Scott David Minard (1987) opines that Bacon has the relevance to the modern

composition. To prove this, he presents three dimensions: (1) an assessment of important

criticism of Bacon’s prose style, leading to a preferred method (2) analyzing a prose passage

from Bacon and (3) a discussion of Bacon’s self-conscious thoughts on composition and related

matters. In this regard Minard applied the research model of Stanley Fish’s reader-response

method and Brian Vicker’s stylistics analysis on Bacon’s essays and concluded that Bacon offers

a rich landscape for the student and teacher of composition to explore by defending his thesis

with loaded examples from Bacon’s essays, Vicker’s thesis and Fish’s thesis.

Tuncay Tezcan (2014) analyzes William Faulkner’s short story A Rose for Emily which

has gothic elements. Tezcan tries to find out the effects of the story on readers in Turkish

language. For this purpose, the research is conducted by focusing on definite and indefinite

articles, deixis and syntactic structure of the text.

Mogiley (2014) describes the literary works of suspense by locating its features

ideostylistically. He analyses the suspense on reader’s mind by locating its features

psychologically, psycho-linguistically and lingou-textually. Tapah opines that suspense provides

the feelings of tension and anticipation. During the situation of suspense, there is a quick turn in

the plot of the story and characters which often ends the story unpredictably.

Shenli Song (2009) analyzes Katherine Mansfield’s short story Miss Brill while

discussing on the lexical categories, grammatical categories, figures of speech, context and

cohesion of the text on stylistics grounds. Song’s study aims to explore the inner thoughts and
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feelings of the characters by using stylistics devices. The study concludes that Mansfield uses

figurative language, exquisite words, vague expressions, short emphatic exclamations, imagery

and sounds which lead the story towards enduring fame.

Iqbal (2012) conducts a comparative study on Bertrand Russell and Francis Bacon while

locating the prose style of both essayists. He conducts his study on comparison and contrast

method and concludes that both writers belong to aristocratic class while Bacon was a

renaissance writer and Russell belongs to modern era. The study shows that there are distinct

differences among both the writer’s writing styles including sentence structure and language as

Bacon uses a complex language which is difficult to understand for the lay man while Russell

uses simple language to convey the massage clearly to his readers.

Chowdhury (2013) explains in his study that the thoughts presented by Francis Bacon in

his essays, political works and philosophical works can lead us towards a successful life and one

can guide oneself by adopting the teachings of Bacon while applying the theories of Bacon on

his life. This concept urges that the works of the great philosopher carry the strong concept of

totalitarianism in all spheres of life rather they are about death, friendship, marital life, relations

to parents or parents to children, religious thoughts, love or hate, education or politics, science or

arts and in short the study aims that when a person born to till death the totalitarian concept can

apply upon person’s life.

Kabir (2004) refutes the ideas of Bacon in his study by critically analyzing Bacon’s

essays which are against the Islamic principles and The Holy Prophet Hazrat Muhammad

(SAW). Kabir also challenges the Bacon’s baseless ideas against Islam by giving the examples

from the Holy Quran and declares that Bacon’s ideas can be harmful for mankind and for the
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human civilization. For instance, Bacon in Of Marriage and Single Life declares that

“children---- and wife are----- impediment to doing-----a humanitarian task.” Kabir says that this

statement is contradicted to Islamic principles as wife and children carry a great importance in

Islamic society hence Bacon’s viewpoint is totally negated by the researcher in his study.

Rubab (2018) analyzes the female characters in Shakespeare’s plays The taming of the

Shrew and King Lear qualitatively by applying the stylistics devices such as simile, metaphor,

comparative, weak form, use of comma, rhetorical question, sign of exclamation and first person

pronoun in the speeches of female characters. Rubab also explores the language of female

characters quantitatively by representing her findings in the form of pie charts and graphs. The

findings of the study highlight that the change in form results in changing the function of the

language.

As concerned to the previous researches, one can observe that a few work is done

stylistically on Bacon especially an ideo-stylistic analyses has not done yet hence the present

research would carry high esteem in the world of research works.

Style:

The word style has been derived from a Latin word stylus which means a sharp pointed

kind of stake made of wood, bone or metal which is used for waxing or engraving on wax cables

and it was first used in English in 14 th century. Merriam Webster defines style as a distinctive

manner of expression in writing or speaking. Hacker (1991, p.78) points out that a good writing

style has power to express the message to its reader clearly, simply and convincingly as well as a

writer’s personality can be displayed through his style of writing.

Stylistics:
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The branch of applied linguistic in which interpretation of texts in the light of their tonal

and linguistic style is done while stylistics is not merely concerned with literature but it has its

vast coverage over advertisements and news, popular culture, non-fiction, religious and political

discourse. Stylistics includes the use of dialogue, grammar, active and passive voices, the

distribution of sentences lengths and so on.

Ideology:

A group or society’s normative belief, conscious and unconscious ideas which are

comprehensive termed as ideology. Althusser (1970) states that ideology is “ the imagined idea

or existence of things as it relates to the real conditions of existence.” Fairclough (1992) views

ideology as the construction of reality. Dijk (1998) holds ideology as the social framework for

the societies, groups and members on which they aims to fulfill their targets according to the set

ideals before them. Hence one can say that language and ideology go parallel as ideology set

goals in front of individuals while language is a medium to interpret the particular goal.

Style and Ideology:

Munday (2009) in his book Style and Ideology in Translation explores the ways to

translate Latin American Writing in English hence several linguistics tools are employed to

translate the targeted text. A linguistics habit of a person is called style while the purpose of

writing in specific text or speech while setting an aim in front of oneself is termed as ideology.

Hence style and ideology are two interrelated terms while writing any piece of writing or a

speech.

Analysis
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Bacon’s style has been considered the aphoristic style due to balanced clauses, pithy

phrases and flexibility for the readers. To uncover the style of Bacon, it is tried in this paper to

relate the Bacon’s ideology with Van Dijk’s (1998) ideology and to extract the Bacon’s prose

style by analyzing his essays word level, phrase level, clauses and punctuation marks especially

about semi-colons which makes his sentences compact and pithy. For instance,

“HE THAT hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to

great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.” (1612, Of Marriage and Single Life)

In above line, stylistic device, third person pronouns e.g. he and they are used to make the

statement universally acknowledged for the reader and this type of pattern continues till the end

of the essay to give a sweeping statement for all human beings. Then the use of phrases like noun

phrase (that hath wife and children) consists of post head modification (Wright, 1996) which

means that nouns have highly variable appearances and thus the reader can judge the statement

according to one’s own perspectives while in verb phrase (hath given hostages), the use of

auxiliary and main verb which means that here the writer has used compound and infinite verb to

elaborate his idea more generally towards the readers. Moving towards the clauses in the above

quotation, Wright et al. (1996 explains that when a verb phrase and a noun phrase works

together, they form clauses as in the above fragment the same strategy has been adopted by the

writer but the above sentence can be like this ‘He has good fortune with wife and children’ but

the writer employed double clauses to insert the third person pronoun in order to make his

sentence terse. Then the use of semicolon in the above lines separates the major sentences and to

make a relationship between two closely related independent clauses which are not joined with

coordinating conjunction in the sentence in order to make the sentence compact. As concerned
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to ideology behind this all scenario, Bacon talks upon his knowledge for the people’s beliefs and

when one studies Dijk (1998) who rightly observes,

“Anything that can be thought is here taken as a belief and belief can be wrong while knowledge

is the product of thought that is found to be true” (Dijk,1998, Ideology, p.18-19)

To elaborate the above statement in relation to Bacon’s essays, one can rightly observes that

Bacon gives his knowledge which was objective then getting it one’s perception is subjective and

after that it becomes one’s belief. Hence Bacon utilizes his knowledge and makes his ideas as

social beliefs. For instance Bacon here announces that a hostage person must accomplish his task

as a married person with children do. This statement is according to the Bacon’s knowledge as he

uses infinitive verbs and third person pronouns after observing a large number of people in the

society and then he declares his knowledge according to the people’s ideas and beliefs.

Taking another example from the same essay may clear the writing style of Bacon as he

says,

“For soldiers, I find the generals commonly in their hortatives put men in mind of their wives

and children; and I think the despising of marriage amongst the Turks maketh the vulgar soldier

more base.” (Of Marriage and Single Life, 1612, L.39-43)

Now in this sentence the use personal pronoun ‘I’ shows the writer’s point of view about the

belief but still he quotes an example from history to defend his point of view. In first part of the

sentence Bacon says that army generals usually encourage their soldiers by remembering them

about their waiting families that make them brave and bold to fight for their families while

quoting the example of Turks, Bacon says that Turk soldiers are vulgar as they despise the

marriage and hence they lacks emotions among them. Here the sentence structure is as same as
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discussed above in detail with stylistic analysis. The ideology of the writer has been applied on

the readers directly in this chunk from the essay.

Of Friendship (1612) has been loaded with plenty of historical examples in order to make

the subject of the essay more authentic. Bacon also uses his personal experience of scientific

method for example,

“We know diseases of stoppins and suffocations are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not

much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flower

of sulphur for lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart but a true friend;

to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth

upon the heart to oppressit, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.”(Of Friendship, 1612, L.38-

48)

In above sentence, the writer’s choice of words is specific as material nouns (sarsa, lliver, steel,

spleen, lungs etc) are compared to abstract nouns (grief, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions and

counsels) in order to draw a picture among the readers by quoting the routine life examples and

to clear the importance of friendship more clear. While the sentence composed of 83 words

carries a number of noun phrases (diseases of stoppins, sarza to open the liver etc) and verb

phrases (may take to open, you may impart, etc) justifies the writer’s immense wisdom over

writing style. Five clauses in a sentence show the writer’s learned genius with loaded language.

Four semicolons in a sentence balance the sentence into four main ideas wherein first part carries

introduction, second is consisted of writer’s idea, third to make the idea strong with materialistic

examples and the last with concluding remarks just like a full length essay which has been
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condensed only in the sentence. While discussing about the ideological perspectives Dijk (1998)

discusses about the mind and body,

“The mind is the specific property of the brain-in-the-body thus when we need to talk about

things like ideas, it is simply quite convenient to do so in terms of properties of the concept of

mind.” (Dijk, 1998, Ideology, p. 19)

In above lines one can relate the Bacon’s lines where Bacon is also of the view that body and

mind are two contradicted parts in which heart is related to mind. Hence one can say that Bacon

and Dijk discuss the same ideological ideas. Munday (2008) in his study explains about the style

and ideology while translating a text. He clarifies that one should keep in mind the ideology of

the original text writer and then moves forward to cope with the translating strategies and only

then there could be a rare chance of mistake.

Of Friendship by Bacon is the most famous essay among the sociological grounds

because of its writer’s personal interest in social systems and cultures. He observes in his essay,

“But to enumerate these things were endless; I have given the rule, where a man cannot fitly

play his own part; if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.” (Of Friendship)

Bacon starts his essay Of Friendship by quoting third person narrative point of view while he

ends his essay by putting his personal point of view by using first person pronoun narrative ‘I’

after quoting a great many examples from the past. For this purpose he suggests the readers to

leave the stage if they don’t understand the counsels of his essay. He further elaborates his idea

that if a person has no friend, he might be a wild beast or a god but if he is human being and still

has no friend he should leave this world because a man is a social animal and he needs a

companionship of social entities as said by Aristotle. Every sentence of the essays carries its own
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point of view and rich in meanings enough that if that sentences would separated from the essay,

it can survive alone of its own and so most of his essays’ parts are used as quotation among the

public. Dijk (1998) rightly observes in his study that when experiences shared with others may

involve the personal experiences and then these experiences becomes hallmark for others as they

are proved by many among the social classes. To relate this with Bacon’s ideology, it can be said

that Bacon’s experiences were based upon his personal interaction with social groups and when

these are yoked together with the public experiences they turned into universal truths and

acknowledged greatly among the social groups.

Of Parents and Children (1612) also deals majorly to the social class subject matter

wherein the writer opens his essay again with a sweeping statement,

“The joys of parents are secret; and so are their griefs and fears.” (Of Parents and Children,

1612, L. 1)

The words choice like secret in parallel to griefs and fears is according to the poetic style where

writer seems to balance the rhythm of the line but here with a slight difference Bacon masterly

shifts the mood of the line by adding semicolon in it. Bacon describes that parents are wholly

responsible of their children’s good or bad deeds and they are bound to make it secret so that no

one can know the weak points of their children because the society is very cruel to discuss over

the issue negatively. The writer splits the sentence into two for this purpose wherein the first part

writer gives an idea and in the second part he explains his idea. Dijk (1998) describes about the

social beliefs that every thing thought by people lists as their beliefs while some general truths

are not of their part e.g. sun provides heat energy. Now this is a universal truth that sun gives us
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heat energy but when this type of universal truth given as people’s beliefs then it becomes a

hallmark of knowledge as Bacon presents his ideas as universal truths.

In proceeding the essay Of Parents and Children (1612) Bacon says,

“Children sweeten labours; but they make misfortunes more remembrance of death.” (Of

Parents and Children, L. 3-4)

As Bacon majorly uses Biblical references in his essays while defending his ideas according to

the social requirements hence it can be said that in above lines he also uses Biblical reference as

in Bible and Holy Quran, it is said by Allah that children and belongings can de track a person’s

aims and objectives of life because one who indulges into the glory of this world may forget the

fear of death. This idea presented by Bacon is absolutely true because he was the master of Bible

and he also studied Quran. A research article by Kabir (2004) clearly identifies Bacon thoughts

on this topic. Hence the choice of words, phrases and clauses matches the style of Bible wherein

compact and loaded language with true ideas has been given. Dijk (1998) believes that writers

start giving their ideas from micro level and then extend these ideas on macro level by putting

some social examples or quoting social ideas in their writings as Bacon does in his writing.

Conclusion

The study concludes that Bacon uses a number of stylistic devices to generalize his

writings and to make it more worthy among the society where people with set beliefs at once

accept the set ideas with examples quoted by the writer from history. The use of semicolon,

compound and complex clauses and commas use in frequent makes his writing compact and

pithy. Furthermore, the use of noun, verb, adverb and prepositional phrases also make his
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writings distinct among the other writers of his age. It is noteworthy to social set norms that all

these ideological ideas in Bacon’s writings match the latest study on ideology by Dijk (1998).

Generalization in Bacon’s essays makes his statements well versed and this

generalization can be seen through the use of compound verbs, complex and compound clauses

as well as noun phrases. The use of third person pronoun is very frequent in his essays which

make his essays more objective and readers can interpret the text according to their own

perspectives. As in Bible and Quran there are a number of punctuation marks used hence Bacon

adopted the same methodology to use punctuation marks and most of his ideas are taken from

Quran and Bible even though he was against Islam.

John Lyly (1554-1606), Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) and Charles Lamb (1775-

1834) are considered as the contemporary writers of Bacon. As concerned to Lyly, he introduced

euphistic prose style which abounds in sophisticated and ornate language but this idea crosses the

lay man’s ideas hence Lyly did not get fame as Bacon. While discussing about Montaigne and

Lamb, both writers confess that their essays are about themselves and autobiographical elements

can be seen fluently in their essays. But the essays of Bacon differs from all his contemporary

writers as he avoids to put forward his personal point of view and if he put forward his point of

view, he defends his idea with historical examples or routine life matters of the society as

discussed in the analysis of this article.

Widdowson (1976) opines that sometimes a linguistic analysis may not give the complete

understanding of the text then the need of literary criticism and ideological purposes of the

writers may help the readers to grasp the actual meaning of their writings. To accomplish this
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purpose the above study may help the readers of Bacon’s essays to comprehend the text of

literature on stylistics ground.