Bacon as a Poet Quotes

Francis Bacon, Poetry & the Theatre

It is a common misconception that Francis Bacon had no interest in poetry and the theatre. Nigel B. Cockburn devotes two chapters in his work The Bacon Shakespeare Question dispelling this oft repeated myth, “This is a travesty of the truth and can be corrected by quoting what Bacon himself wrote about the Theatre. . .Bacon relished the Theatre & poetry as a branch of learning, a source of delight, and as a means of educating people to virtue.”

Quotes on Francis Bacon as a Poet

Bacon’s friend and contemporary Sir Tobie Matthew commented,
“A man so rare in knowledge, of so many severall kinds, endued with the facility and felicity of expressing it all, in so elegant, significant, so abundant, and yet so choise and ravishing way of words, of Metaphors, and Allusions, as, perhaps, the world hath not seen, since it was the world.”
Toby Matthew, Preface to his Collection of Letters, 1660

Bacon’s great Victorian editor James Spedding, whilst not ostensibly accepting Bacon’s authorship of Shakespeare says,
“Bacon had all the natural faculties which a poet wants: a fine ear for metre, a fine feeling from imaginative effect in words, and a vein of poetic passion. . .The truth is that Bacon was not without the "fine phrensy" of the poet.”
James Spedding, Works, VII, p. 267-8

“Lord Bacon was a poet. His language has a sweet and majestic rhythm which satisfies the sense, no less than the almost superhuman wisdom of his philosophy satisfies the intellect.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of Poetry, (1821)

“A great luminous intellect, one of the finest of this poetic progeny who, like his predecessors, was naturally disposed to clothe his ideas in the most splendid dress. . . He thinks in the manner of artists and poets, and he speaks after the manner of prophets and seers."
French Historian & Philosopher H.A. Taine

Edwin Abbot who was not an authorship adherent wrote,
“Bacon's style varied almost as much as his handwriting; but it was influenced more by the subject-matter than by youth or old age. Few men have shown equal versatility in adapting their language to the slighest shade of circumstance and purpose. . .in the Early Devices, during his connection with Essex, he uses a rich exhuberant style and poetic rhythm. . .”
E. A. Abbott, Francis Bacon (1885)

“[Bacon’s] style. . .flows. . with the strength, fullness and swelling of a majestic river and the rude harmony of the mountain stream. His images are replete with poetry and thought; they always illustrate his subject.”
Lexicographer Alexander Spiers, Bacon’s Essays 1851, Preface

“His [Bacon’s] style is also the reflection of a poetical mind which adorns its logic with an imagery, picturesque, piquant, and full of metaphors, similes and analogies, sometimes strained, always suggestive.”
Thomas Case, World Classic edition of Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Preface

“Poetry pervaded and permeated [his] thoughts and style in the majestic sentences of [this] wisest of mankind.”
Writer & Politician Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton

“I am one of the many who have never been able to bring the life of William Shakespeare and the plays of Shakespeare within a planetary space of each other. Are there any two things in the world more incongruous? Had the plays come down to us anonymously, had the labor of discovering the author been imposed upon after generations, I think we could have found no one of that day but F. Bacon to whom to assign the crown. In this case it would have been resting now on his head by almost common consent.”
A Letter from William H. Furness to Nathaniel Holmes, The Authorship of Shakespeare (New York: published by Hurd and Houghton, 1875), p. 62

Francis Bacon on Poetry & the Theatre

Whether he was writing a letter, a law tract or a scientific observation Bacon would often use theatrical metaphors and terminology. Just a few of numerous examples:

“calls me now to retire from the stage of civil action and betake myself to letters, and to the instruction of the actors themselves, and the service of Posterity.”
Letter from Francis Bacon to Count Gondomar dated 6 June 1621

“Love is the argument alwaies of Comedies, and many times of Tragedies.”
Francis Bacon, Of Love; Spedding, Works, VI, p. 557

“. . .so among the poets (heroic, satiric, tragic, comic) are everywhere interspersed representations of characters, though generally exaggerated and surpassing the truth.”
Francis Bacon, De Augmentis Scientiarum; Spedding, Works, V, p. 21

“it is of excellent use. I mean stage-playing: an art which strengthens the memory, regulates the tone and effect of the voice and pronunciation, teaches a decent carriage of the countenance and gesture, gives not a little assurance and accustoms  young men to bear being looked at.”
Francis Bacon, De Augmentis Scientiarum; Spedding, Works, IV, p. 496

“And in the plays of this philosophical theatre you may observe the same thing which is found in the theatre of the poets, that stories invented for the stage are more compact and elegant, and more as one would wish them to be, than true stories out of history.”
Francis Bacon, Novum Organum; Spedding, Works, IV, p. 63

“And though in modern states play-acting is esteemed but as a toy, except when it is too satirical and biting; yet among the ancients it was used as a means of educating men's minds to virtue.”
Francis Bacon, De Augmentis Scientiarum; Spedding, Works, IV, p. 316

“. . .and none could hold the book so well to prompt and instruct this stage-play, as she could.”
Francis Bacon, The History of King Henry VII; Spedding, Works, VI, p.46

“The stage is more beholding to Love, than the life of man. For as to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies. . .”
Francis Bacon, Of Love; Spedding, Works, VI, p. 397

“I have given the rule, where a man cannot fitly play his own part; if he hath not a friend,
he may quit the stage.”
Francis Bacon, Of Friendship; Spedding, Works, VI, p. 443