routledge+history+of+literature+in+english

80 The Renaissance 1485–1660
47); at other times one might not agree with the assumptions on which his
judgements are made but within the constraints of the period they are sensibly
tolerant – when establishing a ‘plantation’ or colony, for instance, he suggests
treating the ‘savages’ with justice (Essay 33). Of Death is a good example of
how Bacon handles a vast subject in an accessible way:
Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark: and, as that
natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.
Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, and
passage to another world, is holy, and religious; but the fear of
it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak.
Many of Bacon’s essays raise issues fundamental to the era. For
example, Of Revenge explores the notion of revenge which frequently
featured in the period and is dominant in Elizabethan and Jacobean
drama. ‘Revenge is a kind of wild justice’, he begins. The Old Testament
had apparently sanctioned revenge but, as Bacon shows, if justice is
to be redefined, the wildness of revenge becomes dangerous. Kyd’s
The Spanish Tragedy (1592), the pre-eminent revenge tragedy before
Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1600), uses the personification of revenge as a
‘Chorus in this Tragedy’, a visible presence motivating character and
action. Where Kyd’s play uses revenge as a motif for passion and
bloodshed, Hamlet uses it as a starting point for a new kind of hero.
Rather like the character Hamlet, Bacon was at the forefront of an endless
questioning and ‘perpetual renovation’ which characterised the Renaissance.
Bacon, incidentally, has been seen by a few literary historians as the author
of the plays attributed to Shakespeare. While this is highly unlikely, it is a
reminder of how much the two writers share the concerns of the age.
Bacon regarded the pursuit of knowledge, irrespective of politics or religion,
as useful to the individual and beneficial to society. He recognised the
need for laws and rules to proceed from the observation of the human and
natural world rather than attempting to fit these phenomena into
preconceived, abstract structures. In many respects he can thus be regarded
as one of the leading figures in the development of English thinking.
The issues of the time are also reflected in the writings of Richard Hooker,
who wrote one of the first major prose classics in modern English, Of the
Laws of Ecclesiastical Politie, published in 1593 and 1597, with posthumous
additions more than half a century later. The work is a broadminded and