This is in continuation to my earlier article. The Age left to discuss is,
No.8 The Contemporary Age or The Present
Age
This was the Age, which saw the birth of the great writer, Francis Bacon. While the Churchmen debated the theory was practiced off Church governance, the secular mind of Francis Bacon (1561-1626A.D.), was mediating am ambitious scheme for laying a new foundation of human knowledge on which, could be reared an increasing understanding and control of Nature. To this scheme he gave the general name of the GREAT INSATURATION (Renewal) reacting against scholastic philosophy and against all a priori thinking, and systems of thought derived deductively from the premises laid down by the Authority, basing that knowledge on
observation, would restore a truer relationship between the observing mind and observed nature, and so to make
scientific observation possible. For Bacon, “the furtherest end of knowledge was not theoretical insight but the relief of man’s estate”, it was to be. The sequence was to be from observation to understanding leading to practical application.
Bacon was not the first to propose an inductive scientific theory or to attack scholasticism. His works were not philosophical, either. They lacked actual achievements of contemporary science. He is said to have been ignorant of and sometimes hostile to the new advancements in astronomy and medicine. Greek science and Plutonic Mathematics influenced his works, which were so important for the scientific achievements of the Renaissance. Nevertheless he spoke with prophetic eloquence of the new conception of knowledge and its functions popularizing a point of new which was to become increasingly significant later in the Century. His diagnosis of the much-accepted philosophy of his time as mere verbal jugglery had something of the same effect as the work of the more popular of the logical positivists and Semantics of 1930’s.
Bacon’s essays were of aphoristic and discursive in style especially his works written in 1597, 1612 and 1625. They reflect on human affairs by a practical psychologist who wishes to base his ethical prescription on a sound knowledge of human nature. It is the aphoristic element in his style that makes so many of his sentences, particularly, his opening sentences memorable and quotable. For example, “Revenge is a kind of wild justice”. There is moderately a Machiavellian sight to his thought.
I hope the above description of the various ages of literary history would have helped the readers in getting a better insight into the evolution and growth of English Literature.