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Francis Bacon and the Art of Misinterpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Julianne Werlin
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Abstract

Recent research has shown how Francis Bacon drew on Renaissance practices of reading and writing to propose a new method for understanding nature. Yet Bacon was well aware that such techniques were vulnerable to error, miscommunication, and failure. Instances of misinterpretation in his utopian fantasy New Atlantis reveal that his dream of a legible world accounts for the possibility of misreading. Bacon's characters and his audience are invited to interpret the text's symbols, but they are denied the basis for adequate interpretation. The paradoxes that arise from this strange position affirm the utility of Bacon's method and expose some of its limits.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 130 , Issue 2 , March 2015 , pp. 236 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2015

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