English 3 Lesson 60: Would any of Bacon’s essays have been more persuasive if he had talked about his own experiences? Which ones? Why?

Francis Bacon’s essays writing style is the lack of including personal stories or things he has experienced in life and sharing it with others. He seems to have a major life experience based on his knowledge on the written essays of his.

His goal, when writing these essays, was to give warning on evils doings and thing such as: envy, debt, bribery, stealing, murder, and etc. His other goal was also to give insights on assured aspects of life, for example, friendship. Bacons another intention for writing essays was also to give insights on politics such as; state empire, government and etc. Francis Bacon’s essays were read and reread even, by a lot of people. This was so, because people, for example, would rather read some short articles on some topic, rather than read a whole book about some topic. And because Bacon’s essays represented, your today’s typical article, many people prefer to read them over some other longer writings/works. Many people read these essays even though Bacon doesn’t add personal experiences.

So, going back to the topic, I’d say that Francis Bacon’s essays would definitely be more persuasive if he had added personal experiences. That way, people can really relate with him more. Bacon is already doing a pretty good job of stating the important facts about his topics, however, if he also backed it up with his past experiences, that would help his readers understand that this is how you should or should not do things. It would also give them a better understanding and seeing what is the result of a certain action.

For example, his essay on debt, to which Bacon tries to convey the evils and wrongdoings of debt, would have been more detailed and expressive if he had backed it up with his own experience. If Bacon had included some of the aspects of his life regarding towards how dangerous debt actually is and how much of a trouble you can get into because of debt. He could have explained how he got out of debt and the process of doing so, just so that his readers can take note of his experience and perhaps not letting themselves getting into a debt situation in their life. Its one thing explaining what debt is, but its also important to just add that personal experience to get a feel of what happens when you get into debt and suggestions and practical tips and advices to getting out if debt.

Here’s another example, Bacon’s essay on friendship, he adds certain examples here, but not his personal examples about this topic. Bacon describes friendship as “world is but a wilderness” and his essay is centered on what he calls the “fruit of friendship,” of which there are three, and the first is the ability to get rid of all one’s frustrations by having a true friend to listen. The second of which is the result of discussing one’s problems with a sympathetic friends, and in the process of ‘communicating and discoursing with another,’ one can actually become wiser than himself. Lastly the third, there are many things a man cannot do for himself which is to praise himself (modestly), ask a friend for help that can do such thing for him with no embarrassment. 

With that said, if Bacon included his reasons and his personal relationships with his friends and how they define and backup his views and the values of friendships instead of using some other examples, then that would have been a more powerful way of explaining things better and describing to readers the real importance of friendship by telling them an example of what his friends do for him and how he interacts towards them.

That’s all for todays essay. I hope you enjoyed reading it or learned something new. Ill post more soon and have a great rest of your day!