The Aphoristic style of Francis Bacon
The style of Bacon remains for the main part aphoristic, with the result that he is one of the most quotable of writers. There is a terseness of expression, and an epigrammatic brevity, in the essays of Bacon. His sentences are brief and rapid, but they are also forceful. “They come down like the strokes of a hammer’, says Dean Church. This terseness is often achieved by leaving out superfluous epithets and conjunctions and connectives. It is seldom carried to the extent of causing obscurity, though one or two instances do exist where this extreme condensation has caused great difficulty in understanding the meaning. This is a remarkable power of compressing into a few words an idea which other writers may express in several sentences. The essays of Bacon in fact have to be read slowly because of the compact and condensed thought... (READ MORE)