Francis Bacon and Torture
Academic Bio:
Anthony J. Funari
I am currently a doctoral student at Lehigh University and in May will have finished my dissertation, entitled Challenging the Scientific Mind: The Poetic Resistance to Bacon’s Grand Instauration. My thesis examines the poetry of John Donne, Andrew Marvell, and John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, as a site from which is launched a meaningful critique of Francis Bacon’s scientific program. My research interests include depictions of the natural in seventeenth-century poetry and prose, the rise of the city in Jacobean drama, and ecofeminist criticism.
Abstract:
This article examines the relevance that Francis Bacon’s call for humanity to engage in a (re)productive relationship with Nature has for Andrew Marvell’s “The Mower’s Song.” Rather than viewing Damon’s realization of his isolation from the meadows as solely due to his emerging sexual feeling for Juliana, this article complicates the Mower’s plight by arguing that Damon experiences a tropological shift in how he characterizes Nature. While in “Damon, the Mower” sexuality appears alien to the natural world, Damon comes to recognize Nature as a sexual entity through his depiction of the grass’s growth as “luxuriant” and the meadows as a participant in a May-game festivity. The transition that Damon experience parallels that which Bacon demands for the sciences. For Bacon, the restoration of humanity’s Edenic mastery begins with treating Nature as any woman subject to masculine domination. However, in perceiving Nature through Bacon’s terms, Marvell’s protagonist does not discover a path to back Paradise but reenacts the Fall. On this basis, Marvell problematizes the tropological foundation on which Bacon rests the new science.
“Companions of My Thoughts More Green”: Damon’s Baconian Sexing of Nature
In his essay “Of Youth and Age,” Bacon expresses anxiety over the youthful mind, which he finds to be impetuous, prone to flights of fancy, and
Anthony J. Funari
I am currently a doctoral student at Lehigh University and in May will have finished my dissertation, entitled Challenging the Scientific Mind: The Poetic Resistance to Bacon’s Grand Instauration. My thesis examines the poetry of John Donne, Andrew Marvell, and John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, as a site from which is launched a meaningful critique of Francis Bacon’s scientific program. My research interests include depictions of the natural in seventeenth-century poetry and prose, the rise of the city in Jacobean drama, and ecofeminist criticism.
Abstract:
This article examines the relevance that Francis Bacon’s call for humanity to engage in a (re)productive relationship with Nature has for Andrew Marvell’s “The Mower’s Song.” Rather than viewing Damon’s realization of his isolation from the meadows as solely due to his emerging sexual feeling for Juliana, this article complicates the Mower’s plight by arguing that Damon experiences a tropological shift in how he characterizes Nature. While in “Damon, the Mower” sexuality appears alien to the natural world, Damon comes to recognize Nature as a sexual entity through his depiction of the grass’s growth as “luxuriant” and the meadows as a participant in a May-game festivity. The transition that Damon experience parallels that which Bacon demands for the sciences. For Bacon, the restoration of humanity’s Edenic mastery begins with treating Nature as any woman subject to masculine domination. However, in perceiving Nature through Bacon’s terms, Marvell’s protagonist does not discover a path to back Paradise but reenacts the Fall. On this basis, Marvell problematizes the tropological foundation on which Bacon rests the new science.
“Companions of My Thoughts More Green”: Damon’s Baconian Sexing of Nature
In his essay “Of Youth and Age,” Bacon expresses anxiety over the youthful mind, which he finds to be impetuous, prone to flights of fancy, and