Chowen lecture theatre, Brighton and Sussex Medical School
All welcome
ALAN STEWART
"Francis Bacon in Collaboration"
It has long been known that, early in his career, Francis Bacon wrote
letters, treatises, and entertainments for his friend and patron,
Robert Devereux, earl of Essex. But if the young Bacon "wrote" Essex,
then might not somebody else have "written" the mature Bacon? I
analyze the materials relating to the production of Bacon's later
writings--and his treatment of writing in /New Atlantis/--and argue
that we need to reconsider Bacon's oeuvre as a radically collaborative
undertaking.
Alan Stewart is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at
Columbia University, and International Director of the Centre for
Editing Lives and Letters in London. He is the author of /Close
Readers: Humanism and Sodomy in Early Modern England/ (1997), /Hostage
to Fortune: The Troubled Life of Francis Bacon/ (with Lisa Jardine,
1998), /Philip Sidney: A Double Life/ (2000), /The Cradle King: A Life
of James VI and I/ (2003), and most recently, Shakespeare's Letters/
(2008). He has just completed work on volume 1 of the Oxford Francis
Bacon (containing Bacon's early writings, 1584-1586), and is
co-editing, with Garrett Sullivan, the Blackwell /Encyclopedia of
English Renaissance Literature.
"Francis Bacon in Collaboration"
It has long been known that, early in his career, Francis Bacon wrote
letters, treatises, and entertainments for his friend and patron,
Robert Devereux, earl of Essex. But if the young Bacon "wrote" Essex,
then might not somebody else have "written" the mature Bacon? I
analyze the materials relating to the production of Bacon's later
writings--and his treatment of writing in /New Atlantis/--and argue
that we need to reconsider Bacon's oeuvre as a radically collaborative
undertaking.
Alan Stewart is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at
Columbia University, and International Director of the Centre for
Editing Lives and Letters in London. He is the author of /Close
Readers: Humanism and Sodomy in Early Modern England/ (1997), /Hostage
to Fortune: The Troubled Life of Francis Bacon/ (with Lisa Jardine,
1998), /Philip Sidney: A Double Life/ (2000), /The Cradle King: A Life
of James VI and I/ (2003), and most recently, Shakespeare's Letters/
(2008). He has just completed work on volume 1 of the Oxford Francis
Bacon (containing Bacon's early writings, 1584-1586), and is
co-editing, with Garrett Sullivan, the Blackwell /Encyclopedia of
English Renaissance Literature.
