Francis Bacon and the art of misinterpretation

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. he paradoxes that arise from this strange position airm the utility of Bacon's method and expose some of its limits.

Duke Scholars

Author Julianne Werlin English