OF YOUTH AND AGE by Francis Bacon (Summary & Analysis)

OF YOUTH AND AGE

by Francis Bacon

(Summary & Analysis)

  

Francis Bacon was the essayist of ‘the age of Shakespeare’. The main characteristics of this age are:

·      interest in past,

·      sensuousness,

·      love for nature,

·      the spirit of patriotism,

·      foreign travels and fashion,

·      political peace and social contentment.

Bacon was born in London in 1561. He had education at Cambridge. He also studied in France. Bacon was known as the father of English essays. It is said about him, that bacon was the wisest, the brightest and the meanest of the mankind.

In the essay ‘of youth and age’ Bacon compares virtues and vices of both the ages, but like a good lawyer he balances both the arguments, before drawing any conclusion. About youth, he says, that youth makes mistakes, indulges him in foolish thoughts but youth is the time for inventions, experiments, adventures and for imaginations. He says, that a violent youth is not ripe for any action, because a youth is a youth in years as well as in experience. Youth is fit to invent, to create, to venture and to execute things than to judge. It is the tendency of youth to attempt too much, to ignore the intervening steps, to stick to imperfect rules or principles, to use extreme remedies at first and to indulge in reckless innovations.

According to the essayist ‘age’ is over cautious, over critical and fond of raising all manners of objections. He says that man of age contends himself with the partial success. According to him, both the ages should work together, because the virtues of either age may correct the defects of both the ages. In business, for the sake of profit, the youth should execute the orders of the age. In external relations with people, the authority of the age and the popularity of the youth count. Team work of youth and age is also needed for the moral freshness of youth and the political wisdom of age. Youth sometimes fails to come up to our expectations, though at first seems very promising. Youth has been gifted with some natural disposition like fluency in speech which lack in age.

In this essay Bacon balances the advantages and the disadvantages of both youth and age. Being a Latinist, his style is aphoristic one. His sentences carry so much meaning in them that sometimes it becomes so difficult for them to carry it.