Francis Bacon and the veil of Isis: Between Promethean and Orphic approaches to nature

Matthew Sharpe (Australian Catholic University)

Abstract: This paper starts (part 1) from Pierre Hadot’s image of Bacon inVeil of Isis as an arch-Promethean figure, advocating for the violent extraction of nature’s secrets by experimental “torture”.  Part 2 shows that Bacon has been admired by poets and was lauded upon his death as an Apolline or Orphic, suggesting the need to reconsider the later modern interpretation.  Part 3 shows that Bacon does not speak of torture, but ofvexationes artium (vexations of art), and this only depicts one part (natural history of things “wrought and altered”) of his natural philosophy. He also uses many divergent metaphors for the action of this philosophy which the Bacon-as-Promethean interpretations pass over, including sacred marriage, building a temple, finding a way in a forest or labyrinth, and contemplative reading. Part 4 shows that in Bacon’s readings of Orpheus and Prometheus inWisdom of the Ancients, he compares natural philosophy to Orpheus’s music; and if anything, that Bacon more closely identifies with Orpheus or “universal philosophy” than Prometheus.  In Part 5, we test our Orphic (as well as Promethean) reading of Bacon, by looking at his readings of the myths of Pan and Cupid, noting that in his reading of these myths, nature is not presented as a wholly hostile reality, but one of plenitude, shaped by a universal “love” (force of attraction) operating at the elemental level. Part 6 finally shows that Isis symbolism pervades Bacon’s “Feast of the Family” inNew Atlantis, which is a ritual of reverence to the fecundity of nature, opposing critics’ images of Baconian naturalists torturing a hostile nature.