How English Literature Became Informative: Francis Bacon, the Essays, and the New Atlantis

This talk will examine the emergence of new genres in seventeenth-century England in the context of a developing information culture within its central government. Using Francis Bacon’s work with informers on economic statutes as a case study, I will show how his attempts to reorganize the system of penal reporting helped him to develop an increasingly complex account of information. As the first English essayist, Bacon’s sophisticated treatment of data would have stylistic as well as thematic implications within his prose, providing a template for a host of imitators and rivals. 

Julianne Werlin is a Humanities Initiative Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University. Her book project focuses on the relationship between state formation and literature at the beginning of the early modern period; other interests include the military revolution (especially the history of military technology), early theories of information, and literary stylistics.