TWA for Sunday, January 22, 2012

Excerpt from "Darkness" by Lord Byron. Public domain.

ORIGINAL TEXT AND AUDIO - 2012

Today is the birthday of Sir Francis Bacon (1561). He was born in London, and he was, among other things, a philosopher, a statesman, an essayist, and a champion of modern science. He was born into a family with connections at court, but he criticized Queen Elizabeth's tax levy and fell out of favor. When Elizabeth was succeeded by James I, Bacon's career got back on track, and in 1618, he was named the Lord Chancellor. His glory was short-lived; he was convicted of accepting bribes in 1621, and banned from political office for the rest of his life.

He spent much of his intellectual life challenging Aristotle's view that knowledge should begin with universal truths. He said, "If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties." In Novum Organum (1620), Bacon wrote that scholars should build their knowledge of the world from specific, observable details. His theory is now known as the scientific method, and is the basis of all experimental science.

It's the birthday of the notorious British Romantic poet Lord Byron, born George Gordon in London (1788). He was impulsive, compulsive, and given to excesses with lovers of both sexes. He had an incestuous relationship with his half sister, Augusta, and may have been the father of one of her children. He was sexy, charismatic, witty, athletic, and bipolar. One of his lovers, Lady Caroline Lamb, called him "mad, bad, and dangerous to know."

He married once, to Anne Isabella Milbank, in 1814, in the hope that domestic life would help him control his wild behavior. The marriage was a poor fit from the start; his wife was humorless and rigid, and they were both miserable. They had a daughter, Ada, in 1815 and legally separated in 1816. He left England that year, to live abroad, and never returned.

In spite of his turbulent personal life, he found time to write epic narrative poems, like the melancholy Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-18) and the satirical Don Juan (1818-24). He became a literary rock star: His poem The Corsair (1814) sold 10,000 copies on the day it was published. He also penned tender verses like "She Walks in Beauty" (1814). That poem begins:

She walks in beauty like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes

As he lay dying of a fever — possibly malaria, or sepsis from improperly sterilized tools used to bleed him — he requested that his body be left undisturbed. Sadly, his wishes were disregarded; doctors cut him open almost upon his last breath, removing parts of his skull and organs for souvenirs. His remains were denied burial in Westminster Abbey for reasons of "questionable morality." He was buried at the church of St. Mary Magdalene in Nottinghamshire.

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