The Art of Forgetting is a three part series of talks which I gave in London in 2009, 2012 and 2016, on the literary activities of Francis Bacon and Anthony Bacon in the 1590s.
The first was delivered to the Francis Bacon Society, in Senate House, London in 2009. The talk explores certain political and literary events which took place in London in the year 1593 in London, and their consequences for the history of the Elizabethan theatre.
It was not videotaped, but you can read the notes to the talk, and view the slides by clicking the link below.
In particular, it focused on the Marlowe problem. Who was Christopher Marlowe? How was he implicated in the events surrounding the Dutch Churchyard Libel? What was his relationship to Thomas Kyd?
Most crucially, for the Bacon-is-Shakespeare theory: If Christopher Marlowe was the author of the works attributed to him, how can we explain his relationship with the Shakespeare project, and Francis Bacon?
These questions have far reaching implications for understanding the frequently subversive relationship between author, text and attribution in the Elizabethan era.
They also begin to shed light on the growing involvement of Anthony Bacon in the London literary scene of the early 1590s.
In this talk, I presented a new and original narrative on the construction of authorial identity at the outset of the Shakespeare and Marlowe literary careers and the birth of the Elizabethan literary renaissance.
Talk Notes and Slides: please click below for pdfs:
