BACON,FRANCIS, SIR matter exclusively in terms of male exem- (1561-1626) plars. Also significant is his Machiavel- English statesman, philosopher, lian commendation of dissimulation; the and essayist. After asornewhat shaky start best policy is "to have openness in fame in the service of Queen Elizabeth, during and opinion, secrecy in habit, dissimula- the reign of James I Bacon advanced from tion in seasonable use, and a power to knight (1603) to the offices of attorney feign if there be no remedy." The need to general (1613)and lord chancellor (1618). "edit" one's persona thus recognized is of In 1621, however, his position collapsed courseone facet of the closeted life, though when he was forced to plead guilty of Bacon's caution may have been reinforced charges of taking bribes; he then retired to by sensitivity regarding his occult and study and write. In the philosophy of sci- magical interests, which were scarcely ence Bacon has become identified, some- popular among the masses. times simplistically, with the method of induction, the patient accumulation of BIBLIOGRAPHY. Fulton Henry Anderson, Francis Bacon: His Career data toreach conclusions. Recent research, and His Thought, Los Angeles: Univer- however, has shown that this stereotypi- sity of Southern California Press, 1962; cal picture of a skeptical, essentially Paolo Rossi, Francis Bacon: From Magic modem figure is distorted and anachronis- to Science, London: Routledge, 1968. tic; Bacon's interest in experiment is in fact rooted in magical, alchemical, and r esoteric traditions. Although the notion BAILEY,DERRICK that he wrote Shakespeare's plays is now SHERWIN(1910-1984) discounted, his aphoristic Essays British theologian and historian; (1597-1625) are a stylistic achievement in Canon Residentiary of Wells Cathedral their own right. from 1962. Afterworld War IIBailey joined Evidence for Bacon's erotic predi- a group of Anglican clergymen and lectionfor~oungmeninhisem~lo~comes physicians to study homosexu~ity;their from two 'eventeenth-century findings were published in a 1954 Report John Aubrey and Sir SimondsDIEwes.The entitled The of Homosexua~ity latter even states that there was some produced for the Church of England Moral question of bringing him to for bug- Welfare Council by the Church Infoma- gery. Aletter survives from Bacon's mother tion Board. As part of this task Bailey chastizing him for his fondness for Welsh completed a separate historical study, boys. His marriage, which was childless Homosexuality and the Western Chris- and probably loveless, took place at 'he tian Tradition (London:Longmans, 1955). mature age of 46. Sir Francis Bacon seems Although this monograph has been criti- to have moved entirely in a masculine cized for tending to exculpate the Chris- In accord with Greco-Roman and tian church from blame in the persecution Renaissance predecessors, his "Of and defamation of homosexuals, it was a Friendship" confines itself to relations landmark in the history of the subject, between men. "Of Beauty" discusses the combining scrutiny of the Biblical evi- l 03 ..:.:.+:;:;:::.... O BAILEY, DERRICK SHERWIN dence with a survey of subsequent history. tiouswork yet, Another Country (19611, in Bailey's book drew attention to a number which the sexual and racial themes are of neglected subjects, including the in- inextricably interwoven. Only partially tertestamental literature, the legislation successful, this novel presents the lives of of the Christian emperors, the peniten- a number of New Yorkers of varying sex- tial~,and the link between heresy and ual persuasions, who are linked by their sodomy. The author's interpretation of friendship with a black musician. Genesis 19, where he treats the Sodom Having successfully withstood story as essentially nonsexual-an instance the homophobia of the immediate post- of violation of hospitality-has not been waryears, theemergenceof the CivilRights generally accepted. The work of Bailey and movement gave Baldwin the chance to his colleagues prepared the way for the play a role at the center of the stage. His progressive Wolfenden Report (1957), prose work me Fire Next Time (1963) which was followed a decade later by effectively captures the moral fervor of the Parliament's decriminalization of homo- Kennedy years, and Baldwin seemed the sexual conduct between consentingadults Jeremiah that the country needed. Al- in England and Wales. though he continued to publish after this point, the writer seemed unable to find a balanced viewpoint, and his later novels BALDWIN,JAMES (1924-1987) and plays are sometimes diffuse and stri- dent. Some of his former admirers felt that American novelist, essayist, and he had become too much wrapped up in playwright. Born in New York City's Har- the rhetoric of black liberation, with its lem, his experiences as a child evangelist in the ghetto provided a rich store of mate- angry indictment of white injustice; con- rial, as well as contributing to his some- versely, some black critics found him times exhortatory style. His first novel, insufficiently militant. Try as he might, Go Tell It on the Mountain (19531, which he could not convince the younger black derives from this world, gave him immedi- radicals that he had not sold out to whitey. ate fame. Following the example of fellow Baldwin's estimate of the urgency of the black author Richard Wright, Baldwin had racial crisis led him to downplay the as moved to Paris at the age of 24; he was to homosexual theme. Yet a commentator live inFrance for most of therest of his life, on the continuing "American dilemma" though most of his concerns and work of race, Baldwin failed to deliver a message continued to center on the United States. that could carry full conviction for any The acclaim that he had garnered group. Despite his best efforts, in the view in the 1950s emboldened him to publish of many readers he never recaptured the Giovanni's Room [1961],an honest novel crystalline precision of his earlier works. about homosexuality sent out into a liter- These suffice, however, to assure his repu- ary world that was scarcely welcoming. tation as a writer of compelling power, a This book recounts the story of David, an sensitive observer not merely of blackness athletic, white American expatriate who and gayness, not merely of America and discovers his homosexuality in a relation- Europe, but of the inherent complexities ship with a working-class Italian in Paris; of the human condition. although it ends tragically with the death BIBLIOGRAPHY. Fred L. Standley, of Giovanni, the lean, yet intense style of lames Baldwin: A Reference Guide, this book, and its candor, left a lasting Boston: G.K. Hall, 1980; Carolyn Wedin impression. At the time, to be sure, critics Sylvander, lames Baldwin, New York: urged Baldwin to abandon such "exotic" Frederick Ungar, 1980; W. J. Weatherby, lames Baldwin: Artist on Pire, New subject matter and return to native themes. York: Donald I. Fine, 1989. Baldwin responded with his most ambi- Wayne R. Dynes BALZAC, HONOR^ DE 9 BALLET where the prisoners, of the same sex but of See Dance. different ages, are crowded together under conditions that favor homosexuality. BALZAC,HONORJ? DE Vautrin is the symbol of imprisoned sexu- (1799-1850) ality, incarcerated because he took the French novelist. Balzac is best blame for the crime of another, "a very known as the creator of the Combdie hu- handsome young man whom he greatly loved." The novelist's depiction of prison maine, a vast collection of interlocking novels and stories of which about ninety homosexuality goes beyond any mere were written in less than twenty years. documentary treatment; it does not hide the sexual dimension of prison friendships, The Comt?diehumainedisplays bothunity and diversity: if a number of narratives are but shows them as a form of love with set in Paris in the 18209, the bold strate- values all their own. The homosexual gem of letting characters from one book element is present everywhere in the know characters from another fosters the prison, yet unutterable and unmention- reader's growing conviction of the reality able. Vautrin's secret is that he does not of the world evoked by the novelist. The love women, but when and how does he literary complex also carries conviction love men? He does so only in the rents of the fabric of the narrative, because the because of the interplay of critical atti- technique of the novelist lies exactly in tudes that expressBalzaclsintuitive analy- sis of modern society: even the more ob- not speaking openly, but letting the reader scure private dramas are linked with the know indirectly the erotic background of life of France at a particular moment in its the events of his story. The physical union history-the Restoration and the July of Vautrin with Lucien he presents with Monarchy. The stresses and conflicts be- stylistic subtlety as apredestined coupling tween thought and instinct, between Paris of two halves of one being, as submission and the provinces, between those who to a law of nature. The homosexual aspect cling to the past and those who move with of the discourse must always be masked, the times-all these mirror Balzacfs need must hide behind a euphemism, a taunt- to compensate for what life had failed to ing ambiguity that nevertheless tells all to give him and the truth of his own experi- the knowing reader. ence. Balzac transformed the novel into a The pact struck between Vautrin vehicle for reflective commentary on and Lucien is a Faustian one. Vautrin modem society and so to an incalculable dreams of owning a plantation in the degree influenced succeeding generations American South where on a hundred thou- of writers in many tongues. sand acres he can have absolute power While there is no evidence that over his slaves-including their bodies.