ShmoopTube

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Here's your shmoop du jour... This passage is crying out to be reviewed

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again. Hit pause, and see if you can get it to shut up...

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What is the principle effect of the author's allusions in lines 7--8?

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And here are the potential answers... Well, first of all, we're pretty sure the

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author isn't making bunny rabbits appear out of his top hat...

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...so we're talking about allusions here -- the literary kind... and not illusions, the David

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Copperfield kind. Let's take a look at lines 7 through 8:

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"...such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides

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the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius

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of Tyana..." So... what's Bacon's reason for rattling off

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all these names?

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Does he know these people personally? Is he just name-dropping?

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The first part -- "falsely and feignedly" indicates that the author feels the people

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whose names follow claimed to need solitude...

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...but really, they were big softies who, deep down, needed friendship just like the

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rest of us. Okay, now which of our answer choices fits

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with that idea?

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Well, he's definitely not saying these thinkers felt the same way he did, so A is out...

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...he's not refuting the idea that holy men are the only ones who need solitude, he's

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reinforcing it, so it can't be C...

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...Option D is also pretty much the opposite of what we're looking for...

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...and E won't work because Bacon never claims that nobody needs solitude... don't forget

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those holy men. So B is our answer -- "To show that even respected

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ancient thinkers were false in their claims of the need for solitude."

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Now... be a friend. Numa the Roman could use a hug.

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