Jesse Norman on Francis Bacon and The Winding Stair

ORIGINALLY RELEASED 17 MARCH 2024 · 30 MIN · SEASON 1, EPISODE 21

Jesse Norman joins Samuel Woodall to discuss Francis Bacon’s ambition, his rivalry with Edward Coke and the possibilities and risks of turning political history into fiction.

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Episode summary

Francis Bacon’s public career combined philosophical ambition with the hazards of patronage, office and court politics. Jesse Norman discusses the Bacon portrayed in The Winding Stair, setting his ascent and fall against his rivalry with the jurist Edward Coke and the manoeuvring of early Stuart political life.

The interview then turns to historical fiction as a form of interpretation. Norman considers how a novelist works within the evidence while imagining motives, conversations and interior lives that the archive cannot fully recover. The result is a conversation about historical accuracy, narrative freedom and the new readings of familiar figures that fiction can make possible.

Questions explored

• How should Francis Bacon’s political ambition be understood?
• What did Bacon’s rivalry with Edward Coke reveal about law, office and power?
• How can historical fiction remain responsible to the evidence?
• What can an imagined narrative reveal that a conventional historical account may not?

Participants

• Samuel Woodall: Host of Beyond the Text, intellectual historian and PhD candidate at the University of Buckingham.
• Jesse Norman: Author and politician whose work includes political biography, intellectual history and the historical novel The Winding Stair.

Episode chapters

• 0:00 Exploring Francis Bacon’s Ambition
• 4:58 Navigating Historical Accuracy in Fiction
• 22:44 Historical Interpretations and New Readings

Sources and further reading

• Jesse Norman, The Winding Stair (London: Biteback Publishing, 2023).
• Lisa Jardine and Alan Stewart, Hostage to Fortune: The Troubled Life of Francis Bacon (New York: Hill and Wang, 1999).

Transcript and original show notes

The original Buzzsprout page contains the complete episode description and any transcript or chapter material supplied with the recording. Open the original episode page.