ABSTRACT
Although Robert Greene’s play The Honorable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay has traditionally been discussed in terms of its status as the first romantic comedy, 1 literary critics have recently begun to turn their attention to the way that the play’s action and plot serve as social commentary. Taking their cue from William Empson’s seminal observation that, in Friar Bacon, “the power of beauty is like the power of magic; both are individualist, dangerous, and outside the social order,” these critics have focused on the general, metaphorical links between love and magic. 2 It is important to recognize, however, that the friar’s magic in this play is more than a general metaphor for human ambition or emotion; Greene’s depiction of the brass 3 head that Bacon creates and attempts to animate by way of his occult knowledge during the course of the play is a specific lampoon of the scientists and science of his day.
