Lord Chandos Letter

Literary text by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, published in 1902. Claims to be a letter written in 1603 by Philip, Lord Chandos, to the Elizabethan statesman and philosopher Francis Bacon. In the letter, Lord Chandos explains why he has completely abandoned literature, articulating distrust of language and the inadequacy of words in representing the world: "terms crumbled in my mouth like mouldy fungi."