Can you configure log4net in code instead of using a config file?

FINAL SOLUTION:₁

For anyone who may stumble upon this in the future, here is what I did. I made the static class below:

using log4net;
using log4net.Repository.Hierarchy;
using log4net.Core;
using log4net.Appender;
using log4net.Layout;

namespace Spectrum.Logging
{
    public class Logger
    {
        public static void Setup()
        {
            Hierarchy hierarchy = (Hierarchy)LogManager.GetRepository();

            PatternLayout patternLayout = new PatternLayout();
            patternLayout.ConversionPattern = "%date [%thread] %-5level %logger - %message%newline";
            patternLayout.ActivateOptions();

            RollingFileAppender roller = new RollingFileAppender();
            roller.AppendToFile = false;
            roller.File = @"Logs\EventLog.txt";
            roller.Layout = patternLayout;
            roller.MaxSizeRollBackups = 5;
            roller.MaximumFileSize = "1GB";
            roller.RollingStyle = RollingFileAppender.RollingMode.Size;
            roller.StaticLogFileName = true;            
            roller.ActivateOptions();
            hierarchy.Root.AddAppender(roller);

            MemoryAppender memory = new MemoryAppender();
            memory.ActivateOptions();
            hierarchy.Root.AddAppender(memory);

            hierarchy.Root.Level = Level.Info;
            hierarchy.Configured = true;
        }
    }
}

And then all I had to do was replace the code where I called the XML file with the following call:

//XmlConfigurator.Configure(new FileInfo("app.config")); // Not needed anymore
Logger.Setup();

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^{1_{(this answer was edited into the question by the OP, I took the liberty to make it a community answer, see here why)}}

You can also escape XML completely, I wrote a sample with minimal programmatic configuration here.

In a nutshell, here is what you need

var tracer = new TraceAppender();
var hierarchy = (Hierarchy)LogManager.GetRepository();
hierarchy.Root.AddAppender(tracer);
var patternLayout = new PatternLayout {ConversionPattern = "%m%n"};
patternLayout.ActivateOptions();
tracer.Layout = patternLayout;
hierarchy.Configured = true;