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Sir Thomas Browne (October 19, 1605 - October 19, 1682) was
an English author of a number of works that disclose his wide learning in various
fields of learning including Medicine, religion, science and the esoteric. A consummate literary craftsman, his works are characterised by erudite learning and a rich, unusual
prose style which alternates between grandiloquence and rough note-book jottings. Browne's literary writings are varied in genre
and evidence of his deep Christian faith, enquiring nature, humanity and tolerance in an often intolerant age. Although often
described as suffering from melancholia he was also capable of wit in his
writings .
Throughout his life Browne kept abreast of the latest scientific developments of his age whilst also deeply-versed in esoteric
lore. His important, if ambigious place in intellectual history has been described as-
- An instance of scientific reason, lit up by mysticism, in the Church of England.
Biography
Browne graduated from Pembroke College Oxford in 1626 and received a medical doctorate from the University of Leiden in 1633. He settled in Norwich in 1636 where he practiced medicine and lived until his death in 1682.
His first well-known work bore the Latin title Religio
Medici (The Religion of a Physician). This work was circulated in manuscript among his friends, and it caused Browne
some surprise and embarrassment when an unauthorised edition appeared in 1642, since the
work contained a number of religious speculations that might be considered unorthodox. An authorised text with some of the
controversial matter removed appeared in 1643. The expurgation did not end the controversy;
in 1645, Alexander Ross attacked Religio Medici in his Medicus Medicatus (The Doctor, Doctored) and
in fact the book was placed upon the Papal index of forbidden reading for Catholics in the same year.
In 1646, Browne published Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or, Enquiries into Very many Received Tenets, and commonly Presumed
Truths, whose title refers to the prevalence of false beliefs and "vulgar errors." It is a sceptical collection that deals
with a number of legends circulating at the time, which it treats in a paradoxical
and witty manner. The book is scientifically significant because its arguments were some of the first to cast doubt on the
widely-believed hypothesis of spontaneous generation or
abiogenesis.
In 1658 Browne published together two Discourses which are intimately related to each
other, the first being Hydriotaphia, Urn
Burial or a Brief Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk, occasioned by the discovery of some Bronze Age burials in earthenware vessels found in Norfolk. These inspired Browne to meditate upon the funerary customs
of the world and the fleetingness of earthly fame and reputation.
Hydriotaphia's (Urn-Burial) 'binary' companion Discourse is The Garden of Cyrus, or, The Quincunciall Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients,
Artificially, Naturally, and Mystically Considered, whose slight subject is the quincunx, the arrangement of five units like the five-spot in dice, which
Browne utilises to demonstrate that the Platonic forms exist throughout Nature.
1671 Knighthood to death
In 1671 King Charles II, accompanied by the Royal Court, visited Norwich. The courtier John Evelyn, who had occasionally
corresponded with Browne, took good use of the Royal visit to call upon 'the learned doctor' of European fame and wrote of his
visit-
- his whole house and garden is a paradise & Cabinet of rarieties & that of the best collection, amongst Medails,
books, Plants, natural things.
During his visit to Norwich King Charles II visited Browne's home . A Banquet was held in the Civic Hall St. Andrews for the
Royal visit. Obliged to honour a notable local, the name of the Mayor of Norwich was proposed to the King for knighthood. The
Mayor, however, declined the honour and proposed the name of Browne instead. Thus, technically speaking, Thomas Browne was only
Sir Thomas from 1671 until his death eleven years later in 1682.
Sir Thomas Browne died on his 77th birthday, October 19th 1682. His skull became the subject of dispute when in 1835 his lead
coffin was accidentally re-opened by workmen. It was not re-interred until 4th July
1922 when it was registered in the church of Saint Peter Mancroft as aged 316 years.
Literary works
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Literary influence
Today Sir Thomas Browne is a little-read and thus a much misunderstood author. There are several factors which have
contributed to his obscurity; the complexity of his ornate and labyrinthine thought and his many allusions to the Bible,
Classical learning and esoteric authors are however the primary factors as to why reliance upon received information continues
upon his name.
Browne's paradoxical place in the history of ideas is another factor as to why he
remains little-understood; he was as much a scientist as a devout Christian and
as much a promoter of the new inductive science as an adherent of ancient esoteric
learning. This is reflected in the vast catalogue of over 1,500 books in the Library of Sir Thomas Browne.
The influence of Browne's literary style can be traced from the writings of Doctor Johnson to the nineteenth century when he was admired by Charles Lamb, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge and the novelist Herman Melville who, heavily
influenced by his style, considered him to be 'a cracked archangel'.
In modern times references to Browne can be found in diverse works including-the writings of the American natural historian
and paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, the theosophists Madame Blavatsky, and Eveyln Underhill and the Scottish
psychologist R. D. Laing, who opens his work The Politics of
Experience with a quotation by him. The following quotation taken from a book review by Virginia Woolf in 1923 appears on the website of Browne's literary works.
- But why fly in the face of facts? Few people love the writings of Sir Thomas Browne, but those that do are the salt of
the earth.
in 1973 the composer Malcolm Arnold wrote a symphony based upon the
rythmical cadences of Browne's literary work Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial.The German born author Max Sebald wrote of Browne in his
semi-autobiographical novel The Rings of Saturn (1995) whilst the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges alluded to Browne throughout his literary career once confessing-
- "I am merely a word for Chesterton, for Kafka, and Sir Thomas Browne— I love him. I translated him into seventeenth
century Spanish and it worked very well. We took a chapter out of Urne Buriall and we did that into Quevedo's Spanish and it went very well".
External links
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