Thomas Browne

Literary influence

Browne is one of the most original writers in the English language. Though by no means free from credulity, the freshness and ingenuity of his mind invested everything he touched with interest; while on more important subjects his style, if frequently rugged and pedantic, often rises to the highest pitch of grave and stately eloquence.

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In the nineteenth century Browne's reputation was revived by the Romantics. Thomas De Quincey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Charles Lamb (who considered himself the rediscoverer of Browne) were all admirers. The seminal American novelist Herman Melville, heavily influenced by his style, deemed him "a cracked archangel."

Related Topics:
Romantics - Thomas De Quincey - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Charles Lamb - Herman Melville - Archangel

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The influence of Browne's literary style can sometimes be felt in the writings of Doctor Johnson, who shared Browne's love of the Latinate and wrote a brief Life where he praised Browne as a faithful Christian but gave a mixed reception to his prose:

Related Topics:
Doctor Johnson - Latinate - Christian

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:"His style is, indeed, a tissue of many languages; a mixture of heterogeneous words, brought together from distant regions, with terms originally appropriated to one art, and drawn by violence into the service of another. He must, however, be confessed to have augmented our philosophical diction; and, in defence of his uncommon words and expressions, we must consider, that he had uncommon sentiments, and was not content to express, in many words, that idea for which any language could supply a single term."

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Browne's paradoxical place in the history of ideas is one reason why he remains little-understood; he was as much a scientist as a Christian and as much a promoter of the new inductive science as an adherent of ancient esoteric learning. The literary critic Robert Sencourt succinctly assessed him as "an instance of scientific reason lit up by mysticism in the Church of England." This is reflected in the diverse catalogue of over 1,500 books in the Library of Sir Thomas Browne.Today however he 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.

Related Topics:
Paradox - Inductive - Esoteric - Robert Sencourt - Church of England - Library of Sir Thomas Browne - Bible

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In modern times references to Browne can be found in diverse works. The English author Virginia Woolf however wrote of him in 1923, "Few people love the writings of Sir Thomas Browne, but those that do are the salt of the earth."

Related Topics:
Virginia Woolf - 1923

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Others who have admired the English man of letters include 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.

Related Topics:
Paleontologist - Stephen Jay Gould - Theosophists - Madame Blavatsky - Eveyln Underhill - Scottish - R. D. Laing

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In 1973 the composer William Alwyn wrote a symphony based upon the rhythmical cadences of Browne's literary work Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial. The German author W.G. 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 writings, from his very first publication, Fervor de Buenos Aires (1923) until his last years. Such was Borges' admiration for Browne as a literary stylist and thinker that late in his life (Interview April 25th 1980) he stated of himself alluding to his self-portrait in "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" (1940):

Related Topics:
1973 - William Alwyn - Symphony - Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial - German - W.G. Sebald - The Rings of Saturn - Argentinian - Jorge Luis Borges - 1923 - Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius - 1940

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"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."

Related Topics:
Chesterton - Kafka - Spanish - Quevedo

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