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Two brilliantly eccentric and intriguing essays by one of the masters of English prose. Sit and let your tongue run over the prose and read "Urne-Buriall" aloud a bit. Then look around and ask yourself Browne's questions which of us can ever know how many times and places his remains w Two brilliantly eccentric and intriguing essays by one of the masters of English prose. Then look around and ask yourself Browne's questions which of us can ever know how many times and places his remains will be buried?
Which of us can ever know how long his memory will survive? A fine meditation and one forgotten for far too long. Jan 16, Chelsea Rae rated it liked it Shelves: May 22, Caleb added it. But the iniquity of oblivion blindely scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the Pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the Temple of Diana , he is almost lost that built it; Time hath spared the Epitaph of Adrians horse, confounded that of himself.
In vain we compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names, since bad have equall durations; and Thersites is like to live as long as Agamemnon. Who But the iniquity of oblivion blindely scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who knows whether the best of men be known? Without the favour of the everlasting Register the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methuselahs long life had been his only Chronicle. Nov 02, Jackson Cyril added it. No review of mine can rival Virginia Woolf's magnificent judgement on Browne, "The tavern music, the Ave Mary bell, the broken urn that the workman has dug out of the field plunge him into the depths of wonder and lead him, as he stands fixed in amazement, to extraordinary flights of speculation as to what we are, where we go, and the meaning of all things.
To read Sir Thomas Browne again is always to be filled with astonishment, to remember the surprises, the despondencies, the unlimited curios No review of mine can rival Virginia Woolf's magnificent judgement on Browne, "The tavern music, the Ave Mary bell, the broken urn that the workman has dug out of the field plunge him into the depths of wonder and lead him, as he stands fixed in amazement, to extraordinary flights of speculation as to what we are, where we go, and the meaning of all things.
To read Sir Thomas Browne again is always to be filled with astonishment, to remember the surprises, the despondencies, the unlimited curiosities of youth. Jan 26, Anand rated it it was amazing. Blessed be the cracked archangel. Religio Medici, his eloquent and learned treatise of being a Christian and a scientist - full of the deep questions of faith that animate us all to the end. Urne Burial, a writing on the discovery of some urns that is suffused with a poetic brilliance that shines best in the last two or so chapters; not as exhilarating as the long-sentence extravaganzas of Religio Medici, but still with that same brilliance.
Jan 11, Eric Chevlen rated it it was ok. They were written in the mid century, and are still in print to this day. They are the subject of ongoing commentary and analysis, and form the subject matter of graduate school courses in English literature.
But there are other criteria by which a book may be judged as a classic, and in at least one of these, these books fail to meet the mar Religio Medici and Urne-Buriall by Sir Thomas Browne. But there are other criteria by which a book may be judged as a classic, and in at least one of these, these books fail to meet the mark. If Shakespeare's works, or Bach's, were written today, they would be hailed as high art, unusual in style perhaps, but nonetheless carrying an artistic message to modern man.
If Browne's works were published today, I think they would be rejected as unworthy of current interest. Browne's style of writing is not the limiting factor. True, he writes in long meandering sentences, but to me, at least that is a charming style. His 17th century orthography is likewise not a barrier to the reader. No, the bigger problem is that he has little profound to teach. Religio Medici is a disquisition on Browne's inner microcosm. He considers the tenets of his Christian faith, and finds them wholly reliable, even when not wholly comprehensible.
He offers moral lessons based on his faith, but none of these strikes me as particularly novel. In Urne-Buriall, Browne dilates on burial techniques of the ancient and modern world. Both books are choc-a-bloc with references to Classical Greek and Latin literature, many of them opaque to the modern reader. The maddening thing about Browne's books is that, like proverbial rotten eggs, parts of them are excellent. I found that, just as I was ready to toss the books aside, and not invest good time after bad, Browne would deliver a beautifully wrought insight.
For example, in Urne-Buriall, he writes, "To be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetfull of evils past, is a mercifull provision in nature whereby we digest the mixture of our few and evil dayes, and our delivered senses not relapsing into cutting remembrances, our sorrows are not kept raw by the edge of repetition.
The Oxford English Dictionary credits him with introducing more than a hundred words into modern English. Such nouns as "exhaustion," "hallucination," and "suicide," and such verbs as "compensate," "invigorate," and "bisect" were first penned by Browne. Others of Browne's Latinate creations have not been adopted into English. This includes words such as "diuturnity" long duration and "absumption" wasting away. These books are must reading for someone who want to investigate the development of Christian thought in 17th century England, and the emergence of introspective autobiography in that era.
The books might also be useful for someone who wants to wrestle with his own antinomies of Christian doctrine, guided by a man of sincere reflection and thought, but not formal theological training.
For most others, I cannot recommend these books. Jun 23, Geoff Wyss rated it it was amazing. Virginia Woolf calls Browne the 'first autobiographer,' the first writer to turn his attention inward and consider his own mysteries. You've probably got to pretend there was no Montaigne to say that, but Browne is very much in the line of Montaigne: Reading casts a really broad light into The Rings of Saturn , in which Sebald dwells at length on Browne. Dec 05, Tom Wascoe rated it really liked it. Religio Medici is a book that must be read slowly and digested.
It was written as someone writing to themselves like when one writes to clarify ones thoughts. Much discussion about religion, science, life, death the afterlife. Even though it was written in the mid 's much of the thoughts are relevent for today's reader and thinker. Jul 06, Alex rated it liked it. Nov 22, Jack Crouse rated it liked it. Nov 22, J Murnaghan rated it really liked it. Finally arrived here from Borges and Sebald. Takes some time to get accustomed to Browne's style I would suggest imagining that you are reading it aloud.
It helps to break up some of the enormous sentences into more sensible clauses. Feb 05, Peter rated it it was ok Shelves: The long introduction to this short collection ruined it for me. And if you do not want to be ruined also, read no further. Instead, he was nothing if not certain, confirming in writing on more than one occasion the existence of witches. Not only did he firmly believe in witches, he went so far as to give evidence for the prosecution at the trial of two women, Amy Duny and Rose Cullender, who had been charged with witchcraft.
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One provocative, though I think ultimately successful decision, lay in not modernizing spellings. Some non-specialist readers may grow annoyed with the variable nature of early modern orthography, but difficulties in comprehension aside it helps give the reader a sense of the state of our language in the seventeenth-century.
Another thing that students trained on the minimalist conventions of many modern style guides might at first find disquieting about Browne is his sheer wordiness. He is a writer who employs commas, semicolons, and clause upon clause. Even the quickest of modern readers may find their speed considerably slowed down by authors like Browne, Burton, Milton and Donne who wrote sentences that seem cumbersome to our character world. Though this impediment is probably part of why Browne is unknown today, casual readers who are interested should not be discouraged by his style.
The Oxford English Dictionary credits him with introducing more than a hundred words into modern English. I have no fair claim to suggest what Browne intended but, presented as such, Urn Burial starts as a piece of scholarship well researched and better intended and slowly but steadily builds to the most amazing climax I can recall. Return to Book Page. The seventeenth century was permeated with violently splintered religious faith, but old certainties were cast in enough doubt that a figure like Browne could straddle science and faith to produce a work of ambiguous introspection such as Urne-Buriall. Ramie Targoff Goodreads Author Editor. True, he writes in long meandering sentences, but to me, at least that is a charming style. In Religio Medici Browne mulls over the relation between his medical profession and his profession of the Christian faith, pondering the respective claims of science and religion, questions that are still very much alive today.
But this is the point; he is a writer who begs to be considered, not to be skimmed. Thankfully we are beyond the reductionist arguments of cannon-builders who would have it that claims can be universal and that texts can be crudely ranked. But at the risk of submitting Browne to some sort of absolutist aesthetic criteria, one of the most rewarding aspects of examining a mind like his is to come across the moving, personal, very human and familiar observations that come from a person who lived in a time so different from our own.
This is the utility of great literature: As an orthodox Christian writing about a pagan past he was still able to recognize the human in his subjects, especially their fear of death and their desire for contact.