In Search of Sir Thomas Browne: The Life and Afterlife of the Seventeenth Century's Most Inquiring Mind
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.96 (633 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0393241645 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 352 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2017-09-30 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
As Stephen Greenblatt has written, Browne is "unnervingly one of our most adventurous contemporaries." 60 illustrations. Aldersey-Williams reveals how Browne’s preoccupationshow to disabuse the credulous of their foolish beliefs, what to make of order in nature, how to unite science and religionare relevant today.In Search of Sir Thomas Browne is more than just a biographyit is a cabinet of wonders and an argument that Browne, standing at the very gates of modern science, remains an inquiring mind for our own time. The extraordinary life and ideas of one of the greatestand most neglectedminds in history.Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682) was an English writer, physician, and philosopher whose work has inspired everyone from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Jorge Luis Borges, Virginia Woolf to Stephen Jay Gould. In an intellectual adventure like Sarah Bakewel
With humour, humility and intelligent generosity, Aldersey-Williams brings Sir Thomas Browne splendidly to life, urns and all.” (Financial Times (UK))“Engaging and thoughtful…. It shows Browne as a man caught in the currents of his times while musing on timeless questionsand, like Aldersey-Williams, determined to weigh up the evidence without dogmatism, and to enjoy the richness of the world.” (Philip Ball)“A wonderfully erratic, promenading book, in which we see how different, yet how similar we still are today to that most serene, most enigmatic science pioneer and literary master, Sir Thomas Browne, whose prose style is one of the highest peaks in English literature, accordin
"it is still a very good read and very informative about a figure who hasn't" according to Alcofribas Nasier. Okay. This is very informative. But you have to dig through lots of precious writing to get to the information. The author thinks it will make the book -- I dunno, charming? warmer? -- to throw in narratives of his own. So he goes on about bicycling around Browne's home town. I don't know why, but I find this precious and distracting. That said, it is still a very good read and very informative about a figure who hasn't yet had his deserved attention.. aile.verte said Thomas Browne's adventures in the "Thomas Browne's adventures in the 21st century" according to aile.verte. If you've lived with a favorite author for a while, read him or her until the writer's voice in your ear became almost an alter ego, you can imagine what prompted Hugh Aldersey-Williams to write this book. As he says himself, this may not be the most innovative study on Thomas Browne, it does not bring to light any new manuscripts, lost letters, or describe newly uncovered material objects that were in Browne's possession and that might give us new insight into his everyday life. What it does, however, is,. 1st century. If you've lived with a favorite author for a while, read him or her until the writer's voice in your ear became almost an alter ego, you can imagine what prompted Hugh Aldersey-Williams to write this book. As he says himself, this may not be the most innovative study on Thomas Browne, it does not bring to light any new manuscripts, lost letters, or describe newly uncovered material objects that were in Browne's possession and that might give us new insight into his everyday life. What it does, however, is,. Excavating a Seventeenth Century Prose Writer of Genius The charm and skill of this book cleverly leads the willing reader into a profound and wonderful discussion of the eminent seventeenth century author Sir Thomas Browne who fascinated such later writers as Dr Johnson, the English Romantics, and, above all, Luis Jorge Borges.IN SEARCH OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE also probes deeply into Sir Thomas' knowledge of plants. The pages on "The Garden of Cyrus" are powerful because they show an understanding of what the essayist was trying to tell us about mathematical stru
Hugh Aldersey-Williams is the author of many books, including Anatomies, Periodic Tales, and The Most Beautiful Molecule, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. . He lives in Norfolk, England