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Biography of Thomas Browne, SirName: Thomas Browne, SirBirth Date: October 19, 1605 Death Date: 1682 Place of Birth: London, England Nationality: English Gender: Male Occupations: author Thomas Browne, Sir The works of the English author Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) are in large part inquiries into religion, morality, science, and human error. A doctor and scholar, he is chiefly famed for Religio medici, which is marked by his masterly prose style.Thomas Browne was born in Cheapside, London, on Oct. 19, 1605. He was the son of a mercer of genteel Cheshire ancestry who died 8 years later, leaving "a plentifull Fortune." After earning a master's degree at Oxford in 1629, Browne studied medicine in Montpellier, Padua, and Leiden, where he received a degree in medicine in 1633. About 1635, while a young doctor in Yorkshire, he composed Religio medici (A Doctor's Religion) "as a personal exercise." In 1637 he settled in Norwich and gained esteem as a doctor who kept abreast of current revolutionary developments in medicine, such as William Harvey's discovery of blood circulation. In 1641 Browne married Dorothy Mileham, who bore him 12 children in 18 years, though …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…a style rich in tone, exquisite in prose poetry, and superbly flexible in rhetoric. Further Reading Sir Geoffrey Keynes, ed., The Works of Sir Thomas Browne (6 vols., 1928-1931; new ed., 4 vols., entitled Works, 1964), is the standard collection and includes Browne's fascinating letters and miscellaneous writings as well as the major works. A wide selection is conveniently available in The Prose of Sir Thomas Browne, edited by Norman Endicott (1968). Jeremiah S. Finch, Sir Thomas Browne: A Doctor's Life of Science and Faith (1950), is an interesting, well-informed survey. Readers who find Browne's style and erudition baffling may turn for guidance to Joan Bennett, Sir Thomas Browne: A Man of Achievement in Literature (1962). Of the numerous scholarly treatments, among the most recent is Leonard Nathanson, The Strategy of Truth: A Study of Sir Thomas Browne (1967). For general background and further bibliography Douglas Bush, English Literature in the Earlier 17th Century, 1600-1660 (1945; 2d ed. 1962), is useful. |