User:Norwikian
My contribution here consists mostly of writings by the physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne a famous figure in world literature and medicine and a seventeenth century resident of Norwich, U.K. my home City.
Michael Maier- Epigram verse to ''Atalanta Fugiens'' For 2005 the year of Browne's quattrocentennary, I've transcribed An Alphabetical Table which appendices Browne's encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica. Take a look at my harmless drudgery at-
Pseudodoxia Epidemica An Alphabetical Table.
Major writings
The Garden of Cyrus (1658)
Browne's most learned esoteric essay . Verily 'tis a network of connections in the spheres of art, nature and mysticism upon the number five, the lozenge shape, the figure X and reticulated patterns; all of which are exemplary of the archetypal world and creative mind of God, all discerned and described in ornate and Baroque stream-of-consciousness awareness .
A Letter to a Friend Doctor T.B's major medical essay.
Shorter pieces
Commonplace notebooks Very revealing of Browne's enquiring mind.
Medical Observations Essential to assess Browne's medical status.
On Dreams Sir T.B. as proto-psychologist.
Upon the darke thick miste 17th C. freak Climate conditions
Account of a thunderstorm 17th C. freak Climate conditions
On Bubbles Forever blowing, forever observing nature's properties.
On Arthur Dee On his friendship with Arthur Dee to Elias Ashmole.
Alchemical manuscripts Offered to loan to Ashmole in correspondence dated 1658 (see above).
To a friend intending a difficult work from Latin original
To an illustrious friend on his wearisome Chatterer from Latin original
From a reading of Athenaeus from Latin original.
Dr. T.B was aware of and prudish of peculiar human sexual behaviours
- The impudent wantonness of the ancients placed sponges in the natural parts of women that by expanding they might produce a lewd and as it were haunching movement in the female, whence a keener lust is provoked in the male. In the elaborations of coition almost nothing has been untried.....the indecent egg of Aurelius.
The Sea-fight from Latin original
Notes on Cookery of the ancients from Latin original. I just love these lines-
- I wish we knew more clearly the aids of the ancients, their sauces, flavours, digestives, tasties, slices, cold meats, and all kinds of pickles. Yet I do not know whether they would have surpassed salted sturgeons’ eggs, anchovy sauce, or our royal pickles.
To read a selection of Browne's best quotations go to http://quote.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Browne
See also Samuel Taylor Coleridge http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letter_on_Browne
Whilst I appear to be heavily monothematic my interests are diverser, honest! Visit my User page at Wikipedia for my other contributions. http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Norwikian