Author |
Killeen, Kevin |
Year |
2009 |
Publisher |
Farnham: Ashgate |
Number of pages |
268 |
ISBN |
9780754657309 |
Keywords |
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Abstract
Amazon (2013):
Kevin Killeen addresses one of the most enigmatic of seventeenth century writers,
Thomas Browne (1605-1682), whose voracious intellectual pursuits provide an unparalleled
insight into how early modern scholarly culture understood the relations between its
disciplines. Browne's work encompasses biblical commentary, historiography, natural
history, classical philology, artistic propriety and an encyclopaedic coverage of
natural philosophy. This book traces the intellectual climate in which such disparate
interests could cohere, locating Browne within the cultural and political matrices
of his time.While Browne is most frequently remembered for the magnificence of his
prose and his temperamental poise, qualities that knit well with the picture of a
detached, apolitical figure, this work argues that Browne's significance emerges most
fully in the context of contemporary battles over interpretative authority, within
the intricately linked fields of biblical exegesis, scientific thought, and politics.
Killeen's work centres on a reassessment of the scope and importance of Browne's most
elaborate text, "Pseudodoxia Epidemica", his vast encyclopaedia of error with its
mazy series of investigations and through this explores the multivalent nature of
early-modern enquiry.