Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial, or, a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk, is a work by Sir Thomas Browne, published in 1658 as the first part of a two-part work that concludes with The Garden of Cyrus.

Title-page of 1658 edition of Urn-Burial together with The Garden of Cyrus.

Its nominal subject was the discovery of a Roman[1] urn burial in Norfolk. The discovery of these remains prompts Browne to deliver, first, a description of the antiquities found, and then a survey of most of the burial and funerary customs, ancient and current, of which his era was aware.

The most famous part of the work is the apotheosis of the fifth chapter, where Browne declaims -

But man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of bravery, in the infamy of his nature. Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us.

Influence

Urn Burial has been admired by Charles Lamb, Samuel Johnson, John Cowper Powys, James Joyce, Jorge Luis Borges, and George Saintsbury who called it "the longest piece, perhaps, of absolutely sublime rhetoric to be found in the prose literature of the world," while Ralph Waldo Emerson said that it "smells in every word of the sepulchre."[2] Browne's text is alluded to in W.G. Sebald's novel The Rings of Saturn.[3] It is also cited by Penelope Lively to furnish the title of her novel "Treasures of Time" and in the text (Ch 3). The English composer William Alwyn wrote his Symphony No. 5, subtitled Hydriotaphia in homage to Browne's imagery and rhythmic prose. Alain de Botton references the work in his book Status Anxiety.[4] Jorge Luis Borges also refers to it in the final line of his short story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius."

References

  1. ↑ The Major Works ed. C. A. Patrides Penguin 1977
  2. ↑ Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson: with annotations, Volume 1
  3. ↑ In chapters 1 and 10 of The Rings of Saturn W.G. Sebald Harvill Press 1998
  4. ↑ de Botton, Alain (2004). Status Anxiety. Vintage International. pp. 228–229. ISBN 9780375725357.

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