Browne, Thomas - Samuel Glen Wong (essay date winter 2003)
Samuel Glen Wong (essay date winter 2003)
SOURCE: Wong, Samuel Glen. “Constructing a Critical Subject in Reigio Medici.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 43, no. 1 (winter 2003): 117-36.
[In the following essay, Wong explores the reasons why Browne's work became such an integral part of the public and literary discourse concerning authorial intention and critical interpretation.]
This essay reexamines the relationship among three works: the Religio Medici of Sir Thomas Browne which first appeared in 1642; Browne's preface to the 1643 Religio; and Observations upon “Religio Medici,” the commentary written by Sir Kenelm Digby near the end of 1642. Read in concert, these works reveal how Browne's masterpiece became a public text defined by the complex intercourse of authorial and critical intention. While much of the criticism of Browne's work has been concerned with parsing his prose, calibrating...
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