Prose for inquisitive minds. On Sir Thomas Browne of Norwich, his works and their translation

The paper deals with Sir Thomas Browne, a doctor of medicine, philosopher, and writer of the English Baroque. His legacy holds an enduring appeal for scholars and, more importantly, survives in English language and its literature. It is demonstrated that Browne’s prose played an important role in the shaping of English literature and language, and that his philosophical and scientific views were eclectic. As a separate topic, the article considers problems of translating his prose into other languages. Translations can be spot-on, as shown in the article, when a coincidence of the ‘time of culture’ (Popovich, Borges) between the original and the culture of the translation occurs. For translations into Russian, a problem arises due to the inconsistency (polyglossia) of the 17th-c. Russian language. The author provides a comparative analysis of Browne’s original essays and their Russian translation. She finds that V. Grigoriev’s translations of Browne’s diptych discourses rely on a complex historical stylization, use 18th-c. Russian language, and have proved themselves as a factor of cross-literary communication.

Library marketing

In order to attract more non-medical staff, the Sir Thomas Browne Library at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital decided to create a marketing campaign called “Love Your Library.” The campaign sought to make non-medical staff aware of the library’s many services and materials available to them. During the campaign, the library increased the number of new members by 160%, with 25% of these being non-medical members. Future promotions will help create a community hub for staff and achieve a prominent position within the Trust.

“Ye Lovers of Physick, come lend me your Ear”: Dangerous Doctors in Early Modern London

The highly recognizable title-page illustration from Christopher Marlowe’s play Doctor Faustus was also used in the printing of a ballad to commemorate the death of “Doctor” John Lambe in 1628. This paper explores rhetorical, historical, visual, and bibliographic connections between the two works as well as the cultural significance of their relationship and the stories they tell, which are fraught with warnings regarding the inherent dangers of magic practiced by purported healers. The correspondence of the ballad and the play highlights challenges and changes in the medical marketplace of early modern London, demonstrating the complexity and consequence of the connections among historical events, textual records, and fictional literary representations. Finally, comparing the shared woodcut with an engraved frontispiece from a book written by a more reputable physician, Sir Thomas Browne, traces the rise of more trustworthy medical practitioners in mid-seventeenth-century England.

Antinomies of the Twenty-First-Century Neobaroque: Cormac McCarthy and Demian Schopf

Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road (2006) and Chilean artist Demian Schopf’s photographic exhibits embody the Baroque’s notorious contradictory nature: the baroque is at once joyful and sad. One wing of baroque expression, with historical roots in the Catholic religious baroque, is closely associated with the melancholic contemplation of ruin, death, and catastrophe. At the other end of the spectrum, there is the Deleuzian principle of becoming-minor, the program of the rebellious consumption of tradition and of re-creating existing forms. In The Road, McCarthy memorializes post-apocalyptic ruin in a grand baroque style reminiscent of Robert Burton and Sir Thomas Browne. Conversely, Schopf’s portraits of harquebus-brandishing angels and Andean dancers in colorful costumes embodying Christian and pagan figures recover the Andean mestizo baroque, one of the major expressions of the transculturating New World baroque. McCarty’s post-apocalyptic baroque meditates on death, extinction and finitude; Schopf’s joyful baroque celebrates the creativity of culture and its evolution toward greater diversity.