''Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial, or, a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk'' is a work by Sir

Thomas Browne Sir Thomas Browne (; 19 October 160519 October 1682) was an English polymath and author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including science and medicine, religion and the esoteric. His writings display a deep curi ...

, published in 1658 as the first part of a two-part work that concludes with ''

The Garden of Cyrus ''The Garden of Cyrus'', or ''The Quincuncial Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients, naturally, artificially, mystically considered'', is a discourse by Sir Thomas Browne. First published in 1658, along with its diptych companion '' ...

''. The title is Greek for "urn burial": A hydria (ὑδρία) is a large Greek pot, and ''taphos'' (τάφος) means "tomb". Its nominal subject was the discovery of some 40 to 50

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

pots 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 Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, 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:

Influence

''Urn Burial'' has been admired by Charles Lamb,

Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...

John Cowper Powys John Cowper Powys (; 8 October 187217 June 1963) was an English philosopher, lecturer, novelist, critic and poet born in Shirley, Derbyshire, where his father was vicar of the parish church in 1871–1879. Powys appeared with a volume of verse ...

, James Joyce, Jorge Luis Borges,

Derek Walcott Sir Derek Alton Walcott (23 January 1930 – 17 March 2017) was a Saint Lucian poet and playwright. He received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature. His works include the Homeric epic poem ''Omeros'' (1990), which many critics view "as Walcot ...

, Herman Melville and

George Saintsbury George Edward Bateman Saintsbury, FBA (23 October 1845 – 28 January 1933), was an English critic, literary historian, editor, teacher, and wine connoisseur. He is regarded as a highly influential critic of the late 19th and early 20th centu ...

, 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". Browne's text is discussed in

W. G. Sebald Winfried Georg Sebald (18 May 1944 – 14 December 2001), known as W. G. Sebald or (as he preferred) Max Sebald, was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by literary critics as one of the g ...

's novel ''

The Rings of Saturn ''The Rings of Saturn'' (german: Die Ringe des Saturn: Eine englische Wallfahrt - An English Pilgrimage) is a 1995 novel by the German writer W. G. Sebald. Its first-person narrative arc is the account by a nameless narrator (who resembles the ...

''. 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. The America composer

Douglas J. Cuomo Douglas J. Cuomo (born February 13, 1958) is an American television composer. Biography Born in Tucson, Arizona, raised in the San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco ...

's ''The Fate of His Ashes: Requiem for Victims of Power'' for chorus and organ takes its text from ''Urn Burial.'' Derek Walcott uses an excerpt as the epigraph to his poem "Ruins of a Great House," while Edgar Allan Poe quotes the ''Urn Burial'' at the beginning of "

The Murders in the Rue Morgue "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in ''Graham's Magazine'' in 1841. It has been described as the first modern detective story; Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination". C. Auguste Dup ...

". Alain de Botton references the work in his book ''

Status Anxiety ''Status Anxiety'' is a nonfiction book by Alain de Botton. It was first published in 2004 by Hamish Hamilton; subsequent publications have been by Penguin Books. Central thesis Status Anxiety is a 21st-century phenomenon which is a result of ca ...

''. Borges refers to it in the final line of his short story "

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is a short story by the 20th-century Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. The story was first published in the Argentinian journal '' Sur'', May 1940. The "postscript" dated 1947 is intended to be anachronistic, se ...

". It also appears in the novel '' Sanshirō'', written by Natsume Sōseki; Hirota-sensei lent the book to Sanshirō.

References

External links

* Sir Thomas Browne's works, volume 3 (1835), edited by Simon Wilkin: Hydriotaphia
Text of ''Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial'' and ''The Garden of Cyrus''

Recordings of ''Hydriotaphia'' and ''Religio Medici''
at Librivox (public domain audiobooks) 1658 books Archaeology books Philosophy books Death customs Works by Thomas Browne {{archaeology-book-stub