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''.

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 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, 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:

George Saintsbury, in the '' Cambridge History of English Literature'' (1911), calls the totality of Chapter V "the longest piece, perhaps, of absolutely sublime rhetoric to be found in the prose literature of the world."

Influence

''Urn Burial'' has been admired by Charles Lamb, Samuel Johnson, John Cowper Powys, James Joyce, and Herman Melville, while Ralph Waldo Emerson said that it "smells in every word of the sepulchre".

Browne's text is discussed in W. G. Sebald's novel ''The Rings of Saturn''.

The English composer William Alwyn wrote his Symphony No. 5, subtitled ''Hydriotaphia'', in homage to Browne's imagery and rhythmic prose.

The American composer Douglas J. Cuomo's ''The Fate of His Ashes: Requiem for Victims of Power'' for chorus and organ takes its text from ''Urn Burial.''

Eric Ambler excerpts a passage from chapter 5 ("But the iniquity of oblivion blindely scattereth her poppy...") as the epigram for the novel '' The Mask of Dimitrios''.

Derek Walcott uses an excerpt as the epigraph to his poem "Ruins of a Great House", while Edgar Allan Poe quotes the ''Urn Burial'' in the epigraph of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue".

Kevin Powers uses an excerpt from the fifth chapter ("To be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetfull of evils past...") as one of the epigraphs for his novel " The Yellow Birds".

Alain de Botton references the work in his book '' Status Anxiety''.

Borges refers to it in the final line of his short story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius".

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

The British mystery writer Reginald Hill uses quotes from ''Urn Burial'' as chapter headings for his novel " Urn Burial" (1975), also known as " Beyond the Bone" written under the name Patrick Ruell.

The American playwright, screenwriter and essayist Tony Kushner uses the work as the point of departure for his five-act "epic farce," ''Hydriotaphia or the Death of Doctor Browne'', first produced in New York City in June 1987, by Heat & Light Co., Inc., and then in April 1997 by the Graduate Acting Program of the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, with a coproduction the following year by the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas, and Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, California.Kushner, Tony (2000). ''Death & Taxes: Hydriotaphia & Other Plays''. New York: Theatre Communications Group. Pp. 27-30.

American nonfiction writer Colin Dickey compares some of Browne's writing on death in Urn Burial to the fate of Browne's skull in his book ''Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius''.

References

''Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson: with annotations, Volume 1''

In chapters 1 and 10 of ''The Rings of Saturn'' W. G. Sebald Harvill Press 1998

External links

* , an 1835 edition edited by Simon Wilkin

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
Death customs
Works by Thomas Browne

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