An index to essays (2010-2024) and short posts on the late Renaissance humanist, Christian mystic, Hermetic philosopher, Paracelsian physician and Janus-faced sage of Norwich also known as Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82).
Recent media coverage on how the combination of climate warming and global air-traffic are encouraging new, exotic species of spider to inhabit Britain reminded me that observations on spiders are woven through the literary works of the philosopher-physician Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82).[1]
A family portrait shows the infant Thomas on his mother's knee with a pet rabbit in his lap, and abundant evidence suggests that as an adult Browne possessed a rare empathy towards all living creatures, including his patients. His introduction of the word 'Veterinarian' into English language commemorates his love of animals.
Thomas Browne first declared an interest in spiders in his spiritual testament Religio Medici (1643) -
'indeed, what reason may not go to School to the wisdom of Bees, Ants, and Spiders? what wise hand teacheth them to do what reason cannot teach us ?......in these narrow Engines there is more curious Mathematicks, and the civilitie of these little Citizens, more neatly set forth the wisdom of their Maker'. [2]
Browne's curiosity about spiders typifies his interest in the small in nature. Assisted by the gift of sharp eyesight he jotted observations in his notebooks which were later worked into future publications, such as-
'Concerning Spiders much wonder is made how they fasten their webbe, to opposite parts'.
and - 'How some spiders lay a white egg bigger then their bodies, & though that kind bee but shorter legged, runneth about with it fastened unto their belly'. [3]
A recent publication notes-
'Spiders are dominant predators in virtually every terrestrial ecosystem. A marvel of evolution with species numbering in the tens of thousands, they have been walking the earth since before the dinosaurs. Spiders manipulate the silk strands of their webs to act as a sensory field, which vibrates across wide frequencies that they can read in detail. Young spiders spin silk lines that interact with the electrical fields in the atmosphere, enabling them to balloon across huge distances. Some spiders even gather in groups to impersonate ants in astonishing displays of collective mimicry'. [4]
In Browne's day the most comprehensive survey of insects along with their predatory hunter, the spider, was Thomas Muffett’s Theatre of Tiny Animals. Thomas Muffett (1553-1604) was an English naturalist and physician who supplemented the material he'd inherited from Edward Wooton and the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner for his book which was ready for publication by 1590. However, due to the expense of its wood-cut illustrations and a lack of interest in natural science in England at the time, it was not published until many years after Muffett's death, in 1634.
Muffett was also an early supporter of the radical physician and alchemist Theophrastus Paracelsus (1493-1541) who encouraged physicians to investigate and experiment with nature’s properties in order to discover new remedies, the dawn of chemical medicine no less. Following Paracelsian teaching, Muffett included in his book a chapter which speculates on the medicinal potential of venom injected by the spider through its fangs into its prey, along with the need for a medical antidote to its poison. (Frontispiece of Muffett's book below) [5]
It was the Romantic poet and literary critic Coleridge (1772-1834) who once remarked that in Sir Thomas Browne there is, 'the humourist constantly mingling with, and flashing across, the philosopher'. A fine example of the poet's psychological observation occurs in Browne's advice to a correspondent desperate for relief from the painful condition of gout to - 'Trie the magnified amulet of Muffetus of spiders leggs worn in a deeres skinne'. [6]
Muffett's book is referenced a number of times in Browne's vast work of encyclopedic scope known as Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646-72). Spiders are mentioned in a variety of ways in its compendious pages.
Although often highly critical of artist's representations of mythic creatures such as the basilisk and griffin, Browne does not object to how spiders are portrayed in Heraldry-
'We will not dispute the pictures of Retiary Spiders, and their position in the web, which is commonly made laterall, and regarding the Horizon; although if observed, wee shall commonly find it downward, and their heads respecting the Center' [7]
Giving credence to the eye-witness testimony of the Belgian scientist and mystic Jean van Helmont (1579-1644) a transitional figure in the history of science, who like Browne, subscribed to the doctrine of correspondences and signatures which interpreted the spider as a symbol of ill-omen, he states-
'And Helmont affirmeth he could never find the Spider and the Fly on the same tree; that is the signs of War and Pestilence, which often go together'. [8]
Browne swiftly dismisses the received wisdom that there are no spiders in Ireland - 'Thus most men affirme, and few here will beleeve the contrary, that there are no spiders in Ireland; but we have beheld some in that country'. [9]
And crucially, in a chapter titled 'Concerning other Animals, which examined prove either False or Dubious' he wields his scientific credentials in order to demolish the folk-lore myth of the supposed antipathy between a toad and spider, informing his reader-
'having in a glass included a toad with several spiders, we beheld the spiders without resistance to sit upon his head, and pass all over his body, which at last upon advantage he swallowed down, and that in few hours to the number of seven’.[10]
Browne’s vivarium experiment is exemplary of his scientific journalism, an eyewitness report written in early modern English on the results of a simple experiment; it also evokes a scenario in which the worthy physician is an intrepid hunter and capturer of spiders !
A passage in Pseudodoxia reveals Browne unquestionably agreeing with his near exact contemporary and favourite author, the Jesuit priest, scientist and scholar of comparative religion, Athanasius Kircher (1602-80). In his Ars Magnesia (Art of Magnetism, 1631) Kircher included a chapter on musical cures for those bitten by spiders, such music, he believed, was evidence of the invisible, magnetic forces of attraction within music. Submitting to the authority of 'the learned Kircherus' but perhaps more significantly, not dismissing the possibility that music may possess curative properties, Browne states-
'Some doubt many have of the Tarantula, or poisonous Spider of Calabria, and that magical cure of the bite thereof by Musick. But since we observe that many attest it from experience: Since the learned Kircherus hath positively averred it, and set down the songs and tunes solemnly used for it; Since some also affirm the Tarantula it self will dance upon certain stroaks, whereby they set their instruments against its poison; we shall not at all question it'. [11]
Above - a page from Ars Magnesia [12]
The intricate geometry of the spider's web attracted the attention of natural philosophers throughout the 17th century including the Italian polymath Mario Bettini (1582-1657) whose Beehives of Universal Philosophical Mathematics (1656) like Browne's Pseudodoxia is a compendium of early scientific enquiries. Listed as once in Browne's library, each chapter of Bettini's book is a self-contained 'Beehive' in which a proposition or topic of early modern science is discussed, including Euclidean geometry, mathematics, acoustics, the camera obscura, optics, discussion on the flight of projectiles, the art of navigation, and the measurement of time. In chapter two of Bettini's book the geometry and mathematics of the spider's web are examined (below)[13].
Spiders and their webs are naturally to be found in Browne's Garden discourse, The Garden of Cyrus (1658). Following the sequence of its full running title The Garden of Cyrus, or The Quincuncial Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients, artificially, naturally, mystically considered (1658) spiders are first considered artificially in terms of mathematics and geometry, they are next considered naturally, with an eyewitness description of their reproduction, and finally, at the discourse's mystical conclusion in which highly original arachnid imagery occurs.
Exemplary of the discourse's theme - 'how nature Geometrizeth, and observeth order in all things', Browne first describes the spider's web in mathematical detail and is appreciative of its beauty (the adjective 'elegant' is encountered frequently throughout the discourse).
'And no mean Observations hereof there is in the Mathematicks of the neatest Retiary Spider, which concluding in fourty four Circles, from five Semidiameters beginneth that elegant texture'.
The proportional ratio of the spider's legs are also an 'artificial consideration', Browne informing his reader that -'The legs of Spiders are made after a sesqui-tertian proportion'. (sesqui-tertian being the mathematical ratio of one plus one and a third).
Following these 'artificial considerations' spiders are next considered naturally with a superb example of Browne's observational skills-
'And he that shall hatch the little seeds, either found in small webs, or white round Egges, carried under the bellies of some Spiders, and behold how at their first production in boxes, they will presently fill the same with their webbs, may observe the early, and untaught finger of nature, and how they are natively provided with a stock, sufficient for such Texture'. [14]
Its not impossible that the word 'incubation' which Browne's credited with introducing into the English language may have derived from his empirical study of spiders' eggs 'at their first production in boxes' as from his ornithological studies.
Not all of Browne's observations on spiders are woven into either Pseudodoxia or Cyrus. His notebook observation on the material used by spiders for example -
'Spiders are presently buisie in their texture upon the little stock of their moysture & soon exhaust themselves, without addition of nutriment, as we have tried in some hudled under the bellie of the damme, in a round folicle bagge wh. sticketh close unto it, by some lentous cement, mostly of the same matter with their webbe.' [15]
Mention of retiary networks occur frequently in The Garden of Cyrus. While the spider's web is nature's network, Browne also names artificial networks, including, 'that famous network of Vulcan, which inclosed Mars and Venus'. His acquisition of Kircher's recently published work of comparative religion Oedipus Egypticus (Rome 1652-54) spurs him to mention the ancient Egyptian god Horus who's depicted in Kircher's reproduction of the Bembine Tablet of Isis, (a syncretic Roman artwork which is alluded to twice in The Garden of Cyrus) - 'Nor is it to be over-looked how Orus, the Hieroglyphick of the world is described in a Net-work covering, from the shoulder to the foot'.
It's also in The Garden of Cyrus that Browne alludes to the goddess of wisdom Minerva and the myth of how spiders originated-
'But this is no law unto the woof of the neat Retiarie Spider, which seems to weave without transversion, and by the union of right lines to make out a continued surface, which is beyond the common art of Textury, and may still nettle Minerva the Goddesse of that mystery'. [16]
The ancient Greek myth of how the goddess Minerva engaged in a weaving contest with the mortal Arachne and its consequences is narrated by the Roman poet Ovid in his epic poem the Metamorphoses. In Ovid's Metamorphoses the myths of ancient Greece are linked by a common theme of transformation. A chaotic universe is subdued into harmonious order, animals turn into stone, men and women are rewarded and punished by gods and goddesses for their deeds to become trees, birds and stars. One of the most influential works in Western culture, Ovid’s Metamorphoses was a valuable source of information and inspiration to poet, painter and scholar throughout the Renaissance. A Latin edition of Ovid’s verse. along with translations in French and Italian, as well as a popular 1626 English translation by George Sandys, are all listed as once in Browne’s library. [17]
Ovid tells how the talented shepherd’s daughter Arachne challenged Athena to a weaving contest. When Athena, the goddess of wisdom couldn't find fault with Arachne’s tapestry she became angry and hit her with a shuttle. Ashamed of her offense, Arachne attempted suicide by hanging herself but instead Athena transformed her into a spider condemning her to create webs for eternity. A cautionary tale of hubris, lack of humility and a warning to those who would challenge the gods, Ovid depicts Athena’s transforming of Arachne thus –
‘You may go on living, you wicked girl, but you must be suspended in the air forever. …Then as she departed, she sprinkled Arachne with the juice of Hecate’s herbs. Immediately, at the touch of this baneful poison, the girl’s hair fell out, her nostrils and her ears went too. And her head shrank to nothing. Her whole body became tiny. Her slender fingers were fastened to her sides, to serve as legs, and all the rest of her was belly; from that belly, she yet spins her thread, and as a spider is busy with her web as of old’. [18]
16th century woodcut
Imagery of the spider spinning its web features in the drowsy, mystical conclusion of The Garden of Cyrus. At the approach of night, sleep and dreams the learned doctor, reluctant to pursue his quincuncial quest any longer,aware of how the day's thoughts and actions are distorted in dreams, poetically declares-
'We are unwilling to spin out our awaking thoughts into the phantasms of sleep which often continueth precogitations making Cables of cobwebs and wildernesses of handsome groves'.
Browne's arachnid imagery shares an uncanny affinity to arachnid imagery by the German literary figure Johann Goethe (1749-1830. In the Second Part of the tragic drama Faust its protagonist, doctor Faust, reflects at the approach of night, sleep and dreams -
'How logical and clear/the daylight seems,
Till the night weaves us/ in its web of dreams !' [19]
Both Browne and Goethe allude to the illusionary nature of life through imagery involving the spider's web, a deceptive, near invisible trap of entanglement, not unlike the veil of Maya, or world of appearances in Buddhism. And in fact the two literary figures share a remarkable affinity not only in arachnid imagery but also scientific outlook. A strong case can also be made forUrn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus and Goethe's Faust Part I and II both utilizing the commonplace Renaissance schemata of Microcosm and Macrocosm as thematic templates in their sequential progression.
In essence, with its fixation on the inter-related symbols of the number five, quincunx pattern and retiary network, The Garden of Cyrusis a literary work which is highly influenced by the humanist scholar Pico della Mirandola (1464-94) who introduced and developed Pythagorean 'philosophizing with number' into mainstream Renaissance thought.
In Pythagorean numerology number acquires a metaphysical symbolism capable of enabling speculation upon theology, cosmology, geometry, mathematics and music. Pythagorean concepts involving number, astronomy and geometry inspired devout early scientists and hermetic philosophers alike throughout the Renaissance. The German astronomer Kepler (1571-1630) as well as Van Helmont, Bettini, Kircher and Thomas Browne all subscribed to the Pythagorean idea that mathematical truths could be discovered through analysis of number, geometry and pattern in Nature. Spiders along with bees were thought to be a Heaven-instructed mathematicians capable of 'geometrical forethought' and in possession of knowledge transcendent to humanity.The eight-legged spider and its ability to construct a complex geometric pattern attracted their attention for possible clues towards discovering hidden mathematical truths.
In Browne's hermetic vision of universal connectivity, The Garden of Cyrus, 'the mathematicks of the neatest retiary spider' and 'the mystical mathematicks of the City of Heaven' are intrinsically related to each other in microcosm-macrocosm harmony.
Finally, in the age of the world-wide web, itself a complex invention of wonder, not unrelated to illusion, its interesting to note that Browne is credited as introducing the word ‘network’ in its context of an artificial construction into English language. Its amusing to think that the word 'network' used today to describe broadcasting, communication and transport connectivity, originates in no small measure from Thomas Browne's contemplation of one of nature's marvels, the retiary spider and its web.
[3] Miscellaneous writings Keynes 1946. [4] The Lives of Spiders: A Natural History of the World's Spiders
pub. Princeton University Press, June 2024
[5] Muffett’s Insectorum sive Minimorum Animalium Theatrum listed in the 1711 Sales Catalogue of Browne's library page 18 no. 51 [6] Miscellaneous writings Keynes 1946
[7] Pseudodoxia edited Robbins OUP 1981
Book 5 chapter 19 24-27
[8] Book 2 chapter 7
[9] Book 7 chapter 15 line 23
[10] Book 3 chapter 28
[11] Book 3 chapter 27
[12] Ars Magnesia. 1631 Herb. Sales Catalogue page 30 no. 53 [13] Fucaria & Auctaria ad Apiaria Philosophiae Mathematica 1656
Sales Catalogue page 28 no. 16 [14] Cyrus Chapter 2
[15] Miscellaneous writings Keynes 1946
[16] Cyrus Chapter 3 [17] Over a dozen books by Ovid are listed in the 1711 Sales Catalogue [18] Ovid Metamorphoses Book 6 lines 1-150 [19] Faust Part 2 lines 11411-2
Acknowledgements
* Many thanks to Julie Curl for her illustration. With her professional skills of the inter-related fields of archaeology, botany, zoology and illustration Ms. Curl shares several of Browne's interests which have cast new, interpretative light on the philosopher-physician.
* Although Thomas Muffett (1553-1604) had a daughter, no earlier reference to the nursery rhyme Little miss Muffett can be found before 1805.
Little miss Muffet Sat on a tuffet Eating her curds and whey. Along came a spider Who sat down beside her And frightened miss Muffett away.
* Arthur Rackham's illustration of the well-known nursery rhyme has a spider of terrifying proportions who ambiguously raises his hat to Miss Muffett.
* The Spanish artist Velasquez (1599-1660) in his late masterwork Las Hilanderas or 'The Spinners' (1657) alludes to the ancient Greek myth of Arachne. It was however not positively identified as depicting Arachne and Minerva's spinning contest until 1948, almost 300 years after first painted. (below)
* The rock band 'The Who's 1966 song 'Boris the Spider', written and sung by bassist John Entwhistle, seems to prophetically name a short-lived, future British Prime Minister.
* 'The Kiss of the Spiderwoman' (1985) links the spider to the archetype of the femme fatale.
Today on the 270th anniversary of the birth of Johann Goethe (August 28th 1749-1832) its exciting to reveal and elaborate upon the fascinating relationship between the brightest star of German literature to the English physician-philosopher Thomas Browne (1605-82).
Goethe and Browne were both polymaths who shared a lifelong interest in topics as diverse as botany, anatomy, optics and antiquity. They also held a shared interest in esoteric topics such as Neoplatonism, Pythagorean numerology and alchemy; subjects vital to their scientific thinking and which influenced their literary symbolism.
Goethe and Browne's affinity in anatomical and botanical studies is remarkably close; for example, whilst Browne acquired the skeletal leg-bone of an elephant for his anatomy studies, Goethe somehow acquired an elephant's skull for study; whilst Browne's botanical studies included sea-holly, a plant found on Norfolk’s coastal sand-dunes, Goethe made botanical observations on sea-holly found on the sand-dunes of the Venice lido.
In his botanical studies Goethe developed the theory that the characteristics from which all plants grow are variations which are modelled upon a prototype plant or Urpflanze. His theory that Nature follows a pre-ordained pattern, or 'inner form' is in accordance with the popular early nineteenth century German school of Naturphilosophie.Writing in terms comparable to Goethe's Urpflanze or 'Prototype plant' of German Naturphilosophie Browne in Religio Medici proposed that nature has an invisible, prototype 'inner form' thus-
'In the seed of a Plant to the eyes of God, and to the understanding of man, there exists, though in an invisible way, the perfect leaves, flowers, and fruit thereof'. [1]
German Naturphilosophie adhered to the Renaissance belief that Creation consists of a hierarchical ladder, as described by Browne thus -
'First we are a rude mass,........next we live the life of plants, the life of animals, the life of men, and at last the life of spirits, running on in one mysterious nature those five kinds of existences, which comprehend the creatures not only of the world, but of the Universe' [2].
German Naturphilosophie based itself upon the rigid numerical system of five 'evolutionary' forms of life, from there being five senses, five planets and from the many references to the number five in the Bible. A full century and half earlier Browne in The Garden of Cyrus (1658) celebrated 'fiveness' in Art and Nature via the quincunx pattern. Browne's idea that Nature is permeated by the number of five may have originated either from his reading of Della Porta's Villa (1592) in which the quincunx is stated to be a universal archetypeor simply from his noticing that many flowers consist of five petals. The Garden of Cyrus includes numerous sharp-eyed observations, and names in total over 140 herbs, flowers, trees and plants.
German Naturphilosophie held the pre-Darwinian belief that Nature possesses an 'inner form' , a belief which is central to both Goethe's and Browne's botanical studies. Goethe's theory that Nature has a fixed, pre-ordained 'Inner Form' was asserted a full century and half earlier by Browne in Religio Medici (1643).
'I hold moreover that there is a phytognomy, or physiognomy, not only of men, but of plants and vegetables; and in every one of them some outward figures which hang as signs of their inward forms. [3]
The two early scientists also shared an interest in Optics; Goethe, as is well-known, stubbornly refuted Newton's theory of Colour, and his motivation for challenging Newton's discoveries remains much discussed. His Fahrenlehre (Theory of Colours) was not received as favourably by the scientific community as its author had hoped. Browne's own study of optics resulted in strikingly original optical imagery in his literary works.
For Goethe science was a source of imaginative insight which had developed from poetry; the hasty, breathless, fractured tone of an early draught and the published text of Browne's Garden of Cyrus strongly suggests the physician-philosopher's detection of an archetype in nature, the Quincunx pattern, may, like Goethe's scientific insights, have originated from a sudden, quasi-poetical, vision.
Browne's mystical insight that the Quincunx pattern embodies the mysteries of nature is not so dissimilar from Goethe's Fahrenlehre (Theory of Colours) in which the German scientist wanders into contemplation on symbols, in particular the triangle and the hexagon, thus-
'Colour may have a mystical allusion....The mathematician extols the value and applicability of the triangle; the triangle is revered by mystics; much admits of being expressed in it by diagrams, and amongst other things, the law of the phenomena of colours: indeed we presently arrive at the ancient mysterious hexagon'.
But as the American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould (1941 - 2002) stated -
'The human mind delights in finding pattern - so much so that we often mistake coincidence or forced analogy for profound meaning'.
In the preface to his Origin of Species (1859) Charles Darwin included Goethe as one who in some way or other anticipated his own ideas. But it was also Darwin who destroyed the 'rule of five' theory of German Naturphilosophie. Before Darwin Creation theories were represented by Classical deities, notably Neptunism and Vulcanism to represent life's origins. Goethe subscribed to the view that life evolved from the element of water, as symbolised by the sea-god Neptune. However, its the Roman god of fire Vulcan who held significance to Browne, utilizing highly-original proper-name symbolism he alludes to the Roman god in The Garden of Cyrus, in opening, second chapter and apotheosis closing chapter .
Recent scientific evidence suggests life's origins may in fact be a combination of fire and water. Fossil remains of microbes which colonised deep sea hydrothermal volcanic vents more than three billion years ago have been discovered in a region of Western Australia which was once covered by ocean.
Science for Goethe was, equally for Browne, a source of revelation which permitted the enquirer, 'to see how and where God reveals himself that is heaven on earth'. Goethe's scientific outlook has been described as peculiar for being neither inductive or deductive. As an 'intuitive' scientist, one who was suspicious of systems and mathematics in science, his scientific views, like Browne's, have been questioned.
Goethe has been described as - 'one of the last of the universal scientific minds still able to encompass the whole of nature' and as 'a pantheistic poet wanting to create in science also'. His science has been defined as, 'Platonic ideas in the mind of a creative spirit', all of which is equally applicable to the pre-Newtonian, scientific enquiry of Thomas Browne. An accurate assessment of Goethe's science by John. R. Williams and also applicable to Browne's science, states -
'Goethe's science is an integral part of his life and work, its flaws are those both of the man and of the age, of his personality and of the current state of knowledge'. [4]
* * * * *
However much previously overlooked, misunderstood or denied, both Goethe and Browne were extremely well-versed in esoteric topics such as Hermetic philosophy, Neoplatonism, the kabbalah and alchemy. This deep interest in esotericism influenced their scientific and philosophical thinking as well as their literary creativity.
Goethe first came into contact with esoteric literature while recuperating from a mystery illness during his adolescence when his doctor introduced the budding poet to the occultist circle of Fraulein von Klettenberg. Klettenberg encouraged the young poet to read the esoteric writings of Paracelsus, Boehme and Bruno. However, Goethe's interest in the occult waned once recovered, but in a letter to Klettenberg dated August 26 1770 he wrote, -'Alchemy is still my veiled love' and of her recommendation to read Agrippa the budding poet confessed - 'it set my young brains on fire for a considerable time'.
In 1786 Goethe read Christian Rosenkreutz's allegorical tale The Chymical Wedding which may well have been the inspiration for him to write his Marchen fairy-tale of 1795. Goethe's Tale of the Green Snake and the White Lily is crowded with references to various esoteric beliefs and veiled allusions to the Egyptian mysteries of Isis and Osiris, the cults of Typhon and Horus, the Vision of Zosimus, and the Gnostic Naassenes.
Goethe found in alchemical terminology apt figures of speech which he utilized in his writings. He once stated, ‘If one deals with the poetic side of alchemy with an open mind it leads to very pleasant reflections’.
Elsewhere, in a statement allusive to the primary template of much esoteric thought, that of polarity or opposites, Goethe declared -
'To sever the conjoined, to unite the severed, that is the life of Nature; that is the eternal drawing together and relaxing, the eternal syncrisis and diacris'.
Goethe's allusion to Nature's forces drawing together and separating, strongly resembles the polarity of the alchemical maxim 'solve et coagula' to dissolve and bind, a fact not unnoticed by a younger English contemporary, the poet and scholar Coleridge (1772-1834). An enthusiastic admirer of Thomas Browne, Coleridge in 1818 speculated-
Sometimes, it seems as if the alchemists wrote like the Pythagoreans on music, imagining a metaphysical and inaudible music as the basis of the audible. It is clear that by sulphur they meant the solar rays or light, and by mercury the principle of ponderability, so that their theory was the same with that of the Heraclitic physics, or the modern German Naturphilosophie, which deduces all things from light and gravitation, each being bipolar; gravitation = north and south, or attraction and repulsion: light = east and west, or contraction and dilation; [5]
German 'Naturphilosophie' advocated the principle of polarity or opposition, one of the last attempts to reconcile the symbolism of the alchemists to modern chemistry. In Polarity, that is oppositions in nature, German 'Naturphilosophers' perceived the rhythm of the Universe.
As long ago as 1895 the critic R.M.Meyer in the Goethe Jahrbuch proposed that German Naturphilosophie resembled Browne's 'inner form' and that the Swiss theologian Johann Caspar Lavater (1741-1801) may have recommended Browne's Religio Medici to Goethe. [6] Browne spiritual testament was first translated into German in 1746. Lavater read itenthusiastically, primarily for its assertive physiognomic statements, such as-
'there are mystically in our faces certain characters which carry in them the motto of our souls, wherein he that cannot read A.B.C.may read our natures'. [7]
Physiognomy, the questionable belief that the human face can be interpreted is mentioned in each of Browne's major literary works; as an unreliable, yet theoretical diagnostic tool for physicians, Browne's interest in physiognomy was kindled from his reading the Italian polymath Giambattista Della Porta's (1535-1615) Celestial Physiognomy.
Lavater vigorously promoted physiognomy, became a famous author on the subject and was subsequently shunned by a skeptical Goethe. It remains unknown as to whether or not Goethe read Browne's Religio Medici.
Goethe's many esoteric interests included numerology which originated from his admittance, shortly before his residence in Weimar, to the Order of the Illuminati, whose teachings were based upon Pythagoras. In his novel Der Wahlverwandtscaften (Elective Affinities) of 1809. Goethe describes the number five as - 'a beautiful odd, sacred number'. Browne's own interest in numerology is admitted frankly in Religio Medici thus - ' I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magic of numbers.' [8]
In essence, Goethe's personal philosophy was not unlike Browne's, home-spun, flexible and idiosyncratic. In his semi-autobiographical Dichtung und Wahrheit (Poetry and Truth) Goethe confessed -
'Neoplatonism lay at the foundation of my personal religion, the hermetical, the mystical, the cabalistic, also contributed their share; and thus I built for myself a world that looked strange enough'.
The restless scholar Faust in Goethe's tragic drama shares some psychological traits to those exhibited by the newly qualified Doctor Browne. After completing many years of study at Oxford and abroad at the Universities of Padua, Montpellier and Leiden, Browne utters as wearily as Faust -
'There is yet another conceit that hath sometimes made me shut my books; which tells me it is a vanity to waste our days in the blind pursuit of knowledge'. [9]
Not unlike Faust, Browne expresses occasional, intense spiritual angst in Religio Medici.
'I feel sometimes a hell within myself, Lucifer keeps his court in my breast'. [10]
Faust, not unlike the enquiring Browne, yearns in his study of Nature for, 'a glance into the earth! To see below its dark foundations / Life's embryo seeds before their birth / And Nature's silent operations'. [11]
In his quest for forbidden knowledge Faust 'ponders over spells and signs, symbolic letters, circles and signs'. Such hieroglyphs fascinated Browne who declared -
'surely the Heathens knew better how to join and read these mystical letters than we Christians, who cast a more careless eye on these common Hieroglyphics'. [12]
Although Browne's confessional shares traits exhibited by Goethe's Faust it departs abruptly from it once the pact is made between Faust and Mephistopheles. Browne located Mephistopheles as dwelling internally rather than externally, stating - 'The heart of man is the place the devil dwells in'. [13]
Browne's Christian faith lays at the heart of his medical practise, enquiries into nature and even his rare excursions into the literary world. Goethe however held an ambiguous and luke-warm opinion of Christianity, objecting to the clanging sound of church-bells in particular.
Whilst Browne's Urn-Burial shares Goethe's antiquarian interests, The Garden of Cyrus shares a number of thematic and symbolic traits to Goethe's late masterpiece Faust II. As digressive and disjointed in its construction as Goethe's drama and in its associative thought and imagery, with little concern of intelligibility to its reader, it too employs proper-names from Greek mythology to represent scientific and psychological speculations.
During their long, settled, and relatively undisturbed lives, Goethe and Browne became extremely well-read, not only in the scientific advances of their era, but also in Classics of Greek and Roman literature, as the catalogues of their respective libraries reveal. The Classical world, especially Ancient Greece, with its scientific discoveries was for both scholars of great interest and both display a thorough knowledge of Classical literature. The same symbolic names can be found in their respective yet neglected works of fantasy, Faust II and The Garden of Cyrus.
The Greek mythological god Proteus is a good example of a symbolic name shared by the two literary figures. In Cyrus Proteus is 'the symbol of the first mass' whilst in Faust II Proteus represents organic metamorphosis. The warrior Achilles, the wanderer Ulysses and the nature-god Pan are also mentioned in both works, as is Greek philosopher and botanist Theophrastus, the first to attempt to categorise plants. But perhaps above others it may be the Greek god Apollo ruler of beauty of form, order, prophecy, medicine and music who represents symbolic significance and artistic importance to both literary polymaths.
Browne's survey of the artistic, natural, botanical and mystical precedents of the Quincunx in The Garden of Cyrus may be described in Goethe's words as a delight in-
'Formation, transformation, The eternal Mind's eternal delectation' [14]
The learned doctor in a drowsy soliloquy concluding The Garden of Cyrus observes that, 'the phantasms of sleep which often continueth precogitations making cables of cobwebs', alerts one to Faust's meditation that -
'How logical and clear the daylight seems
Till the night weaves us in its web of dreams'.
This shared imagery of dreams and the illusory web is evidence that, like the alchemists before them, Goethe and Browne utilized highly-charged poetic symbolism in their attempt to portray the unconscious psyche.
Goethe's monumental drama Faust held great meaning to C.G.Jung. For the Swiss psychologist Faust is a work which from its beginning to end is full of alchemical themes and imagery. C.G.Jung even regarded his work on alchemy as a sign of his inner relationship to Goethe and never suppressed or denied the persistent rumour that his grandfather was an illegitimate offspring of Goethe's.
Jung often referred to Goethe's drama Faust in order to amplify a psychological observation. Of Part II of Fausthe stated -
'The second part of Faust, was more than a literary exercise. It is a link in the Aurea Catena (The Golden or Homeric Chain in alchemy is the series of great wise men, beginning with Hermes Trismegistus, which links earth with heaven) which has existed from the beginnings of philosophical alchemy and Gnosticism down to Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. Unpopular, ambiguous, and dangerous, it is a voyage of discovery to the other pole of the world. [15]
Although Goethe's Faust Part I and Browne's Urn-Burial are firmly established works of world literature, their respective, other halves, Faust II and The Garden of Cyrus have baffled and perplexed most readers, resulting in neither work achieving the popularity of their counterparts.
However, 'though overlooked by all', Goethe's dramatic works, Faust parts 1 and II have a remarkable relationship to Browne's Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus. For just as Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus are structured upon the time-honoured schemata of Hermeticism, namely the polarity of Microcosm and Macrocosm, so too are Goethe's Faust I and II
In conversation with Eckermann Goethe provided clues for employing the concept of polarity in the 'conjoining of Faust I with 'the second part of the tragedy' as he termed it.
'Not all our experiences can be expressed in the round and directly communicated. For this reason I have chosen the means of revealing the more secret meanings to attentive hearts by creative formations which face each other and mirror each other'.
Goethe's understanding of the alchemical quest for Unity necessitated that the 'small world' or Microcosm of Part 1 of Faust, with its subjective world of Faust's love for Gretchen, needed to be balanced with the larger objective world or Macrocosm of Part 2 which, as it wanders through time and space, concludes with Faust's redemption.
Browne's diptych discourses also adhere to the basic tenet of Hermeticism, that of the correspondence between Microcosm and Macrocosm. Just as Urn-Burial's concern is the earth-bound 'little world' of Man, his suffering, mortality, unknowingness and death, in essence the Microcosm, The Garden of Cyrus in complete symmetry and polarity features many examples of the Eternal forms and astral imagery of the heavens, the Macrocosm no less. Equally, just as Faust I concerns itself with the small, little world of man so too the extraordinary settings ranging through time and space of Faust II represent the Macrocosm at large.As with Goethe’s literary diptych so too with Browne’s diptych Discourses. Only when 'conjoining' the two respective halves of each literary work can one fully understand and appreciate their total artistic vision.
* * * * * * *
Goethe's many duties and social life in the Weimar Court, his travels and love-affairs, mark him a much worldlier person than the devout physician. Ultimately Goethe was a humanist, his message being – He who strives on and lives to strive can earn redemption still. Thomas Browne was likewise affirmative of all that is good in man, asserting -
'Me thinkes there is no man bad, and the worst, best; that is, while they are kept within the circle of those qualities, wherein they are good:there is no mans mind of such discordant and jarring a temper to which a tuneable disposition may not strike a harmony. [16]
Julian Huxley in Religion without Revelation (1967) nominated Goethe, alongside Blake, Wordsworth, Thomas Browne and Dante as, 'one of the immortal spirits waiting to introduce the reader to his own unique and intense experience of reality'. Today Goethe and Thomas Browne are remembered not so much for their scientific endeavours but for the originality of their literary creativity. Through their respective literary creations both writers have bequeathed their own special vision of Humanity and reality which distinguishes them as 'Universal Citizens', or 'World Sages'. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, like Browne before him, belongs to the category of men to whom the improvement of Mankind was a deep concern. Goethe's science and literary creativity has a close, if little recognised elective affinity to Thomas Browne’s.
Notes
[1] R.M.Part I:50
[2] R.M Part 1:34
[3] R.M. Part 2:2
[4] The Life of Goethe: A Critical Biography by John R. Williams pub. John Wiley and Sons Ltd. Blackwell 2001
[5] Lecture notes of 1818 Lecture XII Miscellaneous criticism Collected works of Coleridge
[6] Richard Meyer 'Zur inner form?' Goethe Jahrbuch 1895 vol. 16 pp. 190 - 191
[7] R.M.Part 2:2
[8] R.M.Part I.12
[9] R.M.Part 2:8
[10] R.M.I:51
[11] Faust Part I Night
[12] R.M.Part 1:16
[13] R.M. Ibid
[14] Faust Part 2 ed. David Luke Oxford University Press 2008 lines 6287-8
[15] Memories, Dreams, Reflections C.G.Jung chapter 6
[16] R.M. 2 :11
Throughout his life the English physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) possessed an insatiable curiosity upon numerous subjects. Books upon ancient history, geography, philosophy, anatomy, theology, cartography, embryology, medicine, cosmography, ornithology, mineralogy, zoology, travel, law, mathematics, geometry, literature, both Continental and English, the latest advances in scientific thinking in astronomy and chemistry, as well as books on astrology, alchemy and the kabbalah, are all listed in the 1711 sales auction catalogue of his library. Browne was often attracted to subjects considered exotic, mysterious, or little-known of. It should come as no surprise therefore that the distant land of China would attract the curiosity of the learned doctor.
During Browne’s life-time a slow but gradual increase in trade and import of Chinese goods to Europe occurred. Ceramic earthenware was among the earliest and most popular of all Chinese imports, to such an extent that it's very name became synonymous to the country of its origin. However, the manufacture of Chinese porcelain remained unknown in the West. Browne determined to resolve this mystery in his vanguard work of the English scientific revolution, Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646). Though quoting Portuguese travellers to China, Browne's observations upon Chinese porcelain are the earliest extant in English.
We are not thoroughly resolved concerning Porcellane or China dishes, that according to common belief they are made of Earth, which lieth in preparation about an hundred years under ground;.........Gonzales de Mendoza, a man imployed into China from Philip the second King of Spain, upon enquiry and ocular experience......found they were made of a Chalky Earth; which beaten and steeped in water, affordeth a cream or fatness on the top, and a gross subsidence at the bottom; out of the cream of superfluitance, the finest dishes, saith he.....
Later confirmation may be had from Alvarez the Jesuit, who lived long in those parts, in his relations of China.The latest account hereof may be found in the voyage of the Dutch Embassadors sent from Batavia unto the Emperour of China, printed in French 1665 which plainly informeth, that the Earth whereof Porcellane dishes are made, is brought from the Mountains of Hoang, and being formed into square loaves, is brought by water, and marked with the Emperour's Seal: that the Earth itself is very lean, fine, and shining like Sand: and that it is prepared and fashioned after the same manner which the Italians observe in the fine Earthen Vessels of Faventia or Fuenca.. they are so reserved concerning that Artifice, that 'tis only revealed from Father unto Son. [1]
Elsewhere in Pseudodoxia Epidemica Browne demonstrates his awareness of China’s vast population, stating -
So the City of Rome is magnified by the Latins to be the greatest of the earth; but time and Geography inform us, that Cairo is bigger, and Quinsay in China far exceedeth both.[2]
Athanasius Kircher (1601-80) a near contemporary and favourite author of Browne's, was a Jesuit priest who had various missionary contacts to China through the Jesuit Order. Like the Norwich doctor, Kircher had an insatiable curiosity and fascination with obscure or esoteric learning, named in the introduction to his Oedipus Aegypticus (1656) as - ‘Egyptian wisdom, Phoenician theology, Hebrew kabbalah, Persian magic, Pythagorean mathematics, Greek theosophy, Mythology, Arabian alchemy, Latin philology’. [3]
When Athanasius Kircher published his China illustrata in 1667 Browne was finally able to satisfy his curiosity about the distant Eastern civilization. Kircher’s China illustrata [4] was a work of encyclopedic breadth and the most informative book available on China for many years. It included accurate maps as well as mythical creatures, and drew heavily on reports by the Jesuits Michael Boym and Martino Martini who worked in China. Kircher emphasized the Christian elements of Chinese history, both real and imagined and highlighted the early presence of Nestorian Christians in China. However, he also claimed the Chinese were descended from the sons of Biblical Ham and that Chinese characters originated from Egyptian hieroglyphs! In the above illustration Chinese botany and horticulture, costume and customs, along with architecture, are each faithfully recorded from an eyewitness account of a social gathering, feasting upon the giant 'polomie' jackfruit.
Throughout his life Browne took a keen interest in botany, especially for its medicinal properties. In correspondence to his son Edward, and presuming him to also have access to an edition of Kircher's China illustrata, Browne made one of the earliest recorded references to Ginseng. Widely cultivated in China for centuries, Ginseng is now scientifically recognised for its anticarcinogenic and antioxidant properties.
Deare Sonne, - You did well to observe Ginseng. All exotick rarities, especially of the east, the East India trade having encreased, are brought in England, and the profit made thereof. Of this plant Kircherus writeth in his China illustrata, pag. 178, cap. "De Exoticis China plantis". [5]
Less reliable than his reports on Chinese botany, Kircher’s at times wildly misguided theories in comparative religion are described by Joscelyn Godwin for the illustration below as - ‘A confused memory of Buddhist iconography may have led to this weird image, which Kircher regards as the equivalent of the Great Mother of Western religions. To the Egyptians she is Isis, to the Greeks Cybele. The lotus upon which she is seated represents the ‘Humid principle' which nourishes all things.' [6]
Sir Thomas Browne retained an interest in China until late in his life. His extraordinary, and at times surreal, list of books, pictures and objects rumoured to exist, lost, or imagined, Bibliotheca Abscondita (circa 1675) includes the 'wish-list' entry - The Works of Confucius the famous Philosopher of China, translated into Spanish. [7]
Inspired by the popularity of the cryptic verse of Nostradamus, first translated into English in the 1670's, Browne’s A Prophecy concerning the future State of Several Nations (circa 1675) predicts the end of the Slave-trade, a full one and a half centuries before its eventual abolition-
When Africa shall no longer sell out its Blacks
to be slaves and Drudges in the American Tracts
Browne continues with the 'prophecy' of -
When Batavia the Old shall be contemn’d by the New,
and a new Drove of Tartars shall China subdue.
- with the following explanation -
Which is no strange thing if we consult the Histories of China, and successive Inundations made by Tartarian Nations.... And this hath happened from time beyond our Histories: for, according to their account, the famous Wall of China, built against the irruptions of the Tartars, was begun above a hundred years before the Incarnation.
Browne also speculated upon a quicker trading route to Cathay (China’s ancient name) for European traders via circumnavigating the Arctic Circle -
When Nova Zembla shall be no stay
Unto those who pass to or from Cathay.
- once more accompanied by explanation.
That is, Whenever that often sought for Northeast passage unto China and Japan shall be discovered, the hindrance whereof was imputed to Nova Zembla; ......the main Sea doth not freeze upon the North of Zembla except near unto Shores; so that if the Moscovites were skilfull Navigatours they might, with less difficulties, discover this passage unto China: but however the English, Dutch and Danes are now like to attempt it again. [8]
Finally, its a neat coincidence that Norwich, the city where Sir Thomas Browne lived for the greater part of his life, has a cultural heritage associated with an archetypal mythic creature of China. Ever since the days of the Medieval Guilds Norwich civic processions have been led in parade by the half playful, half fearsome creature 'Snap’ the Dragon; Browne in his day may have witnessed this civic event and the Dragon, emblematic of China, continues to be celebrated as part of Norwich’s cultural heritage to the present-day.
Part 2
Time hath endless rarities, and shows of all varieties; which reveals old things in heaven, makes new discoveries in earth, and even earth it self a discovery. -Urn-Burial
With their highly polarized themes, Browne’s two philosophical discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus of 1658 may be interpreted as mirroring the concept of Yin and Yang from classical Chinese Taoist philosophy. However, in order to apprehend this association, its useful to first consult the foremost scholar of comparative religion and esoteric learning in the 20th century, the seminal psychologist, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961).
In 1929 Jung received a copy of the Chinese Taoist text The Secret of the Golden Flower from the Sinologist and Missionary Richard Wilhelm who discussed the possibility that his translated text - a blend of Buddhism and 'inner elixir' Taoism, may have originated in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) at the beginning of Nestorian Christianity. For Jung, Wilhelm's translated text proved to be revelatory. In his 1931 commentary to The Secret of the Golden Flower Jung reminded his reader that-
Science is the tool of the Western mind...it is part and parcel of our knowledge and obscures our insight only when it holds that the understanding given by it is the only kind there is. The East has taught us another, wider, more profound, and higher understanding, that is understanding through life. [9]
Writing before the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Jung stated -
'Western consciousness is by no means the only kind of consciousness there is; it is historically conditioned and geographically limited, and representative of only one part of mankind. The widening of our consciousness ought not to proceed at the expense of other kinds of consciousness; .... The European invasion of the East was an act of violence on a grand scale, and has left us with the duty - noblesse oblige (privilege entails responsibility) - of understanding the mind of the East. This is perhaps more necessary than we realize at present.' [10]
The Taoist text The Secret of the Golden Flower confirmed Jung's hypothesis - that globally the substratum of the human psyche has no fundamental differentiation. Within both Western and Eastern psyche, Jung detected, are deeply embedded symbols drawn from a shared collective unconscious. The patterns drawn by Jung's patients in therapy, he realized, share distinct similarities with Mandala art of both Eastern and Western religions as well as in alchemical symbolism. The concepts of medieval western alchemical art, Jung detected, just like Chinese Taoist philosophy, utilize similar symbols which describe psychological processes entirely independent of cultural references or contact with other sources.
The word Tao itself Jung noted, has no satisfactory translation and is variously translated as ‘The Way’ ‘Meaning’ or even ‘God’. Jung comments-
'The undiscovered vein within us is a living part of the psyche; classical Chinese philosophy names this interior way "Tao”, and likens it to a flow of water that moves irresistibly towards its goal. To rest in Tao means fulfillment, wholeness, one’s destination reached; the beginning, end, and perfect realization of the meaning of existence innate in all things. Personality is Tao.'[11]
Classical Chinese philosophy in Jung’s view was the natural counterpart to medieval alchemy, stating- the alchemical mysterium coniunctionis is the Western equivalent of the fundamental principle of classical Chinese philosophy, namely the union of yang and yin in Tao.[12]
Polarity and the union of the opposites is central to Taoist thought. In Chinese philosophy they are characterized by Yin and its associations of the feminine, soft, yielding, diffuse, cold, passive, water, earth, the moon, slowness, and nighttime. Yang, by contrast, is characterized by associations of masculine, solid, focused, hardness hot, dry, aggressive, fire, sky, the sun, and daytime. Jung explains further that-
'Opposed to the guiding principle of life that strives towards superhuman, shining heights, the yang principle, is the dark, feminine, earthbound yin, whose emotionality and instinctuality reach back into the depths of time and down into the labyrinth of the physiological continuum. No doubt these are purely intuitive ideas, but one can hardly dispense with them if one is trying to understand the nature of the human psyche. The Chinese could not do without them because, as the history of Chinese philosophy shows, they never strayed so far from the central psychic facts as to lose themselves in a one-sided over-development and over-evaluation of a single psychic function. They never failed to acknowledge the paradoxicality and polarity of all life. The opposites always balanced one another - a sign of high culture'. [13]
Although little recognised until modern times, Browne’s diptych discourses of 1658 utilize the basic space-time continuum of alchemical mandala art in their respective framework. Urn-Burial thematicallyconcerning itself with Earth and Time, while its counterpart The Garden of Cyrus ranges throughout Space and Heaven for evidence of the Quincunx pattern. Both Discourses are saturated with one of the most common forms of spiritual symbolism, found in Chinese classical literature and western medieval alchemical texts, that of Darkness and Light. Together the synergy of Browne's twin Discourses works on a profound associative level, often unconsciously to their reader, as they engage in the fundamental goal of alchemy, the uniting of the opposites.
The dark, earthy, sublunary doubts, gloom and uncertain speculations upon the after-life in Urn-Burial - lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing and the alchemical Nigredo of the opus- are intrinsically compatible to the Chinese Taoist concept of Yin. In perfect harmony and equilibrium The Garden of Cyrus concerns itself with Light, includes solar symbolism, the discernment of scientific certainties through occular observation, whileits tone is playful, delighting in the beauty of art and nature. The Garden of Cyrus is saturated with symbolism involving Light, Optics and the heavens and harmoniously represents the Yang half of the literary diptych. Even in terms of the respective music of their prose, the slow, solemn, stately yin rhythms of Urn-Burial are answered by the fast, hasty, Yang prose of Cyrus. Incidentally, it was Browne who coined the very word 'polarity’ into the English language.
Because the psyche at its deepest and most archaic level shares the same symbols which pre-date particular civilizations or cultures, the Chinese Taoist philosophy of Yin and Yang canequally be discerned in the alchemical mandala known as the Layer monument. Located in the church of Saint John the Baptist at Maddermarket, Norwich, the right-hand pilaster of Christopher Layer's marble monument depicts sub-lunar suffering, the earth and the feminine, corresponding to the principle of Yin while its left-hand pilaster with its depiction of masculine genitals, vigour, playfulness and victoriousness corresponds perfectly to the principle of Yang.
Richard Wilhelm's translation of The Golden Flower includes an image of a Chinese adept in contemplation of 'inner heaven'. It may well have appealed to Browne's predilection for the number five and its variants (image below). One can't help also wondering that had Browne ever viewed the modern-day national flag of China with its 4+1 symbolism of 5 stars, each of which is five-pointed, he may have included mention of it in his discourse as yet more visible evidence of the archetypal pattern of five.
Jung simultaneously reminds his reader that Chinese alchemy is structured upon five elements, identifies the alchemical theme of Browne's discourse The Garden of Cyrus andobliquely links his hermetic phantasmagoria to Chinese alchemy when stating - 'the quinarius or Quinio (in the form of 4 + 1 i.e. Quincunx) does occur as a symbol of wholeness ( in China and occasionally in alchemy) but relatively rarely’. [14]
Astoundingly Jung declared of the Quincunx pattern itself-
This is a symbol of the quinta essentia, which is identical with the Philosopher’s Stone. It is the circle divided into four with the centre, or the divinity expressed in four directions, or the four functions of consciousness with their unitary substrate, the self. [15]
In modern times Edward W. Said's seminal study Orientalism (1978) explores Western perceptions of the East in the arts. The development of stereotypes and the reinforcing of Western cultural and intellectual prejudices are examined in Said's ground-breaking foundation work of Oriental studies. Crucial to Oriental studies since William Said's publication, is the understanding, for example, that the philosopher Zhuang Zhou (circa 325 BCE), a contemporary of Plato, is not inferior, less profound or a weaker philosopher than the 'father of Western philosophy'. It is simply that the two philosophers fundamentally differ in their focus, rather than concern himself with metaphysical and cosmological speculations like Plato, Zhuang-Zhou is more concerned with individual ethics and personal morality.
Although Sir Thomas Browne is the very earliest English philosopher to be interested in China, he is only one of many writers, painters and composers who have shaped Western perceptions of the Near and Far East, for good and bad over centuries. Incidentally, another very early Norwich-Chinese cultural connection exists through the figure of the founding father of ballet, the dancing-master Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810) who occasionally resided in Norwich. Recognising the English and French craze for Chinoiserie he choreographed his very first ballet Les Fetes Chinoise (1754) with music by Rameau, with a Chinese theme.
* * *
It was the German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) a sympathetic ambassador of East-West relations, who declared in his secular verse. [17]
East and West
Can no longer be kept apart.
Its now imperative with China's advance in role upon the world-stage, of a greater understanding between Western and Eastern minds.
Notes
[1] P.E. Bk. 2 chapter 5: 7
[2] P.E. Bk. 6 chapter 8
Quinsay now Hang-chou was visited by Marco Polo.
[3] Oedipus Egypticus Rome 1652-56 Catalogue p. 8 no. 90
[4] China illustrata Amsterdam 1667 Catalogue p.8 no. 92
[5] Letter dated April 2nd 1679
[6] Athanasius Kircher - A Renaissance Man and the Quest for Lost Knowledge
Joscelyn Godwin London 1979 Thames and Hudson
[7] Miscellaneous Tract 13
[8] Miscellaneous Tract 12
[9] CW 13: 2
[10] CW 13: 84
[11] CW 17: 232
[12] CW 14: 660
[13] CW 13: 7
[14] CW 18: 1602
[15] CW 10: 737
[16] Matthew 8. v. 11
[17] In Original- Orient und Occident/Sind nicht mehr zu trennen
