Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne was an English polymath and author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including science and medicine and the esoteric. His writings display a deep curiosity towards the natural world, influenced by the scientific revolution of Baconian enquiry. Browne's literary works are permeated by references to Classical and Biblical sources as well as the idiosyncrasies of his own personality. Although described as suffused with melancholia, his writings are characterised by wit and subtle humour, while his literary style is varied, according to genre, resulting in a rich, unique prose which ranges from rough notebook observations to polished Baroque eloquence; the son of Thomas Browne, a silk merchant from Upton and Anne Browne, the daughter of Paul Garraway of Sussex, he was born in the parish of St Michael, Cheapside, in London on 19 October 1605. His father died while he was still young and his mother married Sir Thomas Dutton. Browne was sent to school at Winchester College.
In 1623, he went to Broadgates Hall of Oxford University. Browne was chosen to deliver the undergraduate oration when the hall was incorporated as Pembroke College in August 1624, he graduated from Oxford in January 1627, after which he studied medicine at Padua and Montpellier universities, completing his studies at Leiden, where he received a medical degree in 1633. He settled in Norwich in 1637 and practised medicine there until his death in 1682. In 1641, he married Dorothy Mileham, of Norfolk, she bore him ten children. Browne's first literary work was Religio Medici; this work was circulated as a manuscript among his friends. It surprised him when an unauthorised edition appeared in 1642, since the work included several unorthodox religious speculations. An authorised text appeared with some of the more controversial views removed; the expurgation did not end the controversy: in 1645, Alexander Ross attacked Religio Medici in his Medicus Medicatus and, in common with much Protestant literature, the book was placed upon the Papal Index Librorum Prohibitorum in the same year.
In 1646, Browne published his encyclopaedia, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or, Enquiries into Very many Received Tenets, Presumed Truths, whose title refers to the prevalence of false beliefs and "vulgar errors". A sceptical work that debunks a number of legends circulating at the time in a methodical and witty manner, it displays the Baconian side of Browne—the side, unafraid of what at the time was still called "the new learning"; the book is significant in the history of science because it promoted an awareness of up-to-date scientific journalism. Browne's last publication during his lifetime were two philosophical Discourses which are related to each other in concept; the first, Urn Burial, or a Brief Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns found in Norfolk inspired by the discovery of some Bronze Age burials in earthenware vessels found in Norfolk, resulted in a literary meditation upon death, the funerary customs of the world and the ephemerality of fame. The other discourse in the diptych is antithetical in subject-matter and imagery.
The Garden of Cyrus, or The Quincuncial Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients, Artificially and Mystically Considered features the quincunx, used by Browne to demonstrate evidence of the Platonic forms in art and nature. In Religio Medici, Browne confirmed his belief, in accordance with the vast majority of seventeenth century European society, in the existence of angels and witchcraft, he attended the 1662 Bury St Edmunds witch trial, where his citation of a similar trial in Denmark may have influenced the jury's minds of the guilt of two accused women, who were subsequently executed for witchcraft. In 1671 King Charles II, accompanied by the Court, visited Norwich; the courtier John Evelyn, who had corresponded with Browne, took good use of the royal visit to call upon "the learned doctor" of European fame and wrote of his visit, "His whole house and garden is a paradise and Cabinet of rarities and that of the best collection, amongst Medails, Plants, natural things". During his visit, Charles visited Browne's home.
A banquet was held in St Andrew's Hall for the royal visit. Obliged to honour a notable local, the name of the Mayor of Norwich was proposed to the King for knighthood; the Mayor, declined the honour and proposed Browne's name instead. Browne was buried in the chancel of St Peter Mancroft, Norwich, his skull was removed when his lead coffin was accidentally re-opened by workmen in 1840. It was not re-interred in St Peter Mancroft until 4 July 1922 when it was recorded in the burial register as aged 317 years. Browne's coffin plate, stolen the same time as his skull, was eventually recovered, broken into two halves, one of, on display at St Peter Mancroft. Alluding to the commonplace opus of alchemy it reads, Amplissimus Vir Dns. Thomas Browne, Medicinae Dr. Annos Natus 77 Denatus 19 Die mensis Octobris, Anno. Dni. 1682, hoc Loculo indormiens. Corporis Spagyrici pulvere plumbum in aurum Convertit. — translated from Latin as "The esteemed Gentleman Thomas Browne, Doctor of Medicine, 77 years old, died on the 19th of October in the year of Our Lord 1682 and lies sleeping in this coffin.
With the dust of the alchemical body he converts lead into gold". The origin of the invented word spagyrici are from the Greek of: Spao to tear open, + ageiro to collect, a signature neologism coined by Paracelsus to define his medicine-oriented alchemy.
A Place in the Country
A Place in the Country consists of six essays or monographs by W. G. Sebald, each devoted to a specific writer or artist. A Comet in the Heavens: On Johann Peter Hebel J'Aurais Voulu Que Ce Lac Eut Été L'océan: On Jean Jacques-Rousseau Why I Grieve I Do Not Know: On Eduard Morike Death Draws Nigh, Time Marches On: On Gottfried Keller Le Promeneur Solitaire: On Robert Walser As Day and Night: On Jan Peter Tripp McCulloh, Mark. Understanding W. G. Sebald. Columbia, S. C.: University of South Carolina Press. Pp. 57–83. ISBN 978-1-57003-506-7
On the Natural History of Destruction
On the Natural History of Destruction is a 1999 book by the German writer W. G. Sebald, its original German title is Luftkrieg und Literatur, which means "Air war and literature". It consists of essays about literature and writers, through which Sebald discusses the German processing of World War II. "Air War and Literature", on the meagre portrayal in culture of the bombings of German cities during World War II "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea", on Alfred Andersch "Against the Irreversible", on Jean Améry "The Remorse of the Heart", on the works of Peter Weiss The book was published in Munich in 1999 through Carl Hanser Verlag. The German edition features the one on Andersch. In 2003 the book was published in an English translation by Anthea Bell, to which the shorter essays on Améry and Weiss were added. John Banville reviewed the book for The Guardian: "On the Natural History of Destruction is a spoken but fierce protest at the mendacity and moral evasiveness of our time. In the tragic absence of more Sebald fiction, it will have to do.
One can do no better than to say of Sebald's work what he himself quotes Elias Canetti saying of the diary,'notable for precision and responsibility', of a survivor of Hiroshima:'If there were any point in wondering what form of literature is essential to a thinking, seeing human being today it is this.'" Kenneth Baker of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: "Sebald's matter-of-fact evocation of the wartime events on which his collection turns make sickening reading. He relies on the written recollections of a few contemporary witnesses, notably Hans Erich Nossack and Alexander Kluge but offers long descriptions of the terrible events in his own voice." Baker ended the review: "On the Natural History of Destruction leaves an aftertaste of sadness that flows from both its own bleak reflections and the knowledge that Sebald's indispensable voice has been silenced." 1999 in literature German literature
Friedrich Hölderlin
Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a German poet and philosopher. Described by Norbert von Hellingrath as "the most German of Germans", Hölderlin was a key figure of German Romanticism. Due to his early association with and philosophical influence on Hegel and Schelling, he was an important thinker in the development of German Idealism. Born in Lauffen am Neckar, Hölderlin's childhood was marked by bereavement, his mother intended for him to enter the Lutheran ministry, he attended the Tübinger Stift, where he was friends with Hegel and Schelling. He could not devote himself to the Christian faith, instead becoming a tutor. Two years he attended the University of Jena, where he interacted with Fichte and Novalis, before resuming his career as a tutor, he struggled to establish himself as a poet, was plagued by mental illness. He was sent to a clinic in 1806 but deemed incurable and instead given lodging by a carpenter, Ernst Zimmer, he spent the final 36 years of his life in Zimmer's residence, died in 1843 at the age of 73.
Hölderlin followed the tradition of Goethe and Schiller as an admirer of Greek mythology and Ancient Greek poets such as Pindar and Sophocles, melded Christian and Hellenic themes in his works. Martin Heidegger, whom Hölderlin had a great influence on, said: "Hölderlin is one of our greatest, that is, most impending thinkers because he is our greatest poet." Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was born on 20 March 1770 in Lauffen am Neckar a part of the Duchy of Württemberg. He was the first child of Heinrich Friedrich Hölderlin, his father, the manager of a church estate, died when he was two years old, Friedrich and his sister, were brought up by their mother. In 1774, his mother moved the family to Nürtingen. Two years Johann Gok became the burgomaster of Nürtingen, Hölderlin's half-brother, Karl Christoph Friedrich Gok, was born. In 1779, Johann Gok died at the age of 30. Hölderlin expressed how his childhood was scarred by grief and sorrow, writing in a 1799 correspondence with his mother: "When my second father died, whose love for me I shall never forget, when I felt, with an incomprehensible pain, my orphaned state and saw, each day, your grief and tears, it was that my soul took on, for the first time, this heaviness that has never left and that could only grow more severe with the years."
Hölderlin began his education in 1776, his mother planned for him to join the Lutheran church. In preparation for entrance exams into a monastery, he received additional instruction in Greek, Hebrew and rhetoric, starting in 1782. During this time, he struck a friendship with Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, five years Hölderlin's junior. On account of the age difference, Schelling was "subjected to universal teasing" and Hölderlin protected him from abuse by older students. During this time, Hölderlin began playing the piano and developed an interest in travel literature through exposure to Georg Forster's A Voyage Round the World. In 1784, Hölderlin entered the Lower Monastery in Denkendorf and started his formal training for entry into the Lutheran ministry. At Denkendotf, he discovered the poetry of Friedrich Schiller and Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, took tentative steps in composing his own verses; the earliest known letter of Hölderlin's is dated 1784 and addressed to his former tutor Nathanael Köstlin.
In the letter, Hölderlin hinted at his wavering faith in Christianity and anxiety about his mental state. Hölderlin progressed to the Higher Monastery at Maulbronn in 1786. There he fell in love with Luise Nast, the daughter of the monastery's administrator, began to doubt his desire to join the ministry. In 1788, he read Schiller's Don Carlos on Luise Nast's recommendation. Hölderlin wrote a letter to Schiller regarding Don Carlos, stating: "It won't be easy to study Carlos in a rational way, since he was for so many years the magic cloud in which the good god of my youth enveloped me so that I would not see too soon the pettiness and barbarity of the world." In October 1788, Hölderlin began his theological studies at the Tübinger Stift, where his fellow students included Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Isaac von Sinclair and Schelling. It has been speculated that it was Hölderlin who, during their time in Tübingen, brought to Hegel's attention the ideas of Heraclitus regarding the unity of opposites, which Hegel would develop into his concept of dialectics.
In 1789, Hölderlin broke off his engagement with Luise Nast, writing to her: "I wish you happiness if you choose one more worthy than me, surely you will understand that you could never have been happy with your morose, ill-humoured, sickly friend," and expressed his desire to transfer out and study law but succumbed to pressure from his mother to remain in the Stift. Along with Hegel and Schelling and his other peers during his time in the Stift, Hölderlin was an enthusiastic supporter of the French Revolution. Although he rejected the violence of the Reign of Terror, his commitment to the principles of 1789 remained intense. Hölderlin's republican sympathies influenced many of his most famous works such as Hyperion and The Death of Empedocles. After obtaining his magister degree in 1793, his mother expected him to enter the ministry. However, Hölderlin found no satisfaction in the prevailing Protestant theology, worked instead as a private tutor. In 1794, he met Friedrich Schiller and Johann Wolfgang Goethe and began writing his epistolary novel Hyperion
Suffolk
Suffolk is an East Anglian county of historic origin in England. It has borders with Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; the county is low-lying with few hills, is arable land with the wetlands of the Broads in the north. The Suffolk Coast and Heaths are an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. By the fifth century, the Angles had established control of the region; the Angles became the "north folk" and the "south folk", from which developed the names "Norfolk" and "Suffolk". Suffolk and several adjacent areas became the kingdom of East Anglia, which merged with Mercia and Wessex. Suffolk was divided into four separate Quarter Sessions divisions. In 1860, the number of divisions was reduced to two; the eastern division was administered from the western from Bury St Edmunds. Under the Local Government Act 1888, the two divisions were made the separate administrative counties of East Suffolk and West Suffolk. A few Essex parishes were added to Suffolk: Ballingdon-with-Brundon and parts of Haverhill and Kedington.
On 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, East Suffolk, West Suffolk, Ipswich were merged to form the unified county of Suffolk. The county was divided into several local government districts: Babergh, Forest Heath, Mid Suffolk, St Edmundsbury, Suffolk Coastal, Waveney; this act transferred some land near Great Yarmouth to Norfolk. As introduced in Parliament, the Local Government Act would have transferred Newmarket and Haverhill to Cambridgeshire and Colchester from Essex. In 2007, the Department for Communities and Local Government referred Ipswich Borough Council's bid to become a new unitary authority to the Boundary Committee; the Boundary Committee reported in favour of the proposal. It was not, approved by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. Beginning in February 2008, the Boundary Committee again reviewed local government in the county, with two possible options emerging. One was that of splitting Suffolk into two unitary authorities – Ipswich and Felixstowe and Rural Suffolk.
In February 2010, the then-Minister Rosie Winterton announced that no changes would be imposed on the structure of local government in the county as a result of the review, but that the government would be: "asking Suffolk councils and MPs to reach a consensus on what unitary solution they want through a countywide constitutional convention". Following the May 2010 general election, all further moves towards any of the suggested unitary solutions ceased on the instructions of the incoming Coalition government. In 2018 it was determined that Forest Heath and St Edmundsbury would be merged to form a new West Suffolk district, while Waveney and Suffolk Coastal would form a new East Suffolk district; these changes took effect on 1 April 2019. West Suffolk, like nearby East Cambridgeshire, is renowned for archaeological finds from the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age. Bronze Age artefacts have been found in the area between Mildenhall and West Row, in Eriswell and in Lakenheath. Many bronze objects, such as swords, arrows, palstaves, daggers, armour, decorative equipment, fragments of sheet bronze, are entrusted to St. Edmundsbury heritage service, housed at West Stow just outside Bury St. Edmunds.
Other finds include traces of barrows. In the east of the county is Sutton Hoo, the site of one of England's most significant Anglo-Saxon archaeological finds, a ship burial containing a collection of treasures including a Sword of State and silver bowls, jewellery and a lyre; the majority of agriculture in Suffolk is either mixed. Farm sizes vary from anything around 80 acres to over 8,000. Soil types vary from heavy clays to light sands. Crops grown include:winter wheat, winter barley, sugar beet, oilseed rape and spring beans and linseed, although smaller areas of rye and oats can be found growing in areas with lighter soils along with a variety of vegetables; the continuing importance of agriculture in the county is reflected in the Suffolk Show, held annually in May at Ipswich. Although latterly somewhat changed in nature, this remains an agricultural show. Below is a chart of regional gross value added of Suffolk at current basic prices published by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.
Well-known companies in Suffolk include Greene Branston Pickle in Bury St Edmunds. Birds Eye has its largest UK factory in Lowestoft, where all its meat products and frozen vegetables are processed. Huntley & Palmers biscuit company has a base in Sudbury; the UK horse racing industry is based in Newmarket. There are two USAF bases in the west of the county close to the A11. Sizewell B nuclear power station is at Sizewell on the coast near Leiston. Bernard Matthews Farms have some processing units in the county Holton. Southwold is the home of Adnams Brewery; the Port of Felixstowe is the largest container port in the United Kingdom. Other ports are at Ipswich, run by Associated British Ports. BT has its main development facility at Martlesham Heath. There are several towns in the county with Ipswich being most populous. At the time
Grant Gee
Grant Robert Gee is a British film maker and cinematographer. He is most noted for his 1998 documentary Meeting People Is Easy about the British alternative rock group Radiohead. Gee was born in Plymouth and studied Geography at St Catherine's College, Oxford, he did postgraduate study at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. In the early 1990s Gee worked on U2's Zoo TV and Zoo Radio, collaborated with Mark Neale on several projects, including "The Memory Palace", an experimental multi-media project combining film and live performance for the Expo'92. In 1996 he directed a twenty-seven-minute short film commissioned by progressive house band Spooky for parts of their album "Found Sound"; the film was displayed on a continuous loop outside the Centre Georges Pompidou as part of its re-opening. Gee followed the band Radiohead whilst they were on tour for their acclaimed 1997 album OK Computer. Gee's 1998 documentary of the tour, Meeting People Is Easy, was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Long Form Music Video.
His short films including Tel Aviv City Symphony, the documentary JC-03 and the dance film Torsion have been shown internationally as part of touring packages by the British Council and Film and Video Umbrella. Gee has made music videos for British bands including Radiohead and Blur. In April 2006 the Creative Commons-licensed film project A Swarm of Angels announced that Gee has joined the project team as Director of Photography. In 2007, he made a ten-minute film about climbing the Old Man of Hoy. In November 2010 Grant received funding from the UK Film Council to develop the project New Career In A New Town: David Bowie In Berlin, a music documentary on David Bowie's Berlin period. Gee's 2007 documentary, Joy Division, told the story of the eponymous Manchester band and was made in collaboration with writer Jon Savage. On critical aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film scored 86% on the website Tomatometer. In Variety, Robert Koehler wrote that the documentary was "emotionally deeper" than the biopic directed by Anton Corbijn, Control.
In January 2011, Gee completed his film Patience: After Sebald based on Sebald's book The Rings of Saturn, accepted by the Vancouver International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. In The Observer, Philip French called it a "modest, immensely enjoyable documentary". In 2015, Gee's documentary film Innocence of Memories, made in collaboration with Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk and based on his novel The Museum of Innocence, was screened as a special event in the Venice Days section at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival. Grant Gee on IMDb Grant Gee at the Music Video DataBase Biography at the site of production company Oil Factory Retrospective at Cinecity: The Brighton Film Festival in 2005 John May interviews Grant Gee
Southwold
Southwold is a small town and civil parish on the English North Sea coast in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk. It lies at the mouth of the River Blyth within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty; the town is about 11 miles south of Lowestoft, 29 miles north-east of Ipswich and 97 miles north-east of London, within the parliamentary constituency of Suffolk Coastal. The "All Usual Residents" 2011 Census figure gives a total of 1,098 persons for the town; the 2012 Housing Report by the Southwold and Reydon Society concluded that 49 per cent of the dwellings in the town are used as second homes and let to holiday-makers. Southwold was mentioned in Domesday Book as a fishing port, after the "capricious River Blyth withdrew from Dunwich in 1328, bringing trade to Southwold in the 15th century", it received its town charter from Henry VII in 1489. Over the following centuries, however, a shingle bar built up across the harbour mouth, preventing the town from becoming a major Early Modern port: "The shingle at Southwold Harbour, the mouth of the Blyth, is shifting," William Whittaker observed in 1887.
Southwold was the home of a number of Puritan emigrants to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s, notably a party of 18 assembled under Rev. Young, which travelled in the Mary Ann in 1637. Richard Ibrook, born in Southwold and a former bailiff of the town, emigrated to Hingham, along with Rev. Peter Hobart, son of Edmund Hobart of Hingham, Norfolk. Rev. Hobart had been an assistant vicar of St Edmund's Church, after graduating from Magdalene College, Cambridge. Hobart married in daughter of his fellow Puritan Richard Ibrook; the migrants to Hingham were led by Robert Peck, vicar of St Andrew's Church in Hingham and a native of Beccles. A fire in 1659 devastated most of the town and damaged St Edmund's Church, whose original structure dated from the 12th century; the fire created a number of open spaces within the town. Today this "series of varied and delightful village greens" and the restriction of expansion by the surrounding marshes, have preserved the town's genteel appearance. On the green just above the beach, descriptively named Gun Hill, the six 18-pounder cannon commemorate the Battle of Sole Bay, fought in 1672 between English and French fleets on one side and the Dutch on the other.
The battle was bloody but indecisive and many bodies were washed ashore. Southwold Museum has a collection of mementos of the event, it has been said that these cannon were captured from the Scots at Culloden and given to the town by the Duke of Cumberland, who had landed at Southwold in October 1745 having been recalled from Europe to deal with the Jacobite threat, but they are much larger than those used by Charles Edward Stuart's army in that campaign. During World War I, it was thought that these cannon were one reason why this part of the coast was bombarded by the German Fleet as a "fortified coast". In World War II the cannon were prudently removed, reputedly buried for safety, returned to their former position after hostilities. On 15 May 1943 low-flying German fighter-bombers killed eleven people. Up to 1 April 2019, Southwold was part of the Southwold and Reydon electoral ward, in the Waveney District Council area; the population of this ward, taken at the 2011 census, was 3,680. Although the town lost its independent Municipal Borough status in the Local Government reforms of 1974 and consequent incorporation in Waveney District, it continues to have an elected, non-partisan Town Council and Mayor.
With the 1 April 2019 amalgamation of the Waveney and Suffolk Coastal district councils to form a new East Suffolk "super council", Southwold is now in an expanded ward with Reydon and Walberswick. Where once the Southwold and Reydon ward, under Waveney District, elected two councillors, the new Southwold ward will be represented at East Suffolk district by one councillor only. Although once home to a number of different industries, Southwold's economy nowadays is based on services, hotels, holiday accommodation and tourism. With the surrounding areas given over to agriculture, the town is an important commercial centre for the area, with a number of independent shops, cafés and restaurants. However, there has been a marked trend in recent years for retailing chains, including food and beverages and stationery shops, to take over independent retail premises. Adnams Brewery is located in Southwold, is the town's largest single employer. Although the fishing fleet and the industry is much diminished, Southwold Harbour remains one of the main fishing ports on the Suffolk coastline.
In 2012, additional facilities for the fleet were constructed there, as part of the repair and reinstatement of the Harbour's North Wall. Southwold Primary School, adjacent to St. Edmund's Church caters for children aged 2 to 11 years; as a member of the Yox Valley Partnership of Schools, it works in partnership with Yoxford and Peasenhall Primary School in Yoxford and Middleton Primary School, near Dunwich. Until it closed in 1990, the nearest secondary school for Southwold children was Reydon High School. Thereafter, most pupils were bused to either the Sir John Leman High School in Beccles or to Bungay High School; these schools have been joined by Beccles Free School, opened in 2012 and catering for pupils aged 11–16. Following a decision by Suffolk County Council on changes to free school transport, the default 11–16 secondary school for Southwold and Reydon stude
