Moralizing Dilation in Religio Medici
Date
2000
Authors
Hall, Ronald
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SASMARS)
Abstract
Readers of Browne’s Religio Medici have tended to emphasize its elements of self-portrayal or spiritual autobiography; yet close stylistic analysis (especially of the ‘dilating’ method and the rapid variation of pronouns) suggests that—like much of Herbert’s Temple—its real focus is on moral and spiritual ‘universals’, with the ostensible self-presentation functioning really as a rhetorical point of departure-and-return rather than as the true subject itself. Browne is essentially a moralizing and (in more senses than one) ‘dilating’ essayist in this, as in most of his major works other than Pseudodoxia Epidemica.
Description
Keywords
Middle Ages -- Periodicals. , Renaissance -- Periodicals. , Middle Ages. , Renaissance.