User:Norwikian

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 History and likes
2 Why Norwikian?
3 Sir Thomas Browne on the Wiki ?
4 My dislikes
5 What's New? 20005/6
6 My web essays

[edit] History and likes

Norwich-born and bred writer and scholar; graduated from the University of East Anglia reading European History in '84 . At one time or another visited Amsterdam, Athens, Cologne, Dublin, Geneva, Heidelberg, Rome, Verona, Venice, and the Mediterranean islands of Naxos and Sicily. Worked in archaeology, wholefoods, hotels, bookmakers, teaching and at present at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.

Contributor to Wikipedia since May 2002.

Photo taken sometime ago now, on Barton Broad, one of the bootiful Norfolk Broads which consist of several man-made inter-connected shallow lakes which formed from a rise in sea-level during the Middle Ages ; now known as The Broads National Park, Britain's newest National Park.

My interests include-

Norwich and Norfolk's history, writers, intellectuals, social reformers, artists and cultural relationship to Europe.

Pages started on Iceni* Norwich School * Joseph Stannard * George Borrow* John Jenkins (composer) * William Taylor*James Edward Smith* Sid Kipper*

The physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82)

Pages started on Religio Medici * Pseudodoxia Epidemica * The Garden of Cyrus * Musaeum Clausum* Library of Sir Thomas Browne* adipocere *

Hermeticism , comparative religion and the esoteric in general; more specifically the largely unacknowledged influence of these subjects in the development of science, religion and the arts.

Pages started on Physiognomy * Macrocosm * Proteus*Vulcan of the alchemists* Arthur Dee author of Fasciculus Chemicus * Jacques Gaffarel *Guardian angel*Kingdom of Heaven * Oedipus Aegyptiacus* Tetramorph* Giambattista della Porta author of Natural Magic* Martin Ruland*

Ancient world contributions *sistrum*Athenaeus and the Deipnosophistae or Banquet of the Learned or Philosophers at Dinner

Pop culture contributions 200 Motels

I enjoy listening to viol consort music including John Jenkins (composer) and to Baroque music in general including lute also adore the music of J.S.Bach, Mozart, Sibelius, Carl Nielsen, as well as Philip Glass and Frank Zappa as well as Kraftwerk and The Beatles Ah! the music of those long gone heady days of the 60's and 70's now lovingly re-mastered onto CD.

Also enjoy perusing the weird world of Japanese anime, the Italian maestro Federico Fellini , cinema's first super-star Charlie Chaplin. If time permits i play Chess and Golf. Here's a link for an excellent site devoted to Chess http://www.chessgames.com/

Novels that I've read and 'lurrved', even if having to place one's trust in a translator or as another put it, eating chips (french fries) with gloves on.-

2004

William Faulkner The Wild Palms

William Faulkner Soldier's pay

Sylvie Matton 'Rembrandt's Whore'

John Fowles The French Lieutenant's Woman

P. D. Ouspensky Strange tale of Ivan Osokin

Tom Sharpe Ancestral Vices

Marguerite Yourcenar L'Oeuvre au Noir translated title 'The Abyss'

Elias Canetti Auto-da-Fé Original German title 'Die Blendung'.

The last two titles are slightly depressing in as much as the hero commits suicide. 'The Abyss' according to author is partially based upon the biography of Paracelsus whilst Auto-da-Fé is a good study on the dangers of over-intellectualism with moral observations on the intellect's place in a totalitarian society, i.e. nowhere . It's also a completely different novel from when i last read it way back in time, twenty years ago. Tempus fugit ! sigh!

2005

[edit] Why Norwikian?

I call myself the Norwikian here because I hail from the ancient City of Norwich (U.K.) The etymology of this place-name originates from the Saxon of Nor = (North) and Wik, meaning a port or settlement, the Dutch equivalent being Noordwijk. Since ancient Roman times, and up until today I should technically be called a Norvicensian but I prefer the Saxon Wik as in Norwikian. Of greater relevance I coined it because Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) the author of Pseudodoxia Epidemica (an early modern European encyclopaedia) was a distinguished resident of Norwich!

In April 2004 I aquired my very own edition of Sir T.B's Pseudodoxia, the 4th edition of 1658 with Urn-Burial and Cyrus appended from an ebay auction! This book has now completed a 4000 mile return journey from its publication in London, somehow ending up in Charleston, South Carolina, USA, returning to its source, namely, Norwich some 347 years later.

The title-page of Browne's encyclopaedia bears this quotation-

To cull from books what authors have reported is exceedingly dangerous;true knowledge of things themselves is out of the things themselves. -Julius Caesar Scaliger

[edit] Sir Thomas Browne on the Wiki ?

Sir T.B. is so eminently quotable I cannot resist! Note the humour of undivided and endless volumes as regards the Wiki!

The following may also be indicative of an would-be encyclopedist-

I intend no Monopoly but a Community in Learning. I study not only for myself but for those who study not. from Religio Medici

There is all Africa and her prodigies within us. We are that bold and adventurous piece of nature which he that studies wisely learns in a Compendium; what others labour at in an endless and divided volume. Ibid

Would Truth dispense, we would be content, with Plato, that knowledge were but rememberance; that intellectual acquisition were but reminiscential evocation, and new Impressions but the colouring of old stamps which stood in the soul before. For what is worse, knowledge is made by oblivion, and to purchase a clear and warrantable body of Truth, we must forget and part with much we know.

-from 'To the Reader', Pseudodoxia Epidemica

"Sir Thomas Browne is amongst my first favourites, rich in knowledge, exuberant in conceptions, and conceits, contemplative, imaginative: often truly great and magnificent in style and diction......he is a quiet and sublime enthusiast with a strong tinge of the fantast,- the humourist constantly mingling with, and flashing across, the philosopher, as the darting colours in shot silk play upon the main dye. In short, he has brains in his head which is all the more interesting for a little twist in the brains......Fond of the curious, and a hunter of oddities and strangnesses,.....- he loved to contemplate and discuss his own thoughts and feelings, because he found by comparison with other men's, that they too were curiosities..."

-from a letter by Coleridge dated March 10th 1804 Sat. night 12 o'clock. Full letter available at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letter_on_Browne

[edit] My dislikes

War (what is it good for, absolutely nothing, sing it loud!)

Jingoistic nationalism hey kids isn't about time you stopped waving those coloured rags you call flags about, to 'justify' your national pride; aren't they just a pretty excuse for 20% of the world to bully the other 80%??

Christianity which is Jingoistic in other words of a Fundamentalist colouring. (Dictionary definitions of Jingoism include -War-like, boasting and chauvinistic, originating from a popular song from the 1870's -

We don't want to fight, but by Jingo if we do...)!

Bank Charges - As the decrepit old man of capitalism gasps his last breath, aware he is dying and fearful of his death, he desperately invents new and extortionate ways to sustain his godless life.

Meat- I've not eaten it for thirty years and am alive and healthy.

Just think how many animals an individual eats in a life-time. "Good morning sir how can I help?" "I'd like 200 chickens , 20 pigs, 12 sheep and 6 Cows , please." "To eat in your life-time Sir ,?" " That's right! I'll send someone round to kill them for me, 'cos I'm a little bit squeamish at the sight of blood and pain myself".

Hey Kevin ! it's time to get off your soap-box !

"No man can justly censure or condemn another, because indeed no man truly knows another".

[edit] What's New? 20005/6

April 8 Paper delivered entitled 'The Ghost of a Rose:Hermetic phantasmagoria and The Garden of Cyrus' at Birbeck College, University of London. Go to link for excellent developing site on Browne. http://www.bbk.ac.uk/english/tbs/TBSSchedule.html

For a complete listing of all the many minor writings of Sir Thomas Browne I've contributed to Wikisource since 2004. includes- http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pseudodoxia_Epidemica_An_Alphabetical_Table Go to http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/User:Norwikian

2006 articles on * viol consort* Theatrum Chemicum*Quaternity* Hermetic phantasmagoria*Heart of a Dog* Gerhard Dorn , added to the 21st century composer Osvaldas Balakauskas

I will also be adding to book-titles barely relevant to an encyclopaedia, namely the Library of Sir Thomas Browne. However a list of American supermarkets IS available; and/0r whatever else worthy of inclusion/ and/or not yet elucidated upon by other Wikipedia contributors within the quite finite circle of my knowledge.

[edit] My web essays

Alchemical and hermetic thought in the literary works of Sir Thomas Browne. By far the best thing I've written on Browne so far can be found at

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/sir_thomas_browne.html

A revision of a paper I delivered at UEA March 2002. A lovely animated phoenix, Mercurius figure and urn in the top margin. Please Adam, pump up the font-size! (Alternatively cut and paste). Boy was I nervous! Lots of eminent American academics visited for this conference.Excellent!

Spiritual and literary affinity between Julian of Norwich and Sir Thomas Browne.

The two 'Norridge' mystics briefly compared in terms spirituality and literature, just as title states.

http://www.umilta.net/browne.html

Prayer and Prophecy in Browne.

Piety and oracular utterances about America. An opportunity to voice my disapproval on certain present-day world events via Sir T.B.'s words.

http://www.umilta.net/thosbrowne.html

Browne and the Zoroastrian religion :A page of allusions to Zoroaster/Zoroastrianism in science-fiction (mostly American novels). Scroll deep down, down, down to the bottom of a very, very long LIST. for just a v. small stub on the first reference to Zoroaster and his religion identified in English literature. Well a bit earlier than the OED claims anyway!

http://adherents.com/lit/sf_zor

This user is an Aquarian.

This user loves to eat pizza.

This user is a bibliophile.

This user is interested in the Baroque period.

This user enjoys classical music.

This user has a page on Wikisource.

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