MAKING THE “ROUND OF KNOWLEDGE” IN BACON’S WAKE: NAUDÉ, COMENIUS, AND BROWNE
This paper examines how three of FrancisBacon’s readers, Gabriel Naudé, Jan Amos Comenius, and ThomasBrowne, rethink the humanist library, the genre of the silva, and Bacon’s callfor a new kind of encyclopedism. Naudé adumbrates the organization andcontents of the ideal library so that judicious rea...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Universitatea de Vest Vasile Goldis din Arad
2011-11-01
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| Series: | Societate şi Politică |
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| Online Access: | http://www.uvvg.ro/socpol/images/stories/2011-2/1.%20christopher%20johnson.pdf |
| Summary: | This paper examines how three of FrancisBacon’s readers, Gabriel Naudé, Jan Amos Comenius, and ThomasBrowne, rethink the humanist library, the genre of the silva, and Bacon’s callfor a new kind of encyclopedism. Naudé adumbrates the organization andcontents of the ideal library so that judicious readers may integrate the oldand new learning. In calling for a single pansophist book, Comenius heraldsBacon’s inductive method and yet would restore metaphysics to theencyclopedia. And after his own efforts in Baconian encyclopedism in thePseudodoxia Epidemica, Thomas Browne writes a catalogue of books andartifacts that is at once an elegy to the republic of letters and a ludic plea toinclude admiratio in “the round of knowledge.” This diverse receptionhistory emblemizes the rich, often contradictory potential of Bacon’sencyclopedic vision. |
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| ISSN: | 1843-1348 2067-7812 |