Sir Thomas Browne is brought up in a section of the story where Orlando is looking upon the physical items of past ancestors that were great conquerors and adventurers: names like Sir Gawain, Sir Miles, Sir Andrew, and Sir Herbert for example. Orlando is recalling all of these men who accomplished great things but brings up the fact that there are only a few physical objects left behind from their lives, like a skull or a finger (81). He then turns to the person of Sir Thomas Browne and exclaims that his life was a life well led because of the great works of literature he was able to leave behind. Orlando explains how the words of Browne rose like an “incantation” from all parts of the room when read aloud and how the deeds of his ancestors were dust and ashes when compared to these man’s immortal and beautiful words (81). The idea of a person living on for generations through the English language drew my interest.

Sir Thomas Browne was an English physician and accidental author. He studied to become a doctor at Winchester and Oxford, and after taking his M.D. at Leiden in 1633, he practiced at Shibden Hall near Halifax, in Yorkshire, from 1634, until he was admitted as an M.D. at Oxford; he settled in Norwich in 1637. Browne would write about certain things he was thinking about–like the mysteries of God, nature, and man–in a journal called Religio Medici that got accidentally published. At first it was circulated among friends in manuscript form, but then eventually was printed without his permission in 1642 (“Sir Thomas Browne”).

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“Sir Thomas Browne.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Browne.