SOURCE: Wong, Samuel Glen. “Constructing a Critical Subject in Reigio Medici.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 43, no. 1 (winter 2003): 117-36.

In the following essay, Wong explores the reasons why Browne's work became such an integral part of the public and literary discourse concerning authorial intention and critical interpretation.

This essay reexamines the relationship among three works: the Religio Medici of Sir Thomas Browne which first appeared in 1642; Browne's preface to the 1643 Religio; and Observations upon “Religio Medici,” the commentary written by Sir Kenelm Digby near the end of 1642. Read in concert, these works reveal how Browne's masterpiece became a public text defined by the complex intercourse of authorial and critical intention. While much of the criticism of Browne's work has been concerned with parsing his prose, calibrating his religious beliefs, or assessing his place in scientific history, critics have paid less attention to the ways in which Religio, together...