400 YEARS OF MELANCHOLISING

The Oxford scholar Robert Burton completed his first and only book on 5 December 1620. Even as he did so, he was on the defensive, anticipating criticism: 'I like it, so doth he, thou doest not, is it therefore unfit, absurd and ridiculous?', he snaps in his Conclusion: 'One man canno...

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Published inHistory today Vol. 71; no. 5; p. 64
Main Author Lund, Mary Ann
Format Magazine Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London History Today Ltd 01.05.2021
Subjects
Academic libraries
Anatomy & physiology
Libraries
Poetry
Writing
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Summary:The Oxford scholar Robert Burton completed his first and only book on 5 December 1620. Even as he did so, he was on the defensive, anticipating criticism: 'I like it, so doth he, thou doest not, is it therefore unfit, absurd and ridiculous?', he snaps in his Conclusion: 'One man cannot express what every man thinks, or please all.' Yet The Anatomy of Melancholy is, in some ways, exactly that: an attempt to 'express what every man thinks' on one subject. In the 16th and 17th centuries, melancholy was seen as a mysterious condition of body, mind and spirit. Hard to define, its hallmark features were sadness and fear 'without any apparent occasion'. By the time Burton began writing about it, he had consulted thousands of volumes in Oxford's libraries in an attempt to delineate the disease's contours. 111 olfl preface to the Anatomy he even claims to have suffered from it himself and to have embarked on the project as a form of self-therapy.
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ISSN:0018-2753