The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

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Original Title: The Anatomy of Melancholy

ISBN: 0940322668
ISBN13: 9780940322660
Autor: Robert Burton/William H. Gass (Introduction)
Rating: 4.7 of 5 stars (1969) counts
Original Format: Paperback, 1424 pages
Download Format: PDF, TXT, ePub, iBook.
Published: April 30th 2001 / by NYRB Classics / (first published 1621)
Language: English
Genre(s):
Philosophy- 102 users
Psychology- 91 users
Nonfiction- 89 users
Classics- 42 users
Writing >Essays- 34 users
Science- 28 users

Description:

One of the major documents of modern European civilization, Robert Burton's astounding
compendium, a survey of melancholy in all its myriad forms, has invited nothing but superlatives
since its publication in the seventeenth century. Lewellyn Powys called it "the greatest work of
prose of the greatest period of English prose-writing," while the celebrated surgeon William Osler
declared it the greatest of medical treatises. And Dr. Johnson, Boswell reports, said it was the only
book that he rose early in the morning to read with pleasure. In this surprisingly compact and
elegant new edition, Burton's spectacular verbal labyrinth is sure to delight, instruct, and divert
today's readers as much as it has those of the past four centuries.

About Author:

Robert Burton was an English scholar, born in 1577. Entered Brasenose College, Oxford, 1593.
Student of Christ Church, 1599; B.D., 1614 and Vicar of St. Thomas's, Oxford, 1616, and rector of
Seagrave from 1630 until his death in 1640. Best known for writing The Anatomy of Melancholy.

Other Editions:
- Melankolinin Anatomisi (Paperback)

- Anatoma de la melancola

- The Anatomy of Melancholy (Hardcover)

- The Anatomy of Melancholy (Kindle Edition)

- The Anatomy of Melancholy (Hardcover)

Books By Author:

- Some Anatomies of Melancholy

 - The Essential Anatomy of Melancholy

- The Anatomy Of Melancholy: A Selection

- The Anatomy of Melancholy, Volume 1

- Anatomia melancoliei

Books In The Series:

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- Deep Politics and the Death of JFK

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Rewiews:

Nov 12, 2012

Nathan "N.R." Gaddis
Rated it: it was amazing
Recommends it for:
Melancholics (You)
Recommended to Nathan "N.R." by:
Alexander Theroux
Shelves: pretty-old-stuff, essays
The Anatomy of Melancholy, What It Is,
With All The Kinds, Causes, Symptoms, Prognostics, And Several Cures Of It.
In Three Partitions.
With Their Several Sections, Members, and Subsections,
Philosophically, Medically, Historically Opened And Cut Up.
By Democritus Junior.
With a Satirical Preface, Conducing To The Following Discourse.
A New Edition, Corrected, And Enriched By Translations Of The Numerous Classical Extracts.
By Democritus Minor. To Which Is Prefixed An Account Of The Author.
___________
The Anatomy of Melancholy, What It Is,
With All The Kinds, Causes, Symptoms, Prognostics, And Several Cures Of It.
In Three Partitions.
With Their Several Sections, Members, and Subsections,
Philosophically, Medically, Historically Opened And Cut Up.
By Democritus Junior.
With a Satirical Preface, Conducing To The Following Discourse.
A New Edition, Corrected, And Enriched By Translations Of The Numerous Classical Extracts.
By Democritus Minor. To Which Is Prefixed An Account Of The Author.
_____________
Readers of Burtons The Anatomy of Melancholy will know who they are.
They are melancholic. They are erudite. They revel in learning. They know that the world is their
books. They can step out of their 21st century vanity and return to a 17th text and feel at home.
They know that science changed but did not advance with Sir Bacon (side of eggs, please). They
know that Burton will feel more modern and kin-like than what is passed off as the Latest Thing
today. They will understand that our neuronal superstitions today are no advancement over the
theory of humours. They will, in all likelihood, be brimming with black bile. They will be readers
who will nevernever find too many words between the covers of a book.
____________
Okay, so I press Burtons book into the hands of readers-of-novels. Fine. But its not a novel ; its
an essay. Fine. We have our own version of Burtons Anatomy today, a novel called, popularly,
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition ; or simply, DSM-V.
Book of Lamentations: A new dystopian novel in the classic mode takes the form of a dictionary of
madness, By Sam Kriss ::
http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/book-...
_____________
If on a friends bookshelf
You cannot find Joyce or Sterne
Cervantes, Rabelais, or Burton, You are in danger, face the fact, So kick him first or punch him
hard
And from him hide behind a curtain.
 Alexander Theroux
Some tweeker on goodreads has apparently objected (behind my back) to my posting of this little
poem on my profile. The objection was somehow to the identification of some books as required
reading. Of course Joyce and Sterne and Cervantes and Rabelais and Burton are required
reading for the educated reader. Absolutely no apology needed for this. If you dont want to be an
educated reader you may perfectly happily persist in your dumb pleasure reading. The rest of us
want more than stupid tweeks to the genital region. Odd thing is though, these five authors have
produced (some of) the most pleasurable texts in the history of letters. Those unable to enjoy
these books need to have some education applied to their pleasure centers.
Theroux provides a modicum of explanation:The narrower your description, the more cliched and
uncommunicative, the more of the object you leave behind. Art is simply being able to
communicate an object in its entirety, and it is just beyond the realm of human capability. The
proponents of the encyclopedic novel, the so-called novel of learning, Sterne, Rabelais,
Cervantesand Burton in his bookhave nevertheless had great fun trying to refute this. -- RoCF
Interview, 1991.
_____________
Censure of reviewers; or why read Burton
No reviewer on goodreads, in order that we may promote decorum, may use the terms
'intellectually masturbatory' or 'self-indulgent' or unnecessarily digressive or the like unless and
until said reviewer has read the entirety of Burton's Anatomy.
_____________
Emily Colette Wilkinson and her Difficult Books has this to say about our Anatomy:
The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton (1621): This is a dense, digressive, wonderfully
learned, quasi-autobiographical, quasi-psychological exploded encyclopedia of all things
melancholic and otherwisea mishmash of case studies (a man who thought he was turned to
glass), citations from contradictory ancient and modern authorities (c. 1620), quotations from the
Bible, essays on geography and climatology, observations on the deficiencies of the Catholic
Church, recommendations of study as a cure for melancholy (and then reflections on study as a
cause of melancholy), a utopia. Burton described his Anatomy as: a rhapsody of rags gathered
together from several dung-hills, excrements of authors, toys and fopperies confusedly tumbled
out, without art, invention, judgement, wit, learning, harsh, raw, rude, phantastical, absurd,
insolent, indiscreet, ill-composed, indigested, vain, scurrile, idle, dull, and dry Indeed, such it is,
and for this intellectually dense disorder, the book can be baffling and dizzy-making (esp. if you
read the NYRB edition, the most readily available, which has very close-set type and does not
translate all of Burtons Latin). Burtons long, loose, Latinate sentences can also be rough going.
But it is very much worth a try. Burton is an endearingly humble narrator who, while he calls
himself an ignorant smatterer, might teach you to accept the incurable madness melancholy
fallennessof humankind.
For some readers, The Anatomy will be maddeningly difficult. For others it will be pleasurably
difficult beyond all measure. For myself, it was mental rest. Mine was the kind of reading which is
often described as letting the prose just flow over you. My reading was one of phrases,
quotations, lists, words, names, daydreams, and melancholy, but not of sentences. No question
that my reading was not a close reading. One need not analyze a friend to death with every
conversation. Just listen. Just dance.
_____________
The most widely available edition of Burtons Anatomy is the NYRB paperback with an introduction
by William H. Gass, published in 2001. It is perfectly serviceable even if it is far from a perfect
edition. It reproduces a text from 1932 which is unnecessarily unwieldy, having removed Burtons
notes from the margins to the end of each partition where one tends to ignore them; the Latin is
mostly translated by the editor when Burton provides no paraphrase, but when things get a bit
sexually racy the translation fails to appear; no attempt was made to provide a modern table of
contents (which should not replace Burtons own beautiful Synopses); there are famously many
typos which persist from Burtons own days (First Edition, 1621); and most unfortunate of all, a
critically established edition of The Anatomy has finally been produced by Oxford University Press
(1989) which could have been taken as the foundational text for this edition. That OUP edition (in
six volumes including commentary) is library-only at its price in the multiple hundreds of dollars
range. One can only hope that OUP is planning an edition for the masses based upon their critical
text.
But and so when you find yourself at a bookery, pass by those editions which expurgate the Latin
and the Greek. Those editions are clearly bastardizations of this masterpiece. Like reading War
and Peace with the French expurgated. It matters not whether you read Latin or Greek. Without it
resting on the page for your eye to pass over, you have not experienced Burton's erudition. Heres
what is often (mis)called irony: Burton made the decision, at the behest of his publisher, to write in
English that his book be more marketable to the growing reading public. He would have preferred
to have written in Latin, and so would have we. Had he written in Latin, everything would have
needed translation and we would have a more accessible text, Englished. As it is, we need not
be tempted with things like popular appeal; his Latin citations stand.
_____________
The selected essay for your consideration will be found under Partition The First, Section 2--
Causes of Melancholy; Membra 3--Passions and perturbations of the mind; Subsection 10--
Discontents, Cares, Miseries, etc., Causes. Whatever. In the NYRB edition it would be found on
page 271. Here in the edition at Gutenberg.
But, hell, browse the well-hyperlinked index over there at Gutenberg, whatever tweeks yer fancy.
_____________
LECTORI MALE FERIATO.
Tu vero cavesis edico quisquis es, ne temere sugilles Auctorem hujusce operis, aut cavillator
irrideas. Imo ne vel ex aliorum censura tacite obloquaris (vis dicam verbo) nequid nasutulus inepte
improbes, aut falso fingas. Nam si talis revera sit, qualem prae se fert Junior Democritus, seniori
Democrito saltem affinis, aut ejus Genium vel tantillum sapiat; actum de te, censorem aeque ac
delatorem aget econtra (petulanti splene cum sit) sufflabit te in jocos, comminuet in sales, addo
etiam, et deo risui te sacrificabit.
Iterum moneo, ne quid cavillere, ne dum Democritum Juniorem conviciis infames, aut ignominiose
vituperes, de te non male sentientem, tu idem audias ab amico cordato, quod olim vulgus
Abderitanum ab Hippocrate, concivem bene meritum et popularem suum Democritum, pro insano
habens. Ne tu Democrite sapis, stulti autem et insani Abderitae.Abderitanae pectora plebis habes.
Haec te paucis admonitum volo (male feriate Lector) abi.
[To The Reader Who Employs His Leisure Ill
Whoever you may be, I caution you against rashly defaming the author of this work, or cavilling in
jest against him. Nay, do not silently reproach him in consequence of others' censure, nor employ
your wit in foolish disapproval or false accusation. For, should Democritus Junior prove to be what
he professes, even a kinsman of his elder namesake, or be ever so little of the same kidney, it is
all up with you: he will become both accuser and judge of you in his petulant spleen, will dissipate
you in jest, pulverize you with witticisms, and sacrifice you, I can promise you, to the God of Mirth.
Again I warn you against cavilling, lest, while you culumniate or disgracefully disparage
Decmocritus Junior, who has no animosity against you, you should hear from some judicious
friend the very words the people of Abdera heard of old from Hippocrates, when they held their
well-deserving and popular fellow-citizen to be a madman: 'Truly, it is you, Democritus, that are
wise, while the people of Abdera are fools and madmen.' You have no more sense than the
people of Abdera. Having given you this warning in a few words, O reader who employ your
leisure ill, farewell.] -- p124-5 (NYRB), Englished by the editor.
_____________
And for you perverts, here is how the length of The Anatomy shakes out.
439 pages -- Democritus To The Reader and other front matter (125 pages) & First Partition.
261 pages -- Second Partition
432 pages -- Third Partition
Which amounts to 1132 pages. The remainder of its 1424 pages (292) consists of 6817 endnotes,
(which are painlessly skippable), introductions, a glossary, and an index; unless youve got that
every damn page project in mind.
Gutenberg has a serviceable electronical edition Here.
_____________
SPERATE MISERI, CAVETE FELICES.
[Hope, ye unhappy ones; ye happy ones, fear.]
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