Front page of The Anatomy of Melancholy

The Anatomy of Melancholy (Full title The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Historically, Opened and Cut up.) is a book by Robert Burton, first published in 1621. This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired in the United States and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years. ... This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired in the United States and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years. ... Melancholia (Greek μελαγχολια) was described as a distinct disease as early as the fifth and fourth centuries BC in the Hippocratic writings. ... Robert Burton Robert Burton (February 8, 1577 – January 25, 1640) was an English scholar and vicar at Oxford University, best known for writing The Anatomy of Melancholy. ... Events February 9 - Gregory XV is elected pope. ...

On its surface, the book is a medical textbook in which Burton applies his large and varied learning in the scholastic manner to the subject of melancholia (which includes what is now termed clinical depression). Burton defined his subject as follows: Medicine is the branch of health science and the sector of public life concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, treatment and possible prevention of disease and injury. ... Scholasticism comes from the Latin word scholasticus, which means that [which] belongs to the school, and is the school of philosophy taught by the academics (or schoolmen) of medieval universities circa 1100–1500. ... Melancholia (Greek μελανχολια) is a mood of non-specific depression. ... Look up depression in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Melancholy, the subject of our present discourse, is either in disposition or in habit. In disposition, is that transitory Melancholy which goes and comes upon every small occasion of sorrow, need, sickness, trouble, fear, grief, passion, or perturbation of the mind, any manner of care, discontent, or thought, which causes anguish, dulness, heaviness and vexation of spirit, any ways opposite to pleasure, mirth, joy, delight, causing frowardness in us, or a dislike. In which equivocal and improper sense, we call him melancholy, that is dull, sad, sour, lumpish, ill-disposed, solitary, any way moved, or displeased. And from these melancholy dispositions no man living is free, no Stoick, none so wise, none so happy, none so patient, so generous, so godly, so divine, that can vindicate himself; so well-composed, but more or less, some time or other, he feels the smart of it. Melancholy in this sense is the character of Mortality. . . . This Melancholy of which we are to treat, is a habit, a serious ailment, a settled humour, as Aurelianus and others call it, not errant, but fixed: and as it was long increasing, so, now being (pleasant or painful) grown to a habit, it will hardly be removed.

Burton drew from nearly every science of his day, including psychology and physiology, but also astronomy, meteorology, and theology, and even astrology and demonology. The four humours were four fluids that were thought to permeate the body and influence its health. ... Psychology is an academic and applied field involving the study of the human mind, brain, and behavior. ... Physiology (in Greek physis = nature and logos = word) is the study of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of living organisms. ... A giant Hubble mosaic of the Crab Nebula. ... Satellite image of Hurricane Hugo with a polar low visible at the top of the image. ... Theology (Greek θεος, theos, God, + λογος, logos, word or reason) means reasoned discourse concerning religion, spirituality and God. ... Hand-coloured version of the anonymous Flammarion woodcut. ... Demonology is the systematic study of demons. ...

Much of the book consists of quotations from various ancient and mediæval medical authorities, beginning with Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Galen. Hence the Anatomy is filled with more or less pertinent references to the works of others. A competent Latinist, Burton also included a great deal of Latin poetry in the Anatomy, and many of his inclusions from ancient sources are left untranslated in the text. Hippocrates of Cos II. or Hippokrates of Kos (c. ... Aristotle (Greek: AristotélÄ“s) (384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ... Greek: Γαληνός, Latin: Claudius Galenus of Pergamum (129 – 200 AD), better known in English as Galen, was an ancient Greek physician. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... The Chinese poem Quatrain on Heavenly Mountain by Emperor Gaozong (Song Dynasty) Poetry (from the Greek , poesis, making or creating) is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. ...

The Anatomy of Melancholy is an especially lengthy book, the first edition being a single quarto volume nearly 900 pages long; subsequent editions were even longer. The text is divided into three major sections plus an introduction, the whole written in Burton's sprawling style. Characteristically, the introduction includes not only an author's note (titled "Democritus Junior to the Reader"), but also a Latin poem ("Democritus Junior to His Book"), a warning to "The Reader Who Employs His Leisure Ill", an abstract of the following text, and another poem explaining the frontispiece. The following three sections proceed in a similarly exhaustive fashion: the first section focuses on the causes and symptoms of "common" melancholies, while the second section deals with cures for melancholy, and the third section explores more complex and esoteric melancholies, including the melancholy of lovers and all varieties of religious melancholies. The Anatomy concludes with an extensive index (which, many years later, The New York Times Book Review called "a readerly pleasure in itself".^[1]). Most modern editions include many explanatory notes. Throughout the book, Burton's digressive and inclusive style, often verging on a stream of consciousness, consistently informs and animates the text. Nominally a medical text, the Anatomy is "vitalized by (Burton's) pervading humour"^[2] and is as much a sui generis work of literature as it is a scientific or philosophical text. Quarto has several meanings: In bookbinding and publishing, quarto indicates the book size which results when four leaves of the book are created from a standard size sheet of paper. ... In architecture, a frontispiece constitutes the elements that frame and decorate the main, or front, door to a building; especially when the main entrance is the chief face of the building, rather than being kept behind columns or a portico. ... In psychology and philosophy stream of consciousness, introduced by William James, is the set of constantly changing inner thoughts and sensations which an individual has while conscious, used as a synonym for stream of thought. ...

Admirers of The Anatomy of Melancholy range from Samuel Johnson, Charles Lamb, and John Keats (who claimed it to be his favourite book), to Stanley Fish, Philip Pullman, Jorge Luis Borges (who used a quote as an epigraph to his story "The Library of Babel"), and Jacques Barzun (who sees in it many anticipations of 20th century psychiatry). The Anatomy is still considered an enduring, if eccentric, literary classic by many modern critics. ^[3] Samuel Johnson circa 1772, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. ... Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 –- 27 July 1834) was an English essayist, best known for his Essays of Elia and for the childrens book Tales from Shakespeare, which he produced along with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764–1847). ... John Keats John Keats (October 31, 1795 – February 23, 1821) was one of the principal poets of the English Romantic movement. ... Stanley Fish (born 1938) is a prominent American literary theorist and legal scholar. ... Philip Pullman Philip Pullman CBE (born October 19, 1946), is a British writer, educated at Exeter College, Oxford, who is the best-selling author of the His Dark Materials trilogy of fantasy novels and a number of other books, purportedly for children, but attracting increasing attention by adult readers. ... Jorge Luis Borges (August 24, 1899 - June 14, 1986), was an Argentine writer who is considered one of the foremost literary figures of the 20th century. ... Jacques Martin Barzun (born November 30, 1907 - 2005) continues to be a leading voice in the fields of literature, education, and cultural history. ... Psychiatry is a medical specialty dealing with the prevention, assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of mental illness – both in itself and in bodily illness (psychiatry in medicine) – such as clinical depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and anxiety disorders. ...

Editions and Availability

An obsessive rewriter of his work, Burton published five revised and expanded editions of The Anatomy of Melancholy until his death in 1640. The Anatomy of Melancholy has often been out of print, most notably between 1676 and 1800.^[4] Because no original manuscript of the Anatomy has survived, later reprints have drawn more or less faithfully from the editions published during Burton's life.^[5] Early editions of the Anatomy are now in the public domain, with several available in their entirety from a number of online sources such as Project Gutenberg. In recent years, increased interest in the book, combined with its status as a public domain work, has resulted in a number of new print editions, most recently a 2001 reprinting by The New York Review of Books under its NYRB Classics imprint (ISBN 0940322668). Events January 29 - Feodor III becomes Tsar of Russia First measurement of the speed of light, by Ole Rømer Bacons Rebellion Russo-Turkish Wars commence. ... 1800 (MDCCC) was an exceptional common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, but a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... Project Gutenberg (often abbreviated as PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize, archive, and distribute cultural works. ... The New York Review of Books (or NYREV or NYRB) is a biweekly magazine on literature, culture, and current affairs published in New York which takes, as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity. ... In the publishing industry, an imprint is a brand name under which a work is published. ...

References

1. ^ Thomas Mallon, The New York Times Book Review, October 3, 1991
2. ^ Émile Legouis, A History of English Literature (1926)
3. ^ Nick Lezard, "Classics of the Future," The Guardian, September 16, 2000.
4. ^ The Complete Review discussion of The Anatomy of Melancholy
5. ^ William H. Gass, Introduction to The Anatomy of Melancholy, New York Review of Books 2001 ISBN 0940322668

External links

• The Anatomy of Melancholy at Making of America Books
• The Complete Review discussion of The Anatomy of Melancholy
• The Anatomy of Melancholy, available freely at Project Gutenberg
• The Anatomy of Melancholy - online copy at PsyPlexus.