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Rhapsodies of Rags

Drew Daniel

in The Melancholy Assemblage: Affect and Epistemology in the English Renaissance

A book may be more referred to than read, often started but rarely finished. Too shapeless in its form and unclear in its intentions to hold a casual reader, this book becomes the preserve of a small ... More

A book may be more referred to than read, often started but rarely finished. Too shapeless in its form and unclear in its intentions to hold a casual reader, this book becomes the preserve of a small community of bickering experts. Two books which fit this narrative are Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy and Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project. Whereas the former focuses on the dwindlingly fashionable humoral illness of melancholy, the latter tackles the first Parisian glass-ceilinged shopping arcades. And yet both texts function as creative and personal assemblages expressive of what might be called “melancholy structure.” This chapter examines the notion of melancholy in The Anatomy of Melancholy and Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project. It looks at melancholy assemblage and Burton’s explanation on the “inward causes” of melancholy as well as Benjamin’s philosophical view on the “mosaic” of melancholy.Less

Demonology Becomes an Open Subject in the Seventeenth Century

Euan Cameron

in Enchanted Europe

This chapter reviews a number of writers who in various ways opened up or challenged the description of superstition and the world of spirits, especially in 17th-century England. These include Robert ... More

This chapter reviews a number of writers who in various ways opened up or challenged the description of superstition and the world of spirits, especially in 17th-century England. These include Robert Burton, Thomas Browne, Thomas Hobbes, and Balthasar Bekker.Less

Robert Burton, perfect happiness and the visio dei

Mary Ann Lund

in The Renaissance of emotion: Understanding affect in Shakespeare and his contemporaries

Happiness is not a state that one readily associates with Burton’s encyclopaedic dissection of melancholic affliction, but this chapter makes the case for its central importance in the understanding ... More

Happiness is not a state that one readily associates with Burton’s encyclopaedic dissection of melancholic affliction, but this chapter makes the case for its central importance in the understanding of his Anatomy of Melancholy. Focusing on his section on ‘Religious Melancholy’, which begins with a paean to the beauty of God, this chapter shows how Burton draws together patristic, neo-Platonic, and contemporary Jesuit authorities to argue that the sight of God is the state of true happiness. In contrast to other seventeenth-century writers who are interested in the relationship between happiness and the visio dei, Burton does not invoke the idea in perorational mode, offering happiness as a final promise to his melancholic readership, but rather places it before his analysis of religious superstition and atheism, thus complicating our understanding of his ultimate stance on the reality and achievability of this state. The chapter scrutinizes Burton’s use of happiness as a rhetorical tool in the structuring of the Anatomy and his original mixture of religious and philosophical source materials, considering how both become a means of communicating his ideas about the possibility of seeing God through earthly eyes and the emotions that might accompany such an experience.Less

Melancholic States: Burton

Jennifer Radden

in The Nature of Melancholy: From Aristotle to Kristeva

This chapter presents Robert Burton's discussion of melancholy. Burton's education at Oxford began when he was only sixteen. He was admitted as a commoner at Brasenose College and then in 1599 was ... More

This chapter presents Robert Burton's discussion of melancholy. Burton's education at Oxford began when he was only sixteen. He was admitted as a commoner at Brasenose College and then in 1599 was elected a student of Christ Church College. In 1614 he was awarded his bachelor of divinity, after which he was both tutor and librarian at Christ Church College, as well as serving as vicar of Saint Thomas' Church in 1616 and rector of Seagrave in Leicestershire in 1630. Once established at Christ Church, he devoted himself to the research and writing that led in 1621 to the first edition of The Anatomy of Melancholy. The Anatomy is unmatched as a compendium of human failing, folly, anxiety, suffering, and variation, written in a style that is so eccentric yet so acute and vital that it is one of the most beloved of English books.Less

Cynicism, Melancholy and Hamlet’s Memento Moriae

David Hershinow

in Shakespeare and the Truth-Teller: Confronting the Cynic Ideal

Chapter 4 follows Shakespeare as he explores the lines of affiliation between the Cynic-inspired fantasy of unstoppable critical agency and his period’s romanticized portrait of intellectual ... More

Chapter 4 follows Shakespeare as he explores the lines of affiliation between the Cynic-inspired fantasy of unstoppable critical agency and his period’s romanticized portrait of intellectual melancholy. Drawing support from a range of early modern sources, including Robert Burton’s similar appropriation of Diogenes in his preface to The Anatomy of Melancholy, it shows that Shakespeare has Hamlet lay claim to a specifically Cynic form of thoughtful sadness, one that posits contemplative self-enclosure as public activism’s final frontier. After linking both Hegel’s and Marx’s philosophies of history to the legacy of Hamlet’s Cynic melancholy, the chapter shows how Shakespeare’s ultimate interest in problematizing this stance allows us to turn the tables on Hamlet’s modern philosophical reception: instead of using modern philosophy as a lens for better understanding an early modern Hamlet, we can use an early modern Hamlet as a lens for better understanding the conditions and limits of modern philosophy.Less

Burton's Antics

in Playing the Fool: Subversive Laughter in Troubled Times

In his book Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton plays a game of hide-and-seek. Relying on a variety of adages, Burton challenges his readers to find him out. Appearing and disappearing with ... More

In his book Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton plays a game of hide-and-seek. Relying on a variety of adages, Burton challenges his readers to find him out. Appearing and disappearing with seemingly random suddenness, the author paradoxically teases his readers not to put him out of mind. He would prefer to have his readers come to accept his mockery of human foibles as a means of self-knowledge and, hence, of self-healing. Burton's humane candor and modesty encourage the reader to discount his extreme self-deprecation. Anatomy promises to help the reader find his/her way back to sanity, yet is itself a product of the solitude and desultory habits of its author. The book also promises laughter or wisdom, but may very well deliver both by relying on a blend of precept and whimsy.Less

The Learned Press: History, Languages, Literature, and Music

Matthew Kilburn

in The History of Oxford University Press: Volume I: Beginnings to 1780

Although music was part of the recognized curriculum — the University had awarded degrees in music since the late fifteenth century — history, modern languages, and literature in the vernacular were ... More

Although music was part of the recognized curriculum — the University had awarded degrees in music since the late fifteenth century — history, modern languages, and literature in the vernacular were generally considered supplements to formal university education. Early historical publications included Henry Savile's edition of Tacitus, histories of the university and its collections, and a life of King Alfred; the later publishing programme was dominated by Clarendon's History of the Rebellion and the works of Thomas Hearne. Most of the works printed in Oxford in modern European languages were intended for elementary language teaching. The Press published some modern literature in Latin, but more often in English, notably Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy and Thomas Hanmer's illustrated edition of Shakespeare. The Press published a number of works on music theory, including John Case's Apologia Musices in 1588, but music types for printing scores were only acquired in 1672 and the quantity produced remained small.Less

Melancholy: Humorous Identity and the Allure of Genius

Erin Sullivan

in Beyond Melancholy: Sadness and Selfhood in Renaissance England

This chapter begins with a survey of the most influential arguments concerning melancholy, genius, class, and gender, and then explores the extent to which such connections are evident in a ... More

This chapter begins with a survey of the most influential arguments concerning melancholy, genius, class, and gender, and then explores the extent to which such connections are evident in a collection of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century medical casebooks. In doing so it shows how in the world of medical practice, melancholic affliction most often coincided with dysfunction not (as often thought) in the mind or imagination, but rather in the dyspeptic guts. Moving from physicians’ casebooks to theatre playbooks, it analyses how late-sixteenth-century ‘humours plays’, in particular Shakespeare’s As You Like It, pursued the connection between melancholy and the viscera to comic ends. It concludes with an examination of Robert Burton’s ‘The Author’s Abstract of Melancholy’ and John Milton’s ‘L’Allegro’ and ‘Il Penseroso’, demonstrating how these poems further emphasized the condition’s fractured and even binary nature while simultaneously improvising a more integrated vision of the vicissitudes of melancholic selfhood.Less

Madness as Misuse and Defect

Justin Garson

in Madness: A Philosophical Exploration

Robert Burton, in his The Anatomy of Melancholy of 1621, embraces the Renaissance view that all forms of madness have a dual purpose: madness is either caused or allowed by God to punish sin and also ... More

Robert Burton, in his The Anatomy of Melancholy of 1621, embraces the Renaissance view that all forms of madness have a dual purpose: madness is either caused or allowed by God to punish sin and also to provide the sufferer with an opportunity for redemption. Burton, however, marks a transition to a naturalistic worldview: madness does not always require God’s special intervention into the course of nature. Rather, God has designed the material universe in such a way that certain sins will inevitably be followed by certain forms of madness. He also shows how the forms of madness are not just punishments, but portraits, of our sin. For example, mania can be an exaggerated portrait of unchecked anger. It is illuminating, then, to read The Anatomy of Melancholy alongside morality tales such as The Divine Comedy or the “Macro Plays,” rather than alongside other medical treatises.Less

Tristram Shandy and the Development of the Novel

Patricia Meyer Spacks

in Novel Beginnings: Experiments in Eighteenth-Century English Fiction

This chapter explores the eighteenth-century novel Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne. This is a work that, according to Russian critic Victor Shklovsky, consciously made effective use of the full ... More

This chapter explores the eighteenth-century novel Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne. This is a work that, according to Russian critic Victor Shklovsky, consciously made effective use of the full range of techniques seen throughout the evolution of the novel. Thus, it is a masterpiece not just as a novel, but also in the way it comments on the novel as a genre, eluding categorization and classification, and borrowing from earlier authors such as Rabelais, Cervantes, Robert Burton, Erasmus, and many others. This complex novel is then studied as a benchmark for the developments that the novel underwent throughout the eighteenth century. The chapter explores the structure, characters, and other complexities contained and involved in the writing of Tristram Shandy.Less