Drew Daniel
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823251278
- eISBN:
- 9780823252701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823251278.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
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 ...
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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
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.
Mary Ann Lund
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719090783
- eISBN:
- 9781781708866
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719090783.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
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 ...
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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
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.
Jennifer Radden
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195151657
- eISBN:
- 9780199849253
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195151657.003.0090
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
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 ...
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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
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.
Euan Cameron
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199257829
- eISBN:
- 9780191698477
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199257829.003.0017
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, History of Ideas
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 ...
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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
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.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226473154
- eISBN:
- 9780226473178
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226473178.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
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 ...
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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
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.
Matthew Kilburn
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- August 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199557318
- eISBN:
- 9780191772320
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199557318.003.0015
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History, Economic History
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 ...
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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
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.
Erin Sullivan
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- April 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198739654
- eISBN:
- 9780191802614
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198739654.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Social History
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 ...
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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
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.
Ralph Lerner
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226473154
- eISBN:
- 9780226473178
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226473178.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
The role of the fool is to provoke the powerful to question their convictions, preferably while avoiding a beating. Fools accomplish this not by hectoring their audience, but by broaching sensitive ...
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The role of the fool is to provoke the powerful to question their convictions, preferably while avoiding a beating. Fools accomplish this not by hectoring their audience, but by broaching sensitive topics indirectly, often disguising their message in a joke or a tale. Writers and thinkers throughout history have adopted the fool's approach, and here the book turns to six of them — Thomas More, Francis Bacon, Robert Burton, Pierre Bayle, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Gibbon — to elucidate the strategies these men employed to persuade the heedless, the zealous, and the overly confident to pause and reconsider. As this book makes plain, all these men lived through periods marked by fanaticism, particularly with regard to religion and its relation to the state. In such a troubled context, advocating on behalf of skepticism and against tyranny could easily lead to censure, or even, as in More's case, execution. And so, the book reveals, these serious thinkers relied on humor to move their readers toward a more reasoned understanding of the world and our place in it. At once erudite and entertaining, this book is an eloquently thought-provoking look at the lives and writings of these masterly authors.Less
The role of the fool is to provoke the powerful to question their convictions, preferably while avoiding a beating. Fools accomplish this not by hectoring their audience, but by broaching sensitive topics indirectly, often disguising their message in a joke or a tale. Writers and thinkers throughout history have adopted the fool's approach, and here the book turns to six of them — Thomas More, Francis Bacon, Robert Burton, Pierre Bayle, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Gibbon — to elucidate the strategies these men employed to persuade the heedless, the zealous, and the overly confident to pause and reconsider. As this book makes plain, all these men lived through periods marked by fanaticism, particularly with regard to religion and its relation to the state. In such a troubled context, advocating on behalf of skepticism and against tyranny could easily lead to censure, or even, as in More's case, execution. And so, the book reveals, these serious thinkers relied on humor to move their readers toward a more reasoned understanding of the world and our place in it. At once erudite and entertaining, this book is an eloquently thought-provoking look at the lives and writings of these masterly authors.
Patricia Meyer Spacks
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300110319
- eISBN:
- 9780300128338
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300110319.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
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 ...
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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
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.
