Editing Robert Burton (section)

==''Philosophaster''==
{{main|Philosophaster}}
[[File:Robert Burton, Philosophaster, 1617, MS Thr 10, front page.jpg|left|thumb|Title page of the manuscript of Burton's ''Philosophaster''.]]
''Philosophaster'' is a play, satirising on the 17th-century university, composed in Latin during Burton's time as an Oxford student.{{sfn|McQuillen|1993|pp=1–2}} The plot of ''Philosophaster'' follows the university of [[Osuna]] in [[Andalusia]],{{efn|Such a [[University of Osuna]] exists, founded in 1548.{{sfn|Murphy|2009|loc=par. 4}}}} recently founded by one Desiderius, Duke of Osuna, in hope of attracting scholars. However, the university actually attracts a crowd of [[wikt:philosophaster|philosophasters]]—pseudo-philosophers, [[Jesuits]], and prostitutes—who con the Duke and townspeople into believing their disguises, capitalising on their naivete in a series of farcical scenes. Amidst this chaos, two true philosophers, Polumathes and Philobiblos (their names literally meaning "Much-Learned" and "Lover of Books") appear and unmask the philosophasters. The resultant controversy among the townspeople nearly causes the Duke to close the university, but he is persuaded otherwise by Polumathes. In the comic climax, the fraudsters are branded and exiled, two characters marry, and the play concludes with a "hymn in praise of philosophy [...] to the tune of [[Bonny Nell]]".{{sfn|Murphy|2009|loc=par. 2}}{{sfn|Kitzes|2017|p=1}}

As Connie McQuillen has put it, the distinguishing quality ''Philosophaster'' is the "patchwork of borrowings" with which it was written.{{sfn|McQuillen|1993|p=3}} Stylistically, ''Philosophaster'' is declared on the title page to be a ''Comoedia Nova'' (or [[New Comedy]]) a satirical genre Kathryn Murphy describes as "in the tradition of [[Plautus]] and [[Terence]]."{{efn|According to the ''[[Encyclopaedia Britannica]]'', New Comedy was genre of Greek drama satirising Athenian society, which was later "mainly known through the works of the Roman dramatists Plautus and Terence, who translated and adapted them, along with other stock plots and characters of Greek New Comedy, for the Roman stage. Revived during the Renaissance, New Comedy influenced European drama down to the 18th century."{{sfn|Encyclopaedia Britannica, "New Comedy"}}}}{{sfn|Murphy|2009|loc=par. 2}} Burton borrowed many elements from these Roman comedies: the tendency of characters to burst into song; the character of the clever slave; the love between a high-born man and low-born girl, who is later revealed to be of noble birth.{{sfn|McQuillen|1993|p=2}} Burton also borrows episodes from contemporary academic satires—dealing with the perennial feuds between [[town and gown]], the distinction between "true" and "false" scholars, the ridicule of pedants—and characters from humanist satirists, chiefly [[Erasmus]] and [[Giovanni Pontano]].{{sfn|McQuillen|1993|p=2–5}} The play's depiction of alchemy bears some passing resemblance to [[Ben Jonson]]'s play ''[[The Alchemist (play)|The Alchemist]]'', but Burton takes strains to point out in the introduction to a manuscript that his play was written before the first staging of Jonson's play, in 1610.{{sfn|Bamborough|2009}}

In interpreting the ''Philosophaster'', many authors have understood it solely in relation to the ''Anatomy'', as an academic satire on the excesses of university life, especially that of Oxford.{{sfn|Murphy|2009|loc=par. 1, 3}} Angus Gowland, describing the University of Osuna as a "thinly disguised Oxford",{{efn|The supposed selection of Osuna by Burton as a transparent substitute for Oxford, held by Burtonian scholar [[Paul Jordan-Smith]] as well as Gowland, has been challenged by Kathryn Murphy. As she points out, Osuna "is not an imaginary place, and Burton repeatedly reminds his audience exactly where it is: a small town near Seville in Andalusia, where a university had been founded in 1548"; additionally the real Duke of Osuna ([[Pedro Téllez-Girón, 3rd Duke of Osuna|Pedro Téllez-Girón]]) was internationally known and may have even visited the universities of Oxford and Cambridge in 1604, and "dear old Oxford" is otherwise mentioned, and satirised, by name in the play.{{sfn|Murphy|2009|loc=par. 3–4}}}} asserts that "the purpose of the play was to ridicule contemporary scholarship and provoke reform", in anticipation of the ''Anatomy''{{'s}} satirical themes.{{sfn|Gowland|2006|p=7}} As O'Connell put it more succinctly, the play's "main satiric thrust, that pseudolearned charlatans find a ready haven in a university, is meant to find its general target in Oxford".{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|p=92–93}} This much is obvious in certain characters—such as Theanus, an elderly college administrator who has forgotten all his scholarship, but still earns an exorbitant salary tutoring the sons of the gentry—whom the audience were expected to be familiar with within academia.{{sfn|Murphy|2009|loc=par. 3}} However, critic Kathryn Murphy has pointed out that ''Philosophaster'' contains a significant, and often underappreciated, undercurrent of anti-Catholicism.{{sfn|Kitzes|2017|p=5}} Burton's philosophasters are joined by the representatives of Roman Catholicism, including [[scholastics]] and Jesuits, in their mockery of philosophy and the university. Murphy has suggested these themes reflect the pervading cultural influence of the [[Gunpowder Plot]] in Burton's lifetime, which took place a year before the play was set.{{sfn|Kitzes|2017|p=5}}{{sfn|Murphy|2009|loc=par. 24}}