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The Anatomy of Melancholy
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== Background == {{Main|Robert Burton}} Much of ''Anatomy'' was inspired by Burton's own struggles with depression. His melancholy is the most widely acknowledged feature of his life; he wrote the book in part to relieve this melancholy but found it difficult to do so.<ref>Traister, B. H. (1976). "New Evidence about Burton's Melancholy?". ''[[Renaissance Quarterly]]''. '''29''' (1): 66β70. [[Doi (identifier)|doi]]:10.2307/2859991. [[JSTOR (identifier)|JSTOR]] 2859991. [[PMID (identifier)|PMID]] 11615595. [[S2CID (identifier)|S2CID]] 33995848.</ref> Fellow Oxfordian [[White Kennett]] wrote that Burton could flit between "interval[s] of vapours" in which he was lively and social, and periods of isolation in his college chambers where his peers worried he was [[Suicidal ideation|suicidal]].<ref>[[Arthur Henry Bullen|Bullen, Arthur Henry]] (1886). "Burton, Robert (1577-1640)" . In [[Leslie Stephen|Stephen, Leslie]] (ed.). ''[[Dictionary of National Biography]]''. Vol. 8. London: Smith, Elder & Co.</ref><ref>Dewey, Nicholas (Winter 1970). ""Democritus Junior," alias Robert Burton". ''[[The Princeton University Library Chronicle]]''. '''31''' (2): 103β121. [[Doi (identifier)|doi]]:10.2307/26403977. [[JSTOR (identifier)|JSTOR]] 26403977. [[PMID (identifier)|PMID]] 11635553.</ref> His [[epitaph]] β which is believed to have been written by Burton himself β in [[Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford|Christ Church Cathedral]] states: "Known to few, unknown to fewer, here lies Democritus Junior, to whom Melancholy gave both life and death."<ref>Nochimson, Richard L. (1974). "Studies in the Life of Robert Burton". ''[[The Yearbook of English Studies]]''. '''4''': 109. [[Doi (identifier)|doi]]:10.2307/3506685. [[JSTOR (identifier)|JSTOR]] 3506685</ref> [[History of literature|Literary historian]] Jonathan Lamb sees Burton's depression as a counterpart to his academic knowledge:<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Lamb |first=Jonathan |url=https://archive.org/details/criticalessayson0000unse_e7h7/mode/2up?q=burton&view=theater |title=Critical Essays on Laurence Sterne |date=1998 |publisher=New York : G.K. Hall ; London : Prentice Hall International |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-7838-0040-0 |pages=25}}</ref> {{Quote|text="Burton shows most vividly how an odd individual can inhabit a book world and use its contents to reveal himself. His experience does not extend beyond the shelves of his college's well-stocked library; all his travelling is done by map, but because his theme is melancholy, a <i>disorder</i> afflicting the whole world as well as himself, he can never find an appropriate or standard response to the information of books. Although texts are exclusively his source for estimations of reality, they offer him neither order nor a coherent body of [[depression symptoms|symptoms]]. So Burton is constantly expatiating, "ranging in and out," his moods constantly shifting between despair and optimism, anger and helpless laughter, all stimulated by the books he is endlessly traversing."|author=Jonathan Lamb|title=<i>Sterne's System of Imitation</i>}} [[File:Robert Burton by Gilbert Jackson.jpg|thumb|268x268px|Portrait of Robert Burton by Gilbert Jackson, 1635]] Most of Burton's life was spent at the [[University of Oxford]], and the majority of his information for ''Anatomy'' came secondhand through the books of the [[Bodleian Library|Oxford library]]; melancholy was a topic with which he had personal experience. Lamb notes that "he writes about melancholy in a melancholy manner, exhibiting in his treatise all the contradictions and irregularities that belong to the disease. Burton's real melancholy is both excited and controlled by books and his imitations of them."<ref name=":1" /> Burton left no record of when he began his work on ''Anatomy''. His [[Biography|biographer]] Michael O'Connell speculates the project grew piecemeal, with research beginning in his twenties and the work well on its way by his thirties.<ref name=":2">O'Connell, Michael (1986). ''Robert Burton''. Twayne Publishers. {{ISBN|978-0-8057-6919-7}} {{OCLC|563059617}}</ref> Burton explicitly states that the study of melancholy was a lifelong fascination of his, and regularly "deducted from the main channel of my studies."<ref>Burton, Robert (1927). [[Floyd Dell|Dell, Floyd]]; [[Paul Jordan-Smith|Jordan-Smith, Paul]] (eds.). ''The Anatomy of Melancholy''. New York: Tudor Publishing Company. {{OCLC|713809426}}</ref> However long the work took, it was finished by 5 December 1620 (when he was 43), which is the date he signed the [[Conclusion (book)|conclusion]] of the book.<ref name=":2" />
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