Editing The Anatomy of Melancholy (section)

== Legacy and influence ==
Medical historian [[Roy Porter]] called ''The Anatomy of Melancholy'' "that omniumgatherum of anecdotes of insanity whose burden was that mankind — including the author himself — was quite out of its mind."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Porter |first=Roy |url=https://archive.org/details/mindforgdmanacle00port/page/28/mode/2up?q=melancholy |title=Mind-forg'd manacles : a history of madness in England from the Restoration to the Regency |date=1987 |publisher=Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-674-57617-9 |pages=28}}</ref> Despite its origins as a medical treatise, studies of ''Anatomy'' over the last 400 years have almost entirely focused on its value as literature. Burton's numerous anecdotes, which tackle melancholy with both sobriety and humour, as well as the overarching influence of his personal sadness on the book are often cited as making ''Anatomy'' his "one truly great work."<ref>{{Citation |title=The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |date=2004-09-23 |work=The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |editor-last=Matthew |editor-first=H. C. G. |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/4137 |access-date=2025-05-01 |place=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/4137 |editor2-last=Harrison |editor2-first=B.}}</ref>

In the [[18th century|18th]] and [[19th century|19th centuries]], melancholy became somewhat fashionable for the upper classes — owing in part to the popularity of works like ''[[The Sorrows of Young Werther]]'' by [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]], the [[Gothic fiction|Gothic genre]], and [[Romanticism]]. This so-called "Age of Melancholy"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Porter |first=Roy |url=https://archive.org/details/mindforgdmanacle00port |title=Mind-forg'd manacles : a history of madness in England from the Restoration to the Regency |date=1987 |publisher=Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-674-57617-9}}</ref> resulted in a rediscovery of Burton's ''Anatomy'', which had seen a dwindling audience over the last century and had been out of print since 1676. [[Charles Lamb|Charles Lamb's]] push for a 9th edition in 1800 revitalized interest in the book and it became a "literary phenomenon."<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=White |first=White Robert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZHkxEAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false |title=Keats's Anatomy of Melancholy: Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes and Other Poems (1820) |date=2020-09-09 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-1-4744-8048-2 |language=en}}</ref>

[[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] regularly annotated his copy of ''Anatomy''.<ref name=":4" /> [[William Wordsworth]], [[Robert Southey]], [[William Green (painter)|William Green]], and [[Herman Melville]] were all known to own the book.<ref name=":4" />

Figures like [[O. Henry]], [[Anthony Powell]], [[Northrop Frye]], and [[Cy Twombly]] cite ''Anatomy'' as influential in their own work.<ref name=":5">{{Cite news |last=McCrum |first=Robert |date=2017-12-18 |title=The 100 best nonfiction books: No 98 – The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton (1621) |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/18/anatomy-melancholy-robert-burton-100-best-nonfiction-books |access-date=2025-05-01 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> [[Jorge Luis Borges]] used a line from Burton as an epigraph to his story "[[The Library of Babel]]," and [[Washington Irving]] quotes from it on the title page of [[The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.|''The Sketch Book'']]. [[Holbrook Jackson]] based the style and presentation of his ''Anatomy of Bibliomania'' on ''The Anatomy of Melancholy''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jackson |first=Holbrook |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001761735 |title=The anatomy of bibliomania |date=1931 |publisher=Charles Scribner's sons |location=New York}}</ref> The book "lurks behind the writing" of [[Samuel Beckett|Samuel Beckett's]] novel ''[[Murphy (novel)|Murphy]],<ref name=":5" />'' and [[Jacques Barzun]] believed it predicted 20th-century psychiatry.''<ref>Jacques Barzun, ''[[From Dawn to Decadence]]'', 221–224.</ref>'' 

=== John Milton ===
English poet [[John Milton]] used ''Anatomy'' as the basis for his poem about melancholy, "[[Il Penseroso|Il Penseroso"]] ("the thinker").<ref>{{Cite web |title=Il Penseroso: Introduction |url=https://milton.host.dartmouth.edu/reading_room/penseroso/intro.shtml |access-date=2025-04-30 |website=milton.host.dartmouth.edu}}</ref> It was most likely composed around ten years after the first edition was published.<ref>Kerrigan, William; Rumrich, John; and Fallon, Stephen (eds.) ''The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton''. New York: The Modern Library, 2007.</ref> [[Thomas Warton]] described Milton as "an attentive reader of Burton's book."<ref name=":4" />

Several of his works, including the epic poem ''[[Paradise Lost]]'', exhibit parallels to ''Anatomy.'' This includes the "golden chain" attached to "this pendant world,"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Milton |first=John |title=Paradise Lost |year=1667 |at=1051-1053}}</ref> as well as descriptions of [[Demon|demons]] and theories of [[predestination]]. Milton scholar George Wesley Whiting writes that "in addition to agreeing upon the fundamental points of theology, demonology, cosmography and morality, Burton and Milton condemn war and military glory."<ref>{{Cite book |last=george wesley whiting |url=https://archive.org/details/miltonsliterarym0000geor |title=milton's literary milieu |date=1939 |publisher=the university of north carolina press |others=Internet Archive}}</ref> "Il Penseroso" (and its companion poem "[[L'Allegro]]") contrasts melancholy with [[Happiness|mirth]] in a similar way to Burton's distinction between "bad" melancholy and "good" melancholy.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Grace |first=William J. |date=1955 |title=Notes on Robert Burton and John Milton |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4173147?seq=2 |journal=Studies in Philology |volume=52 |issue=4 |pages=578–591 |issn=0039-3738}}</ref>

=== Samuel Johnson ===
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| quote = "If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle," one of Johnson's most famous quotes, is adapted from <i>Anatomy</i>. The full quote reads: "The great direction Burton has left to men disordered like you, is this, Be not solitary; be not idle: which I would thus modify; – If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle."
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Writer [[Samuel Johnson]] called ''Anatomy'' "a valuable work," saying "there is a great spirit and great power in what Burton says."<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal |last=Beveridge |first=Allan |date=September 2013 |title=Talking about madness and melancholy: Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/talking-about-madness-and-melancholy-boswells-life-of-samuel-johnson/08DCB582472A7D4E6482DC444D6E4DBC |journal=Advances in Psychiatric Treatment |language=en |volume=19 |issue=5 |pages=392–398 |doi=10.1192/apt.bp.112.010702 |issn=1355-5146}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Dunea |first1=G. |year=2007 |title=The Anatomy of Melancholy |journal=BMJ: British Medical Journal |volume=335 |issue=7615 |pages=351.2–351 |doi=10.1136/bmj.39301.684363.59 |pmc=1949452}}</ref> Johnson suffered from bouts of "horrible melancholia" and at one point "strongly entertained thoughts of suicide" according to his biographer [[James Boswell]].<ref>[[Walter Jackson Bate|Bate, Walter Jackson]] (1977), ''Samuel Johnson'', New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, {{ISBN|978-0-15-179260-3}}</ref> Like many of his contemporaries, he believed that writers such as himself were especially predisposed to melancholy.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Melancholy, Genius, and Utopia in the Renaissance. - Free Online Library |url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Melancholy,+Genius,+and+Utopia+in+the+Renaissance.-a015674136 |access-date=2025-05-01 |website=www.thefreelibrary.com}}</ref> Most of his attempted remedies for his own depression came from treatments prescribed by ''The Anatomy of Melancholy''. Chief among these was "constant occupation of mind"; Johnson found that staying busy helped ward off melancholy, which was a significant reason his writing was so prolific.<ref name=":6" /> He described ''Anatomy'' as "the only book that ever got him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise."<ref>{{cite book |last=Boswell |first=James |author-link=James Boswell |title=[[The Life of Samuel Johnson]] |publisher=[[Everyman's Library]] |page=390}}</ref>

=== Laurence Sterne ===
In 1798, [[John Ferriar]] published the paper ''Illustrations of Sterne'', which pointed out that [[Laurence Sterne|Laurence Sterne's]] 1759 novel ''[[The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman]]'' used passages from ''Anatomy'' [[The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman#Artistic incorporation and accusations of plagiarism|almost word for word]].<ref name="FerriarGravity" /><ref name="Petrie70">Petrie (1970) pp. 261–262.</ref>''<ref>Petrie (1970) pp. 261–66.</ref>'' Sterne also took sections from ''[[Essays (Francis Bacon)|Of Death]]'' by [[Francis Bacon]] and several other books.<ref name="Petrie70" /> Besides copying text, Sterne referenced Burton's book divisions in the titles of his chapters, and he parodied his account of [[Cicero|Cicero's]] grief for the death of his daughter [[Tullia (daughter of Cicero)|Tullia]].<ref name="FerriarGravity" /> These accusations of [[plagiarism]] further fueled the revived interest in Burton's work at the turn of the 19th century.<ref name=":3" />

=== John Keats ===
The [[Romanticism|Romantic]] English poet [[John Keats]] considered ''The Anatomy of Melancholy'' his favorite book.<ref>{{Citation |last=White |first=Robert |title=Keats's Anatomy of Melancholy: Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes and Other Poems (1820) |date=2022-03-24 |work=Keats's Anatomy of Melancholy |url=https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781474480475/html?lang=en |access-date=2025-05-01 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |language=en |doi=10.1515/9781474480475/html?lang=en |isbn=978-1-4744-8047-5}}</ref> Keats was a Romanticist with poetic views of the human body and emotions, as well as a [[surgeon]] trained in medicine and physiology. [[Literary criticism|Literary scholar]] Robert White argues that this duality made Keats unique among Burton's 19th-century audience: "Keats was the only one to have a professional foot in both fields and could read it as both a poet, and as a doctor professionally aware of its historical medical context."<ref name=":4" /> He also suffered from [[Major depressive episode|depressive episodes]] for much of his life, saying in an 1817 letter that "I scarcely remember counting upon any happiness."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Grogan |first=Suzie |date=2015-09-28 |title='Moods of my own Mind': Keats, melancholy, and mental health |url=https://wordsworth.org.uk/blog/2015/09/28/moods-of-my-own-mind-keats-melancholy-and-mental-health/ |access-date=2025-05-01 |website=Wordsworth Grasmere |language=en-GB}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Wayback Machine |url=https://www.artlit.info/pdfs/Keatsian-Anatomy-Melancholy.pdf |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20231117042039/https://www.artlit.info/pdfs/Keatsian-Anatomy-Melancholy.pdf |archive-date=2023-11-17 |access-date=2025-05-01 |website=www.artlit.info}}</ref>

During his highly productive period of 1819, Keats read and reread Burton's ''Anatomy.''<ref>{{Cite web |title=R. S. White, Keats's Anatomy of Melancholy: Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes and Other Poems (1820) |url=https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/epdf/10.3366/rom.2024.0635 |access-date=2025-05-01 |website=www.euppublishing.com |language=en |doi=10.3366/rom.2024.0635}}</ref> He owned a copy of the 11th edition (1813), which he heavily annotated. He put [[Exclamation mark|exclamation marks]] next to passages about solutions for heartache and underlined the phrase "The last and best Cure of Love-Melancholy, is to let them have their Desire."<ref name=":4" /> On the blank page at the end of the book Keats created his own [[Index (publishing)|index]] of passages he liked; these were mostly love stories or descriptions of [[Tyrant|tyrants]].<ref name=":4" /> One of his marked sections of ''Anatomy'' told the story of star-crossed Corinthian lovers [[Lamia|Lycius and Lamia]] — he later adapted Burton's retelling of the tale into his 1819 poem "[[Lamia (poem)|Lamia]]."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Keats |first=John |title=Lamia |url=https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2490/pg2490-images.html |access-date=2025-05-01 |website=Project Gutenberg |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Lamia {{!}} Romanticism, Ode, Mythology {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lamia-poem-by-Keats |access-date=2025-05-01 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> 

The final book Keats published during his lifetime, ''Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes and Other Poems'' (1820), is influenced throughout by ''Anatomy'', which was "the book which has been his companion during 1819."<ref name=":4" /> His poem "[[Ode on Melancholy]]" also heavily incorporates themes from ''Anatomy.''<ref name=":4" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Dalli |first=Elise |date=2016-05-15 |title=Ode on Melancholy by John Keats |url=https://poemanalysis.com/john-keats/ode-on-melancholy/ |access-date=2025-05-01 |website=Poem Analysis |language=en-US}}</ref>

=== Philip Pullman ===
In April 2005, English author [[Philip Pullman]] published an essay in ''[[The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph]]'' about his love for Burton's ''Anatomy''.<ref name=":7">{{Cite news |last=Pullman |first=Philip |date=10 April 2005 |title=Reasons to be cheerful |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3640566/Reasons-to-be-cheerful.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20210104194843/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3640566/Reasons-to-be-cheerful.html |archive-date=4 January 2021 |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]]}}</ref> He argues that the 400-year-old book is worth looking past its convoluted nature:
{{Quote|text="This book is very long. What's more, like the book [[Alice in Wonderland|Alice's sister]] was reading on that famous summer afternoon, it has no pictures or conversation in it. To add to the drawbacks, parts of it are in Latin. And finally, as if that wasn't bad enough, it is founded on totally outdated notions of anatomy, physiology, psychology, cosmology and just about every other -logy there ever was. So what on earth makes it worth reading today? And not only worth reading, but a glorious and intoxicating and endlessly refreshing reward for reading? The main reason is perhaps the least literary. It's that <i>The Anatomy of Melancholy</i> is the revelation of a [[personality]]: a personality so vivid and generous, so humorous, so humane, so tolerant and cranky and wise, so filled with bizarre knowledge and so rich in absurd and touching anecdotes, that an hour in his company is a stimulant to the soul."|author=Philip Pullman|title="Reasons to be cheerful"|source=<i>The Telegraph</i>}}
Pullman has cited it as his favorite book on other occasions and lives near Burton's hometown of [[Oxford]].<ref name=":8">Pullman, Philip (31 August 2008). "Author lists his favorite books". ''[[Oxford Mail]]''.</ref> He claims that "Burton's humanity blows like a gale," saying "his very language sparkles" as he describes medical treatments and scenes from history.<ref name=":7" /> It's listed among the books that influenced his own writing, such as his trilogy ''[[His Dark Materials]].<ref name=":8" />'' 
{{Quote|text="Is the book in any sense a cure for melancholy? Our word "depression" has always seemed to me far too [[genteel]], too decorous for this savage and merciless torment. Anything that can palliate it is worth knowing; and certainly no disorder has ever had so rich, so funny, so subtle and so eccentric an anatomy. We can learn much from his psychology."|author=Philip Pullman|title="Reasons to be cheerful"|source=<i>The Telegraph</i>}}