![Robert Burton by Gilbert Jackson](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Robert_Burton_by_Gilbert_Jackson.jpg)
Robert Burton (8 February 1577 – 25 January 1640) was an English author and fellow of
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
, who wrote the encyclopedic tome ''
The Anatomy of Melancholy
''The Anatomy of Melancholy'' (full title: ''The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Ph ...
''.
Born in 1577 to a comfortably well-off family of the
landed gentry, Burton attended two grammar schools and matriculated into
Brasenose College, Oxford in 1593, age 15. Burton's education at Oxford was unusually lengthy, possibly drawn out by an affliction of
melancholy, and saw an early transfer to
Christ Church. Burton received an MA and BD, and by 1607 was qualified as a tutor. As early as 1603, Burton indulged his early literary creations at Oxford, including some Latin poems, a now-lost play performed before and panned by
King James I
James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until hi ...
himself, and his only surviving play: an academic satire called ''
Philosophaster''. This work, though less well regarded than Burton's masterpiece, has "received more attention than most of the other surviving examples of university drama".
Sometime after obtaining his MA in 1605, Burton made some attempts to leave the university. Though he never fully succeeded, he managed to obtain the
living
Living or The Living may refer to:
Common meanings
*Life, a condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms
** Living species, one that is not extinct
*Personal life, the course of an individual human's life
* ...
of
St Thomas the Martyr's Church, Oxford
St Thomas the Martyr Church is a Church of England parish church of the Anglo-Catholic tradition, in Oxford, England, near Oxford railway station in Osney. It is located between Becket Street to the west and Hollybush Row to the east, with St Th ...
through the university, and external patronage for the
benefice of
Walesby and the
rectorship of
Seagrave
Seagrave is a village and civil parish in the Charnwood district of Leicestershire, England. It has a population of around 500, measured at the 2011 census as 546, It is north of Sileby and close to Thrussington and Barrow upon Soar.
Histo ...
. As a fellow of Oxford, he served in many minor administrative roles and as the librarian of
Christ Church Library
Christ Church Library is a Georgian building that forms the south side of Peckwater Quadrangle in Christ Church, Oxford, England. To the east is Canterbury Quadrangle. The library houses the college's modern lending library and early printed b ...
, from 1624 until his death. Over time he came to accept his "sequestered" existence in the libraries of Oxford, speaking highly of his alma mater throughout the ''Anatomy''.
Burton's most famous work and greatest achievement was ''The Anatomy of Melancholy''. First published in 1621, it was reprinted with additions from Burton no fewer than five times. A digressive and labyrinthine work, Burton wrote as much to alleviate his own melancholy as to help others. The final edition totalled more than 500,000 words. The book is permeated by quotations from and paraphrases of many authorities, both classical and contemporary, the culmination of a lifetime of erudition.
Burton died in 1640. His large personal library was divided between
the Bodleian and Christ Church. The ''Anatomy'' was perused and plagiarised by many authors during his lifetime and after his death, but entered a lull in popularity through the 18th century. It was only the revelation of
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768), was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric who wrote the novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' and '' A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy'', publishe ...
's plagiarism that revived interest in Burton's work into the 19th century, especially among the
Romantics
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
. The ''Anatomy'' received more academic attention in the 20th and 21st centuries. Whatever his popularity, Burton has always attracted distinguished readers, including
Samuel Johnson,
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
,
John Keats,
William Osler
Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet, (; July 12, 1849 – December 29, 1919) was a Canadian physician and one of the "Big Four" founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of phys ...
, and
Samuel Beckett.
Early life and education
Family and grammar school
![Burton family house, Lindley, from William Burton's Description of Leicestershire](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Burton_family_house%2C_Lindley%2C_from_William_Burton%27s_Description_of_Leicestershire.jpg)
Robert Burton was born on 8 February 1577, to Ralph Burton (1547–1619) and his wife, Dorothy (; 1560–1629), in
Lindley,
Leicestershire. Burton believed himself to have been conceived on 9 PM on 25 May 1576, a time he often used in his astrological calculations. He was the second of four sons and fourth of ten children; his elder brother,
William
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
, is the only member of the family for whom we know more than minor biographical details, as he later became a noted antiquarian and topographer. Both his parents' families were members of the
landed gentry, with the Burtons from an old, if undistinguished, pedigree. Robert may have inherited his medical interest; in the ''Anatomy'', he writes of his mother's "excellent skill in
chirurgery". William states a member of their mother's family, Anthony Faunt, was said to have died from "the passion of melancholy", and speaks fondly the family's maternal relation to
Arthur Faunt, a Jesuit controversialist and uncle to William and Robert.
Burton probably attended two grammar schools, the
King Edward VI Grammar School,
Nuneaton and
Bishop Vesey's Grammar School
Bishop Vesey's Grammar School (BVGS) is a selective state grammar school with academy status in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands. Founded in 1527, it is one of the oldest schools in Britain, the oldest state school in the West Midlands and th ...
,
Sutton Coldfield. Burton wrote in the ''Anatomy'' that students "think no slavery in the world (as once I did myself) like to that of a Grammar Scholar", which some writers have taken as suggestion that he was an unhappy schoolboy. More modern biographers, such as R. L. Nochimson and Michael O'Connell, have regarded it as Burton merely presenting what was a popular sentiment, rather than hinting at any personal dislike or source of childhood melancholy.
Oxford education
![John Bancroft with a View of Cuddesdon Rectory, 17th century, University College](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/John_Bancroft_with_a_View_of_Cuddesdon_Rectory%2C_17th_century%2C_University_College.jpg)
In July 1593, aged 15, Burton
matriculated
Matriculation is the formal process of entering a university, or of becoming eligible to enter by fulfilling certain academic requirements such as a matriculation examination.
Australia
In Australia, the term "matriculation" is seldom used now. ...
into
Brasenose College
Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The library and chapel were added in the m ...
,
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, where his elder brother was already attending. Burton did not receive his Bachelor's until 30 June 1602, and only after he migrated to Christ Church College in 1599. For the time between his matriculation and his transfer, almost nothing is known of Burton. According to
Anthony à Wood
Anthony Wood (17 December 1632 – 28 November 1695), who styled himself Anthony à Wood in his later writings, was an English antiquary. He was responsible for a celebrated ''Hist. and Antiq. of the Universitie of Oxon''.
Early life
Anthony W ...
, Burton "made considerable progress in logic and philosophy" at Brasenose, though the college left an impression sufficiently weak that Burton himself made no mention of Brasenose in his corpus. Most Oxford students would have completed their education at nineteen, but by 1602, Burton was twenty-six. Some biographers, such as Michael O'Connell and
J. B. Bamborough, have cited this as evidence Burton suffered some lengthy illness while a student, possibly melancholy. Record has been found of one "Robart Burton of 20 yeres", a patient of London doctor and astrologist
Simon Forman
Simon Forman (31 December 1552 – 5 or 12 September 1611) was an Elizabethan astrologer, occultist and herbalist active in London during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and James I of England. His reputation, however, was severely tarnishe ...
, who was treated for melancholy over a period of five months in 1597. "Robart Burton"'s connection to the scholar Burton is suggested not only by the "coincidence of name and age", but by Burton's later familiarity towards London, and the indication he was closely acquainted with Foreman from Burton's astrological notebooks.
When he entered Christ Church in 1599, Wood reports Burton was assigned the tutor of
John Bancroft, "for form sake, tho' he wanted not a tutor"; though Bancroft was only three years his senior, he was six or seven years ahead of Burton in his studies, and was well-connected within the church, later becoming the
Bishop of Oxford
The Bishop of Oxford is the diocesan bishop of the Church of England Diocese of Oxford in the Province of Canterbury; his seat is at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. The current bishop is Steven Croft, following the confirmation of his elect ...
. It seems some friendship developed between the two; Burton praised Bancroft's construction at
Cuddesdon
Cuddesdon is a mainly rural village in South Oxfordshire centred ESE of Oxford. It has the largest Church of England clergy training centre, Ripon College Cuddesdon. Residents number approximately 430 in Cuddesdon's nucleated village centre a ...
in the ''Anatomy'', implying he was a frequent visitor. At Christ Church, Burton proceeded to an MA on 9 June 1605, and a BD in May 1614. Simultaneously, Burton rose through the college ranks, attaining ''disciplus'' in 1599, ''philosophus secundi vicenarii'' in 1603, and ''philosophus primi vicenarii'' in 1607, the last of which qualified him as a tutor. Sometime after he obtained his MA, Bamborough considers it likely Burton was attempting to leave the university. The college statutes required Burton to take a BD after his MA, and Burton chose not to proceed to DD.
Early writings and plays
While at Oxford, Burton indulged his literary interests alongside these academic ones. In 1603, on the
accession of James I, Burton contributed a short Latin verse celebrating the event to a commemorative Oxford volume; he made similar offering of twenty-one poems upon James's royal Oxford visit in 1605. On this visit, Burton took active part in the "praeparation for the Kinges cominge", including a play he composed for the occasion. This play, since lost, has been identified with ''Alba'', a pastoral comedy with a mythological subject matter, probably written in Latin. The play was performed before James I on 27 August 1605. According to a witness of the events, Philip Stringer, Burton's play was poorly received by James and his court. The
queen consort and her
ladies
The word ''lady'' is a term for a girl or woman, with various connotations. Once used to describe only women of a high social class or status, the equivalent of lord, now it may refer to any adult woman, as gentleman can be used for men. Inform ...
took offence at several "almost naked" male actors, probably portraying
satyrs
In Greek mythology, a satyr ( grc-gre, σάτυρος, sátyros, ), also known as a silenus or ''silenos'' ( grc-gre, σειληνός ), is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exag ...
, and the king was so displeased by the production that the
chancellors of both Oxford and
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...
had to plead for him to stay, as otherwise he "would have gone before half the Comedy had been ended".
However Burton reacted to this royal pan, he was already at work on another play by 1606. This play, ''Philosophaster''—which is fully extant across three manuscripts—was finished by 1615, by which time Burton was revising and correcting it. Burton speaks briefly of ''Philosophaster'' in the ''Anatomy'', mentioning that it was performed at Christ Church on 16 February 1617, during the
Shrovetide
Shrovetide, also known as the Pre-Lenten Season or Forelent, is the Christian period of preparation before the beginning of the liturgical season of Lent.
Shrovetide starts on Septuagesima Sunday, includes Sexagesima Sunday, Quinquagesima S ...
festivities. The play was acted by the students alongside three local townsmen. Burton likely took a view towards pleasing the administration in this production. The play cast the son of
John King, then
Dean of Christ Church
The Dean of Christ Church is the dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford and head of the governing body of Christ Church, a constituent college of the University of Oxford. The cathedral is the mother church of the Church of England Diocese o ...
, in a leading role, and departed from ''Alba'' controversial mythological themes for the less contentious ones of an academic satire.
Appointments and the ''Anatomy''
Offices at St Thomas's, Walesby, and Seagrave
![South porch date stone at St Thomas the Martyr's Church, Oxford](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/South_porch_date_stone_at_St_Thomas_the_Martyr%27s_Church%2C_Oxford.jpg)
Burton initially struggled to find any patrons for promotion out of the university, but after some time, he managed to obtain an ecclesiastical office in the
living
Living or The Living may refer to:
Common meanings
*Life, a condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms
** Living species, one that is not extinct
*Personal life, the course of an individual human's life
* ...
of
St Thomas the Martyr's Church, Oxford
St Thomas the Martyr Church is a Church of England parish church of the Anglo-Catholic tradition, in Oxford, England, near Oxford railway station in Osney. It is located between Becket Street to the west and Hollybush Row to the east, with St Th ...
, located in the western suburb of Oxford. He was nominated to this by the
dean and chapter of Christ Church on 29 November 1616. He was licensed to preach on 3 December 1618. Burton held this vicarage at St Thomas's, until his death; he was responsible for the building or rebuilding of the church's south porch in 1621, where his arms were placed on the gable.
In 1624, Lady
Frances Cecil, dowager Countess of Exeter presented Burton to the
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...
benefice of
Walesby. Burton was perhaps the tutor of Frances' son, Robert Smith. Burton chose not to reside in Walesby, though he probably visited it at some point. He took little interest in the daily affairs of the parish—all the parish records were signed by his curate, Thomas Benson—but did win for it nine acres of land which had been taken by Frances's predecessor. Burton resigned from this post in 1631. In the 1632 edition of the ''Anatomy'', appended below a mention of his Walesby appointment, Burton tersely added: "Lately resigned for some special reasons". After his resignation, Lady Frances temporarily turned over the duty to appoint Burton's successor to her friend, the
first Earl of Middlesex, suggesting that Burton resigned over Middlesex's pressure to appoint his own favourite.
In 1632, shortly after this resignation from Walesby, Burton was presented to a much more valuable office by his patron,
Lord Berkeley: the
rectorship of
Seagrave
Seagrave is a village and civil parish in the Charnwood district of Leicestershire, England. It has a population of around 500, measured at the 2011 census as 546, It is north of Sileby and close to Thrussington and Barrow upon Soar.
Histo ...
. Berkeley had been a patron of Burton since at least 1621, when Burton dedicated the ''Anatomy'' to Lord Berkeley. Their relationship may have begun even earlier, in 1619, when Berkeley matriculated from Christ Church, and perhaps entered the tutelage of Burton. In any case, on 3 September 1624, Lord Berkeley granted Burton the advowson (i.e. the right to decide the next occupant) of the wealthy living of Seagrave. This right necessitated that the holder of the advowson pick a candidate other than himself, but three days later Burton assigned three of his family members to this position, so he could procure his own future appointment. On 15 June 1632, promptly after the previous incumbent was buried, the relatives presented him to the office. Burton did not cultivate much of a reputation as a preacher while at Seagrave, choosing not to publish any of his sermons, but discharged the pastoral and charitable roles of the rectory dutifully and punctually. Burton probably visited Lindley often while at Seagrave, as the villages were only 20 miles apart. The office was the most valuable Burton ever held; in 1650, the rectory was valued at £100.
University life
Other than that afforded to him by the Countess of Exeter and Lord Berkeley, Burton received little preferment. Because of this, even as he received appointments outside the university, Burton remained an Oxford student for the rest of his life. Burton seems to have been, at first, unhappy with this situation; in the 1621 edition of the ''Anatomy'', Burton wrote that his "hopes were still frustrate, and I left behind, as a Dolphin on shore, confined to my Colledge, as
Diogenes
Diogenes ( ; grc, Διογένης, Diogénēs ), also known as Diogenes the Cynic (, ) or Diogenes of Sinope, was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynicism (philosophy). He was born in Sinope, an Ionian colony on the Black Sea ...
to his tubbe". This exasperation seems to have been passing; by the ''Anatomy'' final edition, he had revised the passage in praise of his "monastick life
..sequestered from those tumults & troubles of the world", unindebted for his lack of preferment. Bamborough has gone as far as to claim it is unlikely Burton ever truly wanted to leave the college he spoke so highly of, as the "most flourishing College of Europe", one which "can brag with
Jovius
Paolo Giovio (also spelled ''Paulo Jovio''; Latin: ''Paulus Jovius''; 19 April 1483 – 11 December 1552) was an Italian physician, historian, biographer, and prelate.
Early life
Little is known about Giovio's youth. He was a native of Com ...
, almost, in that splendor of
Vaticanish retirement, confined to the company of the distinguished". The 1602 reopening of the
Bodleian Library at Oxford, which by 1620 held over 16,000 volumes, gave some truth to Burton's proud comparison of the scholarship at Oxford to that of Jovius's Vatican.
Burton did not spend all his time in this "Vaticanish retirement" as a scholar. He held various minor offices in Oxford. On three occasions–in 1615, 1617, and 1618–Burton was chosen to be the clerk of the Market, one of two MA students tasked with regulating the various goods of Oxford's markets. Now a
sinecure, the office was an important institution in Burton's time. This occupation has been cited by two biographers, O'Connell and Nochimson, to suggest, contrary to the bookish image given by his ''Anatomy'', Burton had some knowledge of the day-to-day affairs of Oxford. Perhaps closer befitting his image, on 27 August 1624, Burton became the librarian of
Christ Church Library
Christ Church Library is a Georgian building that forms the south side of Peckwater Quadrangle in Christ Church, Oxford, England. To the east is Canterbury Quadrangle. The library houses the college's modern lending library and early printed b ...
. The office was a recent creation—the first librarian was appointed in 1599, and library had been founded only a half-century earlier—but a recent donation by an
Otho Nicholson had ensured it was a profitable one, tripling the incumbent's wages to 10s a term. The duties, however, were sparse—limited to enforcing the loose regulations of the institution, and opening and closing it at the appropriate times—probably allowing Burton more than enough time to accumulate the erudition exhibited in the ''Anatomy''. Burton held this position until his death. In 1635, painter
Gilbert Jackson
Gilbert Jackson (c.1595/1600 – after 1648) was an English portrait painter active ca. 1621–1640s.
Never associated with the court, Jackson primarily painted portraits of provincial gentry and members of the professions. His work period is ...
produced an oil portrait of Burton; this painting is now held at Brasenose College.
Publication of the ''Anatomy''
Whatever other activities he engaged in, composing the ''Anatomy'' was the most important pursuit and accomplishment of Burton's life. Burton, as he claims in the preface, was "as desirous to suppress my labours in this kind, as others have been to press and publish theirs", but admits that melancholy is the subject upon which he is "fatally driven", and so he was compelled to compose the work. Burton left no record of when he began his work on the ''Anatomy''. O'Connell speculates the project grew piecemeal, with research begun in his twenties, and the work well on its way by his thirties. Burton explicitly states that the study of melancholy was a lifelong fascination of his, and regularly "deducted from the main channel of my studies". However long the work took, he had certainly concluded it by 5 December 1620, aged 43, when he signed the "Conclusion to the Reader".
![Portrait of Democritus Junior in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 1628, 2nd edition](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Portrait_of_Democritus_Junior_in_Burton%27s_Anatomy_of_Melancholy%2C_1628%2C_2nd_edition.jpg)
The book was printed in 1621 and, despite Burton's indication in the ''Anatomy'' of troubles finding a publisher, it quickly sold well. Wood wrote that the publisher, Henry Cripps, made such a "great profit" off the book that he "got an estate by it". Burton's subject was well chosen; similar treatises by
Timothie Bright and
Thomas Wright had gone through several editions soon after their publication. Though Burton never divulged the extent of his profits, the size of his estate and library at death suggests they were considerable. Burton printed the Anatomy under the pseudonym of "Democritus Junior", alluding to the Greek pre-Socratic philosopher,
Democritus
Democritus (; el, Δημόκριτος, ''Dēmókritos'', meaning "chosen of the people"; – ) was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from Abdera, primarily remembered today for his formulation of an atomic theory of the universe. No ...
, sometimes known as
the Laughing Philosopher. The use of an established classical figure in a pseudonym was common practice in Burton's time, used to ensure the reader held no negative preconceptions about the author. Burton did not resolutely stick to this pseudonymity; the first edition betrayed it as he signed the "Conclusion to the Reader" with his real name, and though this was removed in later editions, the portrait of Burton added from the third edition onwards hardly preserved his anonymity.
Burton did not rest on his laurels after the first printing, continually editing and improving the work throughout his life. The first edition of Burton's ''Anatomy'' was, with marginalia, over 350,000 words long; by his final edition this count came to over 500,000. The additions were largest for the second and third editions; the original
quarto
Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produc ...
volume had to be expanded to a
folio
The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...
for the second edition (1624) to accommodate the expansions. For the third edition (1628), an allegorical frontispiece was added, engraved by Christian Le Blon, with a portrait of Burton atop his moniker "Democritus Junior". After these two additions, Burton vowed: "
o not do too much I will not hereafter add, alter, or retract; I have done." However, once again, Burton returned to the ''Anatomy'', producing two more editions in 1634 and 1638. Shortly before his death in 1640, Burton entrusted an annotated copy of the ''Anatomy'' to his publisher, which was published posthumously in 1651. In total, Burton made contributions to six editions. Two more reprints of the ''Anatomy'' were made before the end of the century.
Death
![Robert Burton, Christ Church Cathedral, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the City of Oxford](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Robert_Burton%2C_Christ_Church_Cathedral%2C_An_Inventory_of_the_Historical_Monuments_in_the_City_of_Oxford.jpg)
Burton drew up his will on 15 August 1639. Five months later, aged 62 and on 25 January 1640, he was dead. The will divided his inherited estates up amongst his elder brother, William, and William's heirs. Outside of his family, his largest bequests went, unsurprisingly, to the Bodleian and Christ Church libraries, with gifts of £100 each, and Burton's large library split between the institutions. He also laid out several smaller monetary donations: those to his servants; the servants at Christ Church; the poor in Seagrave, Nuneaton, and
Higham; the library at Brasenose; and various friends and colleagues, including John Bancroft. Burton was buried in the north aisle of
Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, on 27 January. William erected a monument to Robert Burton in the cathedral: a coloured effigy of Robert, flanked by an astrological representation of his nativity and geometric instruments, with a short Latin epitaph below, said to have been composed by Burton.
Writing near the close of the 17th century,
John Aubrey
John Aubrey (12 March 1626 – 7 June 1697) was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the '' Brief Lives'', his collection of short biographical pieces. He was a pioneer archaeologist ...
records a rumour circulated among Oxford students, asserting that Burton took his own life. Writing around the same time, in an early biography of Burton, Wood added that Burton was supposed to have done this so his date of death would fit his exact astrological calculations. This rumour is dubious, and has been largely rejected by biographers as far back as Wood. Angus Gowland, in his 2006 study of Burton, is among the few who take the allegation seriously, though he admits it is "no more than a melancholy rumour". Burton rejected the endorsements of suicide by classical authors in the ''Anatomy'', and if the rumours were taken to have any veracity after his death, Burton would not have been buried in Christ Church cathedral. Gowland counters this evidence, citing the charity shown by Burton in the ''Anatomy'' for those tempted by suicide, and conjecturing a conspiracy of the "notoriously close-knit College" to keep Burton's suicide secret.
''The Anatomy of Melancholy''
![Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 1626, 2nd edition](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Robert_Burton%27s_Anatomy_of_Melancholy%2C_1626%2C_2nd_edition.jpg)
Though Burton wrote elsewhere, Bamborough regards Burton's one truly great work as ''
The Anatomy of Melancholy
''The Anatomy of Melancholy'' (full title: ''The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Ph ...
''. Ostensibly a three-part treatise on
depression and its treatment, the book consists of quotations from, paraphrases of and commentary on numerous authors, from many fields of learning, and ranging from classical times to his contemporaries, in a "tangled web of opinion and authority". According to Wood, Burton was apparently famed at Oxford employing this prose style in his speech, effortlessly recalling passages as he spoke. The ''Anatomy'' is digressive and confusing in its structure; Burton himself apologetically admitted to "bring
ngforth this confused lump", excusing himself over a shortage of time. Over the five editions, he did little to amend this confusion, preferring to append more to the labyrinthine text. The book is the fruit of a lifetime's worth of learning, though Burton emphasised in the ''Anatomy'' that erudition is ultimately pointless, and that it is perhaps better to remain ignorant.
Burton wrote ''The Anatomy of Melancholy'' largely to write himself out of being a lifelong sufferer from depression. As he described his condition in the preface "Democritus Junior to the Reader", "a kind of imposthume in my head, which I was very desirous to be unladen of and could imagine no fitter evacuation than this ... I write of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy. There is no greater cause of melancholy than idleness, no better cure than business". In his view, melancholy was "a disease so frequent ... in our miserable times, as few there are that feele not the smart of it", and he said he compiled his book "to prescribe means how to prevent and cure so universall a malady, an Epidemicall disease, that so often, so much crucifies the body and mind". For Burton, "melancholy" describes a range of mental abnormalities, from obsession to delusion to what we would now call
clinical depression
Major depressive disorder (MDD), also known as clinical depression, is a mental disorder characterized by at least two weeks of pervasive low mood, low self-esteem, and loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities. Intro ...
. Burton at once gives a multitude of remedies for melancholy, and warns they are all ultimately useless, in characteristic self-contradiction.
''Philosophaster''
![Robert Burton, Philosophaster, 1617, MS Thr 10, front page](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Robert_Burton%2C_Philosophaster%2C_1617%2C_MS_Thr_10%2C_front_page.jpg)
''Philosophaster'' is a play, satirising on the 17th-century university, composed in Latin during Burton's time as an Oxford student. The plot of ''Philosophaster'' follows the university of
Osuna
Osuna () is a town and municipality in the province of Seville, southern Spain, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. , it has a population of c. 17,800. It is the location of the Andalusian Social Economy School.
Among famous people associ ...
in
Andalusia
Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The t ...
, recently founded by one Desiderius, Duke of Osuna, in hope of attracting scholars. However, the university actually attracts a crowd of
philosophasters—pseudo-philosophers,
Jesuits
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders = ...
, 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".
As Connie McQuillen has put it, the distinguishing quality ''Philosophaster'' is the "patchwork of borrowings" with which it was written. Stylistically, ''Philosophaster'' is declared on the title page to be a ''Comoedia Nova'' (or
New Comedy
Ancient Greek comedy was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece (the others being tragedy and the satyr play). Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods: Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, an ...
) a satirical genre Kathryn Murphy describes as "in the tradition of
Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus (; c. 254 – 184 BC), commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the ...
and
Terence
Publius Terentius Afer (; – ), better known in English as Terence (), was a Roman African playwright during the Roman Republic. His comedies were performed for the first time around 166–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought ...
." 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. Burton also borrows episodes from contemporary academic satires—dealing with the perennial feuds between
town and gown
Town and gown are two distinct communities of a university town; 'town' being the non-academic population and 'gown' metonymically being the university community, especially in ancient seats of learning such as Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, and St ...
, the distinction between "true" and "false" scholars, the ridicule of pedants—and characters from humanist satirists, chiefly
Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' w ...
and
Giovanni Pontano
Giovanni Pontano (1426–1503), later known as Giovanni Gioviano ( la, Ioannes Iovianus Pontanus), was a humanist and poet from Cerreto di Spoleto, in central Italy. He was the leading figure of the Accademia Pontaniana after the death of Antonio ...
. The play's depiction of alchemy bears some passing resemblance to
Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...
's play ''
The Alchemist
An alchemist is a person who practices alchemy.
Alchemist or Alchemyst may also refer to:
Books and stories
* ''The Alchemist'' (novel), the translated title of a 1988 allegorical novel by Paulo Coelho
* ''The Alchemist'' (play), a play by Be ...
'', 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.
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. Angus Gowland, describing the University of Osuna as a "thinly disguised Oxford", asserts that "the purpose of the play was to ridicule contemporary scholarship and provoke reform", in anticipation of the ''Anatomy'' satirical themes. 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". 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. However, critic Kathryn Murphy has pointed out that ''Philosophaster'' contains a significant, and often underappreciated, undercurrent of anti-Catholicism. Burton's philosophasters are joined by the representatives of Roman Catholicism, including
scholastics
Scholasticism was a medieval school of philosophy that employed a critical organic method of philosophical analysis predicated upon the Aristotelian 10 Categories. Christian scholasticism emerged within the monastic schools that translate ...
and Jesuits, in their mockery of philosophy and the university. Murphy has suggested these themes reflect the pervading cultural influence of the
Gunpowder Plot
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby who sough ...
in Burton's lifetime, which took place a year before the play was set.
Personal life
Character
Despite his eccentric portrayals as such by some later Romantic authors, there is "no evidence that Burton was a recluse, and testimony that he had some real practical interests", Bamborough emphasises. He was no doubt an active part in the non-academic daily life of Oxford, through his university-appointed roles in its church and market life, and Bamborough adds that in his day he "was known as a mathematician and as both an astrologer and an astronomer, and even had some reputation as a surveyor". Wood also notes that Burton's unsurpassed skill at including "verses from the poets or sentences from classical authors" in his everyday speech, "then all the fashion in the university", allowed him some popularity. However, Burton's "most significant occupations during his life were reading and writing", and his large library is evidence enough of this prodigious bookishness.
Of his character, Wood wrote:
Religious views
Gowland has suggested the Burton family had some Catholic sympathies, because of their close relation to Jesuit
Arthur Faunt. Faunt's godson and Burton's brother, William, spoke admiringly of Faunt as "a man of great learning, gravity and wisdome"; William was a vigorous supporter of
Laudian
Laudianism was an early seventeenth-century reform movement within the Church of England, promulgated by Archbishop William Laud and his supporters. It rejected the predestination upheld by the previously dominant Calvinism in favour of free will, ...
reforms in his home county, siding with
High Church
The term ''high church'' refers to beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, liturgy, and theology that emphasize formality and resistance to modernisation. Although used in connection with various Christian traditions, the term originate ...
Anglicanism, which was sometimes seen as Catholic-sympathising and at St Thomas's, Burton was apparently one of the last few 17th-century Church of England priests to use unleavened wafers in the Communion, an outmoded Laudian practice. However, as an Oxford scholar, Burton could have taken a personal dislike to
Archbishop Laud
William Laud (; 7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Charles I's religious reforms, he was arrested by Parliament in 16 ...
; as the
Chancellor there from 1630 to 1641, Laud was in perpetual squabbles with its body of scholars, which would not endear him to Burton.
Burton was an apparent supporter of James I's anti-Catholic measures, listed among those at Christ Church who took his
Oath of Allegiance. The anti-Catholic portions of ''Philosophaster'' were revised shortly after James released the Oath, possibly to satirise the ensuing Catholic backlash. As Adam Kitzes put it, Burton "makes no bones about his allegiance to the king and the Church of England". Burton also claimed part of his reasoning in not proceeding to a DD (Doctor of Divinity) was his reluctance to participate in the endless argument surrounding religion, for which he "saw no such great neede".
Library
According to Bamborough, "to describe Burton as 'bookish' can only be called ridiculous understatement". Burton owned 1738 books in total, tenfold the library of a typical Oxford don, though not as vast as those of some other contemporary humanist scholars. He accumulated the collection over a forty-six year period, from 1594 to 1640. The profits from the ''Anatomy'' probably funded most of the library, larger than his modest academic and ecclesiastical income would have been able to cover. The majority of the library's contents was in Latin, but the number of English volumes was untypically large. Burton seems to have been uncomfortable reading outside these two primary languages; he owned only a handful of titles in Italian, German, Spanish, and
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
, and none in
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, the last despite his humanist reputation and the recurring Grecian references in the ''Anatomy''. Again despite this reputation, the majority of Burton's library was contemporary. He owned hundreds of cheap pamphlets, satires, and popular plays: all works which had been excluded from the recently founded Bodleian Library, perhaps why Burton felt the need to purchase them. Though religious works composed the largest category in his library (about one quarter), the remaining three quarters were made up by an eclectic collection of literary, historical, medical, and geographical volumes, testifying to Burton's broad scholarship. Burton was an avid annotator of books, with marginal notes in around one-fifth of his books, from the tangential to the bluntly hostile.
Burton's library was divided between the Bodleian and Christ Church libraries after his death. In the early 20th century, Oxford
Regius Professor of Medicine William Osler
Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet, (; July 12, 1849 – December 29, 1919) was a Canadian physician and one of the "Big Four" founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of phys ...
, an enthusiast for Burton, found Burton's bequests "scattered indiscriminately" throughout the two libraries, and, from 1907 to 1908, set about having them gathered together in one collection, rediscovering over a thousand of Burton's volumes. In Christ Church Library, Osler set up an elaborate display of these books surrounding a copy of the Brasenose Portrait of Burton. Osler delivered an address on the contents of Burton's library the following year. In 1964, Christ Church Library disassembled Osler's Burton collection, moving the books to the Archiva Superiora on the second floor. This collection comprises 1530 of the 1738 books and two manuscripts owned by Burton. The remaining 210 were distributed to either various acquaintances of Burton; gifted or traded to other libraries or bookshops; or by selling duplicates, some of which are unrecorded. Of the 140 books yet to be located, it is thought that around half of these are extant. Christ Church Library has referred to Burton's library as "one of the most important surviving English private libraries from the period before the Civil War".
Reputation and legacy
Burton's ''Anatomy'' was an extremely popular work in Burton's lifetime, and throughout the 17th century, going through eight editions from 1621 to 1676, as its readers interpreted and employed it to varied, personal ends. Wood wrote that the ''Anatomy'', as "a Book so full of variety of reading", prompted hack authors to borrow shamelessly from the work. Some authors, "who have lost their time and are put to a push for invention" poached his numerous classical quotations, in a show of erudition. In the 18th century,
George Steevens
George Steevens (10 May 1736 – 22 January 1800) was an English Shakespearean commentator.
Biography Early life
He was born at Poplar, the son of a captain and later director of the East India Company. He was educated at Eton College and at ...
retrospectively noted it as "a book once the favourite of the learned and witty, and a source of surreptitious learning". Certainly, scholars copied and emulated the ''Anatomy'' to their own ends:
William Vaughan repurposed Burton's critique of court patronage towards an
anti-Catholic
Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics or opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and/or its adherents. At various points after the Reformation, some majority Protestant states, including England, Prussia, Scotland, and the Uni ...
end in ''The Golden Fleece'' (1626);
Nathanael Carpenter
Nathanael Carpenter (1589 – c. 1628) was an English author, philosopher, and geographer.
Life
He was son of John Carpenter, rector of Northleigh, Devon, and was born there on 7 February 1589.Alexander Chalmers, F.S.A., 1813, ''The General Bio ...
imitated Burton's intimate articulation of his own melancholy and defence of scholarship for his ''Geography delineated forth'' (1625); and
Richard Whitlock, in his ''Zootomia'' (1654), plagiarised Burton's defence of scholarship wholesale in defending the university from contemporary Puritan attacks. For the dramatists such as
John Ford
John Martin Feeney (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973), known professionally as John Ford, was an American film director and naval officer. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. He ...
, Burton's treatise "was virtually an authoritative psychiatric textbook", used as a reference work for their depictions of melancholy.
Richard Holdsworth, when Master of
Emmanuel College, Cambridge (1637–43), recommended it as a comprehensive digest to "serve for
hedelight and ornament" of young gentlemen, bestowing that learning expected of a gentleman rather than that of a serious scholar. The earliest biography of Burton appeared in 1662, as part of
Thomas Fuller
Thomas Fuller (baptised 19 June 1608 – 16 August 1661) was an English churchman and historian. He is now remembered for his writings, particularly his ''Worthies of England'', published in 1662, after his death. He was a prolific author, and ...
's ''Worthies of England''; this was followed by Anthony à Wood in his 1692 volume of ''Athenae Oxonienses''.
![Samuel Johnson by Joshua Reynolds 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Samuel_Johnson_by_Joshua_Reynolds_2.jpg)
Into the 18th century, Burton experienced something of a lull in popularity. The ''Anatomy'' did still obtain a few distinguished readers in this period.
Samuel Johnson, himself a melancholic, was an avid reader of Burton;
Boswell's ''
Life of Johnson
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy tran ...
'' reports that Johnson remarked the ''Anatomy'' was "the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise". Though no American edition was published until 1836, Burton's work procured a few prominent readers in early America. One such reader was American Founding Father
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
, who marvelled to a friend "that, in the last Century, a Folio, Burton on Melancholy, went through six Editions in about twenty years. We have, I believe, more Readers now, but not such huge Books." Burton's influence during this period was chiefly as reservoir of quotes and anecdotes for less sophisticated authors to borrow from. One such borrower was
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768), was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric who wrote the novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' and '' A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy'', publishe ...
, who shamelessly incorporated passages of Burton throughout his ''
Tristram Shandy Tristram may refer to:
Literature
* the title character of ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'', a novel by Laurence Sterne
* the title character of '' Tristram of Lyonesse'', an epic poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
*"Tristr ...
'' (1759), an act of plagiarism which was not revealed for nearly thirty years, until the publication of
John Ferriar
John Ferriar (1761 – 4 February 1815), was a Scottish physician and a poet, most noted for his leadership of the Manchester Infirmary, and his studies of the causes of diseases such as typhoid.
Background
Ferriar was born near Jedburgh, R ...
's ''Illustrations of Sterne'' (1798).
After Ferriar made this influence known, Burton and his work experienced a revival of interest. A new edition, the first in over a century, was published in 1800; more than forty were published throughout the 19th century. The
Romantics
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
, especially
Charles Lamb
Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 – 27 December 1834) was an English essayist, poet, and antiquarian, best known for his '' Essays of Elia'' and for the children's book '' Tales from Shakespeare'', co-authored with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764 ...
and
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake ...
, admired the work as an erudite curiosity. Lamb illustrated Burton in his "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading" (1833) as "that fantastic great old man", creating the image of Burton as an eccentric and erudite academic which has since stuck, for whatever truth it possessed. The ''Anatomy'' was among
John Keats's favourite books, and was used as a major source for the plot of his poem "
Lamia
LaMia Corporation S.R.L., operating as LaMia (short for ''Línea Aérea Mérida Internacional de Aviación''), was a Bolivian charter airline headquartered in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, as an EcoJet subsidiary. It had its origins from the failed ...
" (1820). Burton's prose style wasn't universally appreciated, appearing pedantic and pretentious to some 19th-century critics. The Victorian poet and literary critic
T. E. Brown disparaged the ''Anatomy'' as "the sweepings of the medieval dustbin" or some "enormous labyrinthine joke".
![William Osler c1912](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/William_Osler_c1912.jpg)
Into the early 20th century, this romantic view transitioned into the more academic study of Burton's masterpiece. William Osler—widely regarded as the father of modern medicine—was a lifelong devotee of Burton and described the ''Anatomy'' as "the greatest medical treatise written by a layman". According to one scholar, "the revival of critical interest in ''The Anatomy of Melancholy'' owes not a little to Osler's direct influence". Following Osler's influence, Burtonian studies were primarily bibliographical in the early 20th century, with the exception of an influential essay by critic
Morris Croll on the "
Senecan style" in Burton's late Renaissance prose. By the middle of the 20th century, psychoanalytic critics of the ''Anatomy'' emerged, regarding Burton's masterpiece as a work of psychological autobiography. In ''The Psychiatry of Robert Burton'' (1944), for instance, critic
Bergen Evans
Bergen Baldwin Evans (September 19, 1904 – February 4, 1978) was a Northwestern University professor of English and a television host. He received a George Foster Peabody Award in 1957 for excellence in broadcasting for his CBS TV series ''The La ...
and psychiatrist
George Mohr combed the ''Anatomy'' for references to mothers in an attempt to reconstruct Burton's own relationship with his mother. This psychoanalytic tendency has been criticised by more modern biographers of Burton, especially by R. L. Nochimson, who dedicated an article to amending the "amazing carelessness" with which Burton's literary and real personae have been confused.
Stanley Fish
Stanley Eugene Fish (born April 19, 1938) is an American literary theorist, legal scholar, author and public intellectual. He is currently the Floersheimer Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo Sc ...
's 1972 monograph ''
Self-Consuming Artifacts'' inaugurated the
postmodern interpretation of Burton's ''Anatomy'', which alternatingly saw it as a satirical indictment of humanistic encyclopedism, or a desperate suppression of Burton's anxiety over the immensity of his subject matter. However, in total, Burton's ''Anatomy'' only accrued a small handful of monographs in the second half of the 20th century. The most detailed study of this period was a French monograph by
Jean Robert Simon, a fact which, according to one scholar, "speaks volumes about the marginalization of the ''Anatomy'' in Anglophone early modern studies
f that period"
Burton earned a new generation of enthusiasts in the 20th and 21st centuries. As journalist
Nick Lezard observed in 2000, though not often reprinted, "Robert Burton's ''Anatomy of Melancholy'' survives among the