The Anatomy of Melancholy

1621

Robert Burton (1577–1640)

The great English scholar, raconteur, and coffee enthusiast Samuel Johnson once remarked that Robert Burton’s treatise on melancholy was the only book he ever wanted to get up early to read. Its author was an Oxford don, given to a life of quiet scholarship. Apart from some early poetry and drama, Burton’s life was devoted to The Anatomy of Melancholy; originally published in 1621, it appeared in six editions. Burton was an acute observer of life in early seventeenth-century England, when it was fashionable to be melancholic, and he personally struggled with his own sense of despair.

The Anatomy of Melancholy is important because it allows us to look both backward and forward. Burton drew upon the learning of the ancients. He cites Aristotle and employs the Humoral Theory of Hippocrates and Galen, which posits that melancholy is a function of an excess of black bile. He also relies on almost every possible source of his time, including philosophy, alchemy, and literature. In addition, the book points to the future, when melancholy was perceived as a mark of creativity and genius, as well as to our modern period, when classification of mental disorders became important and discussion of gender differences became common.

Even today, the book raises questions about the nature of melancholy. Are we to understand that melancholy is the older word for “depression”? Is depression only biological, or must we consider how cultural context shapes our understanding and expression of mood?

SEE ALSO Humoral Theory (c. 160 CE), American Classification of Mental Disorders (1918), Antidepressant Medications (1957)

Melencolia I by German Renaissance painter Albrecht Dürer, 1514. Melancholia is depicted here as native to the artistic temperament.