The Anatomy of Melancholy - Robert Burton 1621
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Robert Burton's masterpiece The Anatomy of Melancholy.
In
1621 the priest and scholar Robert Burton published a book quite unlike
any other. The Anatomy of Melancholy brings together almost two
thousand years of scholarship, from Ancient Greek philosophy to
seventeenth-century medicine. Melancholy, a condition believed to be
caused by an imbalance of the body's four humours, was characterised by
despondency, depression and inactivity. Burton himself suffered from it,
and resolved to compile an authoritative work of scholarship on the
malady, drawing on all relevant sources.
Despite its subject
matter the Anatomy is an entertaining work, described by Samuel Johnson
as the only book 'that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he
wished to rise.' It also offers a fascinating insight into
seventeenth-century medical theory, and influenced many generations of
playwrights and poets.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010y30m
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anatomy_of_Melancholyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anatomy_of_Melancholy
