Burtonian Melancholy: Compartmentalization and the Loss of Liberty
Robert Burton (1577-1640) was a writer, a scholar and sufferer of melancholy. His famous work, The Anatomy of Melancholy, first published in 1621, describes an enormous collection of causes and cures for melancholy. An examination of the CRRS’s 1628 copy of Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy revealed marginalia which may point to one reader's engagement with the issue of increased incarceration of debtors (a cause for melancholy) in early modern England. At this time, credit was becoming an easily accessible and central aspect of early modern commerce. With increased credit came increased debt and prosecuted debtors.1 This system impacted Burton's family. In his will, he left 100 pounds to his imprisoned nephew, in order to pay his debt.2 Can the pound symbol markings beside the subsections on Loss of liberty, servitude, imprisonment, Poverty and want indicate a reader's engagement with the Early Modern systems of credit and debtors prison? These symbols begin about halfway through the book, then abruptly stop, despite the massive size of this text, perhaps meaning that these sections were significant to this reader.
Burton's Vision
In Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy (1628) he aims to compartmentalize all causes and cures of melancholy. For Burton, melancholy is emotional, spiritual, romantic. Its many causes include lovesickness, scholarly pursuits, religion, parentage, hypochondria, as pictured through their embodied forms on the frontispiece of the book. This definition represents the interaction of humanism and natural philosophy in Early Modern medicine. Burton's book is formatted to help readers and includes tree diagrams at the beginning of each part which delineate sections and subsections. At the back there is an index organized by subject. Burton critiques other books for being purposely obscure, an example of his anxiety around the loose constraints of print culture. Burton's use of spatial organization may have been influenced by the increase of scientific and mathematical books which appeared during the early modern scientific revolution. The extensive citations to various classics, the Bible, Chaucer and others supported Burton's adherence to strict academic rigour.
Returning the marginalia mentioned earlier, the loss of liberty is a predominant theme in Burton’s Anatomy, and may have first attracted this reader to the book. Burton compares his isolation in libraries to imprisonment and the result of valuing intellectual betterment above all else. He quotes King James who visited Oxford in 1605 and said, “ If I were not a king, I would be a university man and if it were so that I must be a prisoner, if I might have my wish, I would desire to have no other prison than that library, and to be chained together with so many good authors” and Heinsius, a keeper of a library in Holland who said, "I no sooner come into the library, but I bolt the door to me, excluding lust, ambition, avarice, and all such vices."3 While Burton agrees, he admits that his libraries at Oxford are not as idyllic, and includes reading and scholarly pursuits as causes of melancholy. As pictured below, Burton writes, "As already, we shall have a vast chaos and confusion of Bookes. We are oppressed with them, our eyes ake with reading, our fingers with turning. For my part I am one of the number." (1628 p. 8) He continues this section writing that his sources of research come from others, and boasts about his use of citations and quotations, a practice that “illiterate scribblers” do not uphold. He compares his time in libraries to imprisonment, and the cost of valuing his intellectual career over other pastimes.4 The most dramatic alteration to the book are two burn holes on pages 528-529, which have been carefully put out with little damage to the entire volume, a mark that indicates a reader's frantic care to put out the flame, and perhaps feeling the 'oppression by books.'
The Early Modern Prison Experience
The experience of early modern prisons has been parsed through published prison writings. Many imprisoned debtors were literate, and would publish pamphlets. Prison guards paid for their positions, expecting to increase their investment from prisoners’ bribes to smuggle goods (and writing) in and out.5 While in prison, debtors had to either settle their case with their creditor, or find sympathy among someone else willing to pay or loan them money to pay their debts. These tasks could be accomplished through writing.6 The widespread economic and political problems meant that debtors had a sympathetic audience on the outside. Their necessary, prolific action occurred in the unhygienic and pathogenic prison atmosphere. Sometimes these writings which were limited by paper supply7 and some cases of prison authorities who limited the flow of writing.8
In summary, Burton’s book presents a broad and inclusive definition of melancholy. His use of citations and meticulous organization of sections points to his work as a conscientious scholar. Burton has attempted to create a complete volume describing the elements of melancholy. Using many citations, he created what he believed to be a proper, and morally superior work. Loss of liberty as well as economic instability featured in Burton’s work, as well as in his personal life. His will acknowledged that he had little money to leave to his family; however, he left money to his nephew in order to pay off his debt. Burton's writings as well as the marginalia in this volume may point to engagement and sympathy with the issue of increasing debt and imprisoned debtors. Early moderners learned about the conditions imprisoned debtors lived in from published prison writings or visiting prisons. The common condition of debt, and the embodiment of many free debtors would have forced early moderners to reconsider the unfair conditions that debtors experienced in prison.
by: Mahaila Smith
1 Freeman, Thomas S. "The Rise of Prison Literature." Huntington Library Quarterly 72, no. 2 (2009): 134
2 Burton, Robert. "Account of the Author." In The Anatomy of Melancholy, Gutenberg Ebook, 2004. n.p.
3 Burton, Robert. "Exercise rectified of Body and Mind." In The Anatomy of Melancholy, Gutenberg Ebook, 2004. n.p.
4 Anglin, Emily. "'The glass, the school, the book': The Anatomy of Melancholy and the early Stuart University of Oxford." English Studies in Canada 35, no. 3 (2009): 55-56
5 Freeman, Thomas S. "The Rise of Prison Literature." Huntington Library Quarterly 72, no. 2 (2009): 141
6 Ibid: 143
7 Ibid: 144
8 Ibid: 145