The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton (1621): This is a
dense, digressive, wonderfully learned, quasi-autobiographical,
quasi-psychological exploded encyclopedia of all things
melancholic and otherwise—a mishmash of case studies (a man who
thought he was turned to glass), citations from contradictory
ancient and modern authorities (c. 1620), quotations from the
Bible, essays on geography and climatology, observations on the
deficiencies of the Catholic Church, recommendations of study as
a cure for melancholy (and then reflections on study as a cause
of melancholy), a utopia. Burton described his Anatomy as: “a
rhapsody of rags gathered together from several dung-hills,
excrements of authors, toys and fopperies confusedly tumbled
out, without art, invention, judgement, wit, learning, harsh,
raw, rude, phantastical, absurd, insolent, indiscreet, ill-
composed, indigested, vain, scurrile, idle, dull, and dry…”
Indeed, such it is, and for this intellectually dense disorder,
the book can be baffling and dizzy-m