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Robert Burton ( February 8 , 1577 – January 25 , 1640 ) was an English scholar and vicar at Oxford University , best known for writing '' The Anatomy Of Melancholy ''. LIFE AND WORK Born at Lindley, Leicestershire , Burton spent most of his life at Oxford, first as a pupil at Brasenose College , and then as a student (the equivalent of a fellow at other Oxford and Cambridge colleges) of Christ Church . He studied a large number of diverse subjects, many of which informed his masterful study of Melancholia for which he is chiefly famous. He was appointed Vicar of St. Thomas Church in Oxford in 1616 , and in 1630 he was also made the Rector of Segrave , Leicester . Apart from ''The Anatomy of Melancholy'' his only other published work is '' Philosophaster '', a Satirical Latin Comedy . He wrote ''The Anatomy of Melancholy'' largely to write himself out of being a lifelong sufferer from melancholia. As he described his condition in the preface "Democritus Junior to the Reader," "for I had ''gravidum cor, foetum caput'' heavy heart, and hatchling in my head , a kind of imposthume in my head, which I was very desirous to be unladen of." Therefore, the treatise itself was intended as treatment. Again, from the preface: "I write of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy. There is no greater cause of melancholy than idleness, no better cure than business." The work, published under the pseudonym ''Democritus Junior'' in 1621 , and was popular. In the words of Thomas Warton , "The author's variety of learning, his quotations from rare and curious books, his pedantry sparkling with rude wit and shapeless elegance ... have rendered it a repertory of amusement and information." Later authors sometimes drew from the work without acknowledgment (such accusations were leveled at Laurence Sterne 's book Tristam Shandy ). Samuel Johnson considered it one of his favorite books. Burton was a mathematician and dabbled in Astrology . When not depressed he was an amusing companion, "very merry, facete, and juvenile," and a person of "great honesty, plain dealing, and charity." Merry, indeed, Burton had favorite sources for laughter. In 1728 Bishop Kennet wrote that, "I have heard that nothing could make him laugh, but going down to the Bridge-foot in Oxford and hearing the Barge-men scold and storm and swear at one another, at which he would set his Hands to his Sides, and laugh most profusely." Burton's burial in Christ Cathedral Church, Oxford, evinces that rumors of his suicide by hanging are unfounded. '' The Anatomy Of Melancholy '' was quoted in the beginning of H.G. Well's novel '' The War Of The Worlds '', which was made into a rock musical by Jeff Wayne which included voice work done by Richard Burton (birth name Richard Walter Jenkins). REFERENCES
BIBLIOGRAPHY # ''The Anatomy of Melancholy'', New York Review of Books, 2001 - one-volume reprint of 1932 Everyman edition, with a new introduction by William H. Gass # ''The Anatomy of Melancholy'', Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press, 1989 - 1994 - three volumes, with an introduction by J. B. Bamborough, edited by Thomas C. Faulkner, Nicolas K. Kiessling, and Rhonda L. Blair. (out of print) ONLINE TEXTS EXTERNAL LINKS
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