Up Next Week: Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy

Hello All:

A great discussion on Locke and Rousseau made that hour fly by today! Thank you to all who attended. One hour was clearly not enough to map out the complexities of these two theorists, but I think we aired some really great questions that could turn into great papers and studies.

According to the votes to the right of this blog, Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) is up next. Though it is most obviously a seventeenth-century text, Burton's work becomes central to a variety of eighteenth-century literature on the mind, health and medicine, depression, the humors, genius and melancholia, etc.

We will be reading Burton, then, in small doses (it's a huge work). Group members today agreed upon reading sections from the "First Partition" (which lays out a theory and "symptoms" of melancholy) and the "Third Partition" (which discusses love, desire, and melancholy). Those interested in medicine and disease may want to check out the "Second Partition" instead of the third. Again, because these pieces are so long, please read as far as you are able and nothing more. Also, if you aren't interested in reading Burton but want to discuss the "peripheral" text, please attend the group meeting to do so--this is a very flexible and informal group, so don't feel too pressured! Below is a breakdown of the sections we'll try to cover and a link to Project Gutenberg that contains several different ebook forms of the text. I tried out the Kindle edition and it worked perfectly--the "contents" tab conveniently lets you jump straight to the different partitions!


Major Text for Discussion

Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy

Contents to be covered:

First Partition - Sections 1, 2, 3
Third Partition - Sections 1, 2, 3 

Peripheral Text for Discussion

Clifford Siskin and William Warner, "This is Enlightenment: An Invitation in the Form of an Argument" (Introductory chapter to This is Enlightenment, Chicago: U Chicago P, 2009)


We will meet at the same time and place, Wednesday, Feb 27th from 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. at the Pour House on Kirkwood.