New Evidence about Burton's Melancholy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10419997 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Barbara H Traister (Lehigh University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1976 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 66-70 |
| Publication date | 1976-04-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Renaissance Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0034-4338 • E-ISSN: 1935-0236 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2859991 |
| PMID | 11615595 |
| OpenAlex | W2315903262 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 1 |
I write of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy... . I was not a little offended with this malady, shall I say my mistress Melancholy, my Egeria, or my malus genius [evil genius]? and for that cause, ... make an antidote out of that which was the prime cause of my disease.Such teasingly self-referential passages as that quoted above have long led scholars to speculate as to the real physical and mental condition of Robert Burton. Did he suffer, as he claimed, the ravages of melancholy, or was he as a scholar simply assuming the fashionable scholars’ disease as a peg upon which to hang his encyclopedic treatise? Much of this uncertainty arises from gaps in our knowledge of Burton's biography
Art · Biography · Genius · Literature · Psychoanalysis · History of Medicine Studies · Philosophy · Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.09 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2003 - 2003 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |