M E L A N C H O LY
RO B E RT BU RTO N
INTRODUCTION BY
WILLIAM H. GASS
NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS
CLASSICS
T H E A N AT O M Y
O F M E L A N C H O LY
ROBERT BURTON
HOLBROOK JACKSON
WILLIAM H. GASS
ISBN 0-940322-66-8
April 2001
www.nybooks.com
INTRODUCTION
v
vi Introduction
religion would find sects jostling one another for booths from
which to sell their latest absurdities and repeatedly boast of
their unique merits and cry aloud their bewares.
Burton himself will pretend to be a plain speaker, and
plainly enough he does speak, if one considers the time, and
the artificiality of his predecessors; but when he says that
his book is “writ with as small deliberation as I do ordi-
narily speak, without all affectation of big words, fustian
phrases, jingling terms, tropes, strong lines, that like Acestes’
arrows caught fire as they flew, strains of wit, brave heats,
elogies, hyperbolical exornations, elegancies, etc., which many
so much affect,” what are we now to think? “Strong lines”
refers to a preference orators had, in that time, for balance,
gnomic terseness, and an elevation of thought and diction
which could seem, when it failed, to yield the artificial,
riddling, and bombastic; nevertheless, Burton’s looseness can
only be called “exuberance” now, “celebration,” and indica-
tive of a nominalism that feels that if every person huddling
under an umbrella is not named they shall have no pro-
tection.
One can only listen. Robert the Ranter rails. It is delicious.