The Anatomy of Melancholy in Exploring Existentialism

Jun 22, 2012 Feliks rated it it was amazing

Shelves: brit-lit-classic, philosophy-general, favorites-all-time

It is fully--as its learned reviewers and commentators claim--one of the great documents of human civilization. I didn't expect it to be as wonderful a reading experience as it is--usually any book this dense turns out to be a slog. Like Montaigne or Browne. But I'm now convinced, this is one of the most awesome intellectual experiences you can enjoy via a book. Its a carnival ride. This is now one of my all-time favorite books; and certainly the best possible example of the 'what book is best f It is fully--as its learned reviewers and commentators claim--one of the great documents of human civilization. I didn't expect it to be as wonderful a reading experience as it is--usually any book this dense turns out to be a slog. Like Montaigne or Browne. But I'm now convinced, this is one of the most awesome intellectual experiences you can enjoy via a book. Its a carnival ride. This is now one of my all-time favorite books; and certainly the best possible example of the 'what book is best for being marooned on a deserted island?' variety.

If you're looking for a way to become familiar with western history, this is one of the most efficient means, and (although you may doubt it at first, when you see how thick and heavy this thing is) it is a lot more fun than reading a formal, academic history-textbook where culture is divided into neat, clean, discrete, easy, time-periods.

The truth is, that's not how real history functions. There are no distinct, arbitrary breaks between one time-period and another. In living culture, art and science and events and people and ideas all overlap and everything is inter-twined. This book is crucial in that it illuminates the vernacular perspective--the people's perspective--of the succeeding, descending ages and epochs...and reveals them through anecdote and rumination and musing. This is the way one would learn about history if we actually had 'elders' anymore who were learned and who would take us on their knee and fill our heads with lore and quotes.

That's what Burton basically does, here in this work. A torrent! A deluge! A cataract of reference and factoid and catechism come coursing through this man's quill pen. I have never seen more variety of information contained on a single page than what is present in this work. Every paragraph is sprawling, overflowing with homilies and epigrams, latin phrases, old wive's tales, rubrics, pearls and chestnuts and artifacts of homespun history and formal history combined. You encounter rapid-fire bon-mots and 'little asides' from the time of Christ, from the Renaissance and the Reformation. Quips from Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson, Bacon, and Newton nestle cheek-by-jowl with mutterings and chatter from legendary astronomers, forgotten alchemists, Mongol tribesmen, and dead Roman generals. Greek myths, medicinal tracts, chemical treatises, magical incantations, blood-curdling oaths. Papal edicts, genealogies, military manuals, kitchen recipes, gardener's tricks. Famous medical cases, royal decrees, Merovingian riddles, medieval parables, verses, personal letters, parliamentary laws .. sermons, hymns, rituals, folklore, fables. The record of every manner of human folly and foible imaginable--its all here. The history of Europe in your lap.

In one chapter, Burton will swarm you with everything known--at the time of his writing--about the effects on the human body of foul air from swamps, fens, thickets, and marshes; from that he wanders off into a discourse about how each European nation constructs their window-mullions; from there he chats about weather patterns, and from there, perhaps picks over the habits of birds; or probes the controversy about 'whether the air in our sky is the same as the air breathed by souls in heaven'. From there, a dozen more equally dusty topics. Its just a cavalcade of odd bits of knowledge--heaped up in gargantuan quantities--and rained down upon the reader--clobbering the head of every curious student in a way that is marvelous and staggering. Its really the equivalent of reading fifty books at once. Every student --struggling with history classes or term papers-- should keep this tract at their desk, to quickly quote from. Its also one of the history's great repositories of interesting vocabulary terms.

Sure, at first you may find it tough going--the first 1/3 is devoted to the 'health of the body' --and reading about catarrh and ague and dropsy and gout and spleen and bile, may feel silly to some. But the second half of the book eloquently treats of the 'health of the emotions'. Moods, temperaments, doldrums. This encompasses all that is still highly relevant to us, as feeling beings: the life of one's passions. Love and hate. What pleases us, what satisfies. Ardors; kisses and sly glances, betrayals, revenge, drunkenness, rages; why women weep; why men philander; why people get gloomy. Stay the course, because eventually you will find it zips by and its really fun and rewarding. I've noticed that Burton never repeats himself from one chapter to the next, and he never goes back over a lengthy anecdote or fable--this is what makes the narration so sprightly and brisk!

Every curious mind, everyone who is interested in life; everyone who is interested in love and humor and sex and health and fortune, should set themselves the task of completing this stupendous read. This book covers it all. Huzzah! Three cheers! ...more

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