Robert Burton (scholar)
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Robert Burton (February 8, 1577 - January 25, 1640) was an English scholar at Oxford University (Brasenose College), whose chief claim to fame is for writing The Anatomy of Melancholy.
Burton was born at Lindley, Leicestershire. He spent most of his life at Oxford, where he was a fellow of Brasenose College. He studied a large number of diverse subjects, many of which made their way into the 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 because he found himself a lifelong sufferer from melancholia. As he put it,
- I had a heavy heart and an ugly head, a kind of impostume in my head, which I was very desirous to be unladen of.
- ---The Anatomy of Melancholy, "Democritus to the Reader"
The work, in which he appears under the name of Democritus Junior, was published in 1621, and had great popularity. In the words of 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." It has also proved a store-house from which later authors have not scrupled to draw without acknowledgment. It was a favourite book of Dr. Johnson. Burton was a mathematician and dabbled in astrology. When not under depression he was an amusing companion, "very merry, facete, and juvenile," and a person of "great honesty, plain dealing, and charity."
Burton's burial in Christ Catherdral Church, Oxford, is evidence that rumors of his suicide by hanging were most likely unfounded.