A User's Guide to Melancholy

400 years after The Anatomy of Melancholy, this book guides readers through Renaissance medicine's disease of the mind.

Mary Ann Lund (Author)

9781108838849, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 February 2021

268 pages
22.3 x 14.5 x 1.7 cm, 0.49 kg

'Mary Ann Lund's A User's Guide to Melancholy gives Robert Burton's Anatomy a contemporary clarity that will make it a companion to his classic for years to come.' Timothy Barr, Renaissance Quarterly

A User's Guide to Melancholy takes Robert Burton's encyclopaedic masterpiece The Anatomy of Melancholy (first published in 1621) as a guide to one of the most perplexing, elusive, attractive, and afflicting diseases of the Renaissance. Burton's Anatomy is perhaps the largest, strangest, and most unwieldy self-help book ever written. Engaging with the rich cultural and literary framework of melancholy, this book traces its causes, symptoms, and cures through Burton's writing. Each chapter starts with a case study of melancholy - from the man who was afraid to urinate in case he drowned his town to the girl who purged a live eel - as a way into exploring the many facets of this mental affliction. A User's Guide to Melancholy presents in an accessible and illustrated format the colourful variety of Renaissance melancholy, and contributes to contemporary discussions about wellbeing by revealing the earlier history of mental health conditions.

Introduction
Causes: 1. Sorrow and fear
2. Body and mind
3. The supernatural
Symptoms: 4. Delusions
5. Love and sex
6. Despair
Cures: 7. The non-naturals
8. Medicine and surgery
9. Lifting the spirits
Robert Burton, 'The Author's Abstract of Melancholy'
Conclusion: The Two Faces of Melancholy.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX], Clinical psychology [MMJ], Psychiatry [MMH], Pre-clinical medicine: basic sciences [MF], Psychology: emotions [JMQ], Psychological theory & schools of thought [JMA], History of ideas [JFCX], Western philosophy: Medieval & Renaissance, c 500 to c 1600 [HPCB], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD]