Reading and the Cure of Despair in The Anatomy of Melancholy

Abstract

I N the second edition of The Anatomy of Melancholy (1624; first edition 1621), Robert Burton radically alters his work's ending. He expands its final subsection on the cure of religious despair to approximately twenty times its original length, and removes altogether the satirical Conclusion of the Author to the Reader that ended the first edition, thereby giving his Cure of Despaire the final word. What effect do these revisions have? This article will argue that the expansions show Burton's response to the English Calvinist tradition of consolatory writ ing on despair and more broadly his reaction to debates over English religious orthodoxy during the 1620s and '3os. The Anatomy provides in its final subsection an alternative, both in its theological outlook and its stylistic approach, to existing types of religious discourse on despair. Changes over the course of the editions reveal Burton's resistance to the Calvinist stress on particularity, while his use of the Danish Lutheran theologian Niels Hemmingsen key authority indicates his depar ture from the Calvinist understanding of predestination. Yet Burton's theological position is not straightforward or clear. By providing new form of spiritual consolation that is hybrid of different theological approaches, he is careful to avoid entering current polemical disputes, although he certainly registers their existence. Burton's primarily pas toral concern in the Cure of Despair is evident in his handling of the theology of despair and his inclusive attitude to his readership. Although it is impossible to summarize briefly the full range and scope of the Anatomy, glance at the work whole shows that the final subsection's themes reflect major currents throughout the text. The title page announces that melancholy is Philosophically. Medicinally. Historically. opened & cut up, but does not mention that the author also regards it a disease of the soule that is in as much need of