EXHIBITS
The Anatomy of Melancholy: Memorable Moments
Melancholy, as understood from the ancient view of the four humors, is black bile. An excess of which would, early physicians believed, cause a sullen, ill, or sad state of being [1]. This type of melancholy is consistently referred to throughout Burton's work.
Burton, however, seemed to address more than just an imbalance of humors. Within his pages he attempts to catalogue and classify melancholy, with its various causes and symptoms [2].
More so than this being strictly an encyclopedic volume, Burton also writes of melancholy in a therapeutic nature, wishing to not only understand the plauge of melancholy, but also to treat the disease from which so many in the 17th century suffered.
The nearly 1300 page volume, which was consistently updated with various editions throughout Burton's life, contains references to Werewolves and Witches, and words which are now less prevalent in the modern rhetoric. Below we explore some of these memorable moments and interesting words found in the 1628 edition of Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy.
Lycanthropia, also known as wolf maddness, is addressed in The Anatomy as a type and source of melancholy. Burton writes of it not as a legitimate condition in which a person turns into a wolf, but rather as a disorder of the brain in which one is dilusional and believes they are a wolf. Burton writes that "men runne howling about gaves and fields in the night, and will not be perswaded(sic) but that they are wolves..." [7].
Due to hunting and natural predators, wolves were all but extinct in Early Modern England. Still, the myths and stories of werewolves and wolf maddness prevailed.
Pre-Renaissance, many believed shapeshifting to be a power bestowed by the devil and as such, those with Lycanthropia, were dealing in black magic and evil deeds. This thinking prevailed throughout the Renaissance, but most scholars and physicians began to think along the lines of it being a legitimate illness of the mind and only the mind [8].
The belief in, and awareness of, witches and magicians and the like were still prevalent in the Renaissance era. Most if not all peoples at the time were also deeply religious and had a fear of the devil, attributing many illnesses and strange happenings to the power of the devil.
Witches were practicing black magic and were under the power of the devil. Hallucinations and delusions were a type of melancholic disease, and debate throughout the Pre-Renaissance and Renaissance era went between whether or not it was a curse and consequence of witchcraft and, or a malady of the mind not influenced by curses and black magic [9].