SOURCE: Wong, Samuel G. “Encyclopedism in Anatomy of Melancholy.” Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme 22, No.1 (1998): 5-22.

In the essay below, Wong considers The Anatomy of Melancholy in the context of the encyclopedic tradition, suggesting that Burton's self-deprecating portrait of the scholar is more subversive and more modern than has generally been assumed.

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This essay reconsiders the encyclopedism that is the most profound feature of Anatomy of Melancholy. As used here, encyclopedism suggests not only the vast display of learning that constitutes Anatomy but also the condition of a work driven by therapeutic need: “I write of Melancholy,” Burton tells us, “by being busie to avoid Melancholy.”¹ In his endless implication of psychic and scholarly demands, I shall argue, Burton conceives his book as self-ministering labor that belies the still common view of his conservatism:

There are many ways in which Burton's Anatomy feels as if...