Caspar Henderson

Why the first self-help book is still worth reading: The Anatomy of Melancholy anatomised

Mary Ann Lund’s User’s Guide helps us appreciate why Robert Burton’s great doorstopper on madness remains so revered

‘A surgery where all fantasy and follies are purged and good qualities prescribed.’ Line engraving by M. Greuter c. 1600. Credit: Wellcome Collection 
issue 06 March 2021

Footling around on the internet recently, I stumbled on a clip of a young woman singing Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ to a full-grown cow. As she sat cross-legged, strumming away not very well on a guitar, the cow lay down beside her and gently nudged her with its huge head as adoringly as any puppy. The sight brought to mind a passage in Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy in which he reflects on music as a remedy:

Harts, hinds, horses, dogs, bears are exceedingly delighted with it; elephants, Agrippa adds; and in Lydia in the midst of a lake there be certain floating islands (if ye will believe it), that after music will dance.

Wonderful craziness like this, which accommodates both the plausible and the beyond-belief in a spirit of generosity and delight, is characteristic of Burton’s great work; and it may go a little way to answering the question of why one should bother with a 400-year-old text about some of the darkest corners of human experience.

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