Emblematics and a Cure for Melancholy in Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy

Abstract

The article analyzes emblematic discourse in Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy, offering an extended view of the emblematics that organizes both the structure and the narrative of the book and is anticipated by the emblematic frontispiece. The article examines the book’s intricate structure in its connection with the generic uncertainty of the text. The singular vs universal dualism forms the book’s underpinning structure that implies emblematic and dialectic intentions of The Anatomy of Melancholy. The article further analyzes the emblematic frontispiece, revealing consistently explicated emblematic structures that emphasize the antithesis of “duplicity” vs “singularity” implicit in the book’s multi-level structure. Analysis further demonstrates the book’s continuity with cento- and florilegia traditions, also epitomized in the emblematic method. The essay argues that Burton was using discursive emblems and the emblematic discourse to establish his status as an artifex, which helps him avoid melancholy himself and encourage his reader to struggle with it. The article postulates that the emblematic frontispiece embodies the dialectic of “duplicity” and “singularity” and solves it by enabling the emblematic mechanism of reading of the book through the emblematic lenses, uniting the Word and the Image: it is what Burton eventually offers both himself and his reader to cure melancholy.

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