Robert Burton
Robert Burton was an English author and fellow of Oxford University, known for his encyclopedic The Anatomy of Melancholy.
Born in 1577 to a comfortably well-off family of the landed gentry, Burton attended two grammar schools and matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford in 1593, age 15. Burton's education at Oxford was unusually lengthy, possibly drawn out by an affliction of melancholy, and saw an early transfer to Christ Church. Burton received an MA and BD, and by 1607 was qualified as a tutor. As early as 1603, Burton indulged in some early literary creations at Oxford, including Latin poems, a now-lost play performed before and panned by King James I himself, and his only surviving play: an academic satire called Philosophaster. This work, though less well regarded than Burton's masterpiece, has "received more attention than most of the other surviving examples of university drama".
Sometime after obtaining his MA in 1605, Burton made some attempts to leave the university. Though he never fully succeeded, he managed to obtain the living of St Thomas the Martyr's Church, Oxford through the university, and external patronage for the benefice of Walesby and the rectorship of Seagrave. As a fellow of Oxford, he served in many minor administrative roles and as the librarian of Christ Church Library from 1624 until his death. Over time he came to accept his "sequestered" existence in the libraries of Oxford, speaking highly of his alma mater throughout the Anatomy.
Burton's most famous work and greatest achievement was The Anatomy of Melancholy. First published in 1621, it was reprinted with additions from Burton no fewer than five times. A digressive and labyrinthine work, Burton wrote as much to alleviate his own melancholy as to help others. The final edition totalled more than 500,000 words. The book is permeated by quotations from and paraphrases of many authorities, both classical and contemporary, the culmination of a lifetime of erudition.
Burton died in 1640. Within the university, his death was rumoured to have been a suicide. His large personal library was divided between the Bodleian and Christ Church. The Anatomy was perused and plagiarised by many authors during his lifetime and after his death, but entered a lull in popularity through the 18th century. It was only the revelation of Laurence Sterne's plagiarism that revived interest in Burton's work into the 19th century, especially among the Romantics. The Anatomy received more academic attention in the 20th and 21st centuries. Whatever his popularity, Burton has always attracted distinguished readers, including Samuel Johnson, Benjamin Franklin, John Keats, William Osler, and Samuel Beckett.
Early life and education
Family and grammar school
Robert Burton was born on 8 February 1577, to Ralph Burton and his wife, Dorothy, in Lindley, Leicestershire. Burton believed himself to have been conceived on 9 PM on 25 May 1576, a fact he often used in his astrological calculations. He was the second of four sons and fourth of ten children; his elder brother, William, is the only other member of the family for whom we know more than minor biographical details, as he later became a noted antiquarian and topographer. Both his parents' families were members of the landed gentry, with the Burtons from an old, if undistinguished, pedigree. Robert may have inherited his medical interest; in the Anatomy, he writes of his mother's "excellent skill in chirurgery". William states a member of their mother's family, Anthony Faunt, was said to have died from "the passion of melancholy", and speaks fondly the family's maternal relation to Arthur Faunt, a Jesuit controversialist and uncle to William and Robert.Burton probably attended two grammar schools, the King Edward VI Grammar School, Nuneaton and Bishop Vesey's Grammar School, Sutton Coldfield. Burton wrote in the Anatomy that students "think no slavery in the world like to that of a Grammar Scholar", which some writers have taken as suggestion that he was an unhappy schoolboy. More modern biographers, such as R. L. Nochimson and Michael O'Connell, have regarded it as Burton merely presenting what was a popular sentiment, rather than hinting at any personal dislike or source of childhood melancholy.
Oxford education
In July 1593, aged 15, Burton matriculated into Brasenose College, Oxford, where his elder brother was already attending. Burton did not receive his Bachelor's until 30 June 1602 after he migrated to Christ Church College in 1599. For the time between his matriculation and his transfer, almost nothing is known of Burton. According to Anthony à Wood, Burton "made considerable progress in logic and philosophy" at Brasenose, though the college left an impression sufficiently weak that Burton himself made no mention of Brasenose in his corpus. Most Oxford students would have completed their education at nineteen, but by 1602, Burton was twenty-six. Some biographers, such as Michael O'Connell and J. B. Bamborough, have cited this as evidence Burton suffered some lengthy illness while a student, possibly melancholy. Record has been found of one "Robart Burton of 20 yeres", a patient of London doctor and astrologist Simon Forman, who was treated for melancholy over a period of five months in 1597. Indeed, 1596 and 1597 are the only years of Burton's maturity in which he seems to have purchased no new books.When he entered Christ Church in 1599, Wood reports Burton was assigned as tutor John Bancroft, "for form sake, tho' he wanted not a tutor"; though Bancroft was only three years his senior, he was six or seven years ahead of Burton in his studies, and was well-connected within the church, later becoming the Bishop of Oxford. It seems some friendship developed between the two; Burton praised Bancroft's construction at Cuddesdon in the Anatomy, implying he was a frequent visitor. At Christ Church, Burton proceeded to an MA on 9 June 1605, and a BD in May 1614. Simultaneously, Burton rose through the college ranks, attaining disciplus in 1599, philosophus secundi vicenarii in 1603, and philosophus primi vicenarii in 1607, the last of which qualified him as a tutor. Sometime after he obtained his MA, Bamborough considers it likely Burton was attempting to leave the university. The college statutes required Burton to take a BD after his MA, but Burton chose not to proceed to DD.
Early writings and plays
While at Oxford, Burton indulged his literary interests alongside these academic ones. In 1603, on the accession of James I, Burton contributed a short Latin verse celebrating the event to a commemorative Oxford volume; he made similar offering of twenty-one poems upon James's royal Oxford visit in 1605. On this visit, Burton took active part in the "praeparation for the Kinges cominge", including a play he composed for the occasion. This play, since lost, has been identified with Alba, a pastoral comedy with a mythological subject matter, probably written in Latin. The play was performed before James I on 27 August 1605. According to a witness of the events, Philip Stringer, Burton's play was poorly received by James and his court. The queen consort and her ladies took offence at several "almost naked" male actors, probably portraying satyrs, and the king was so displeased by the production that the chancellors of both Oxford and Cambridge had to plead for him to stay, as otherwise he "would have gone before half the Comedy had been ended".However Burton reacted to this royal pan, he was already at work on another play by 1606. This play, Philosophaster—which is fully extant across three manuscripts—was finished by 1615, by which time Burton was revising and correcting it. Burton speaks briefly of Philosophaster in the Anatomy, mentioning that it was performed at Christ Church on 16 February 1617, during the Shrovetide festivities. The play was acted by the students alongside three local townsmen. Burton likely took a view towards pleasing the administration in this production. The play cast the son of John King, then Dean of Christ Church, in a leading role, and departed from Alba controversial mythological themes for the less contentious ones of an academic satire.
Appointments and the ''Anatomy''
Offices at St Thomas's, Walesby, and Seagrave
Burton initially struggled to find any patrons for promotion out of the university, but after some time, he managed to obtain an ecclesiastical office in the living of St Thomas the Martyr's Church, Oxford, located in the western suburb of Oxford. He was nominated to this by the dean and chapter of Christ Church on 29 November 1616. He was licensed to preach on 3 December 1618. Burton held this vicarage at St Thomas's, until his death; he was responsible for the building or rebuilding of the church's south porch in 1621, where his arms were placed on the gable.In 1624, Lady Frances Cecil, dowager Countess of Exeter presented Burton to the Lincolnshire benefice of Walesby. Burton was perhaps the tutor of Frances' son, Robert Smith. Burton chose not to reside in Walesby, though he probably visited it at some point. He took little interest in the daily affairs of the parish—all the parish records were signed by his curate, Thomas Benson—but did win for it nine acres of land which had been taken by Frances's predecessor. Burton resigned from this post in 1631. In the 1632 edition of the Anatomy, appended below a mention of his Walesby appointment, Burton tersely added: "Lately resigned for some special reasons". After his resignation, Lady Frances temporarily turned over the duty to appoint Burton's successor to her friend, the first Earl of Middlesex, suggesting that Burton resigned over Middlesex's pressure to appoint his own favourite.
In 1632, shortly after this resignation from Walesby, Burton was presented to a much more valuable office by his patron, Lord Berkeley: the rectorship of Seagrave. Berkeley had been a patron of Burton since at least 1621, when Burton dedicated the Anatomy to Lord Berkeley. Their relationship may have begun even earlier, in 1619, when Berkeley matriculated from Christ Church, and perhaps entered the tutelage of Burton. In any case, on 3 September 1624, Lord Berkeley granted Burton the advowson of the wealthy living of Seagrave. This right necessitated that the holder of the advowson pick a candidate other than himself, but three days later Burton assigned three of his family members to this position, so he could procure his own future appointment. On 15 June 1632, promptly after the previous incumbent was buried, the relatives presented him to the office. Burton did not cultivate much of a reputation as a preacher while at Seagrave, choosing not to publish any of his sermons, but discharged the pastoral and charitable roles of the rectory dutifully and punctually. Burton probably visited Lindley often while at Seagrave, as the villages were only 20 miles apart. The office was the most valuable Burton ever held; in 1650, the rectory was valued at £100.