Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the scholastic foundations of Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. By focusing on Burton's adaptations of Aristotelian dialectic and rhetoric, the investigation shows interesting relations between seventeenth century natural philosophy and literary form. Analysis of more than eighty passages about cosmography demonstrates the influence of this scientific genre on the Anatomy's organization and style. ;Burton imitates cosmography to map useful knowledge about melancholy. He describes human nature by moving logically from general to particular and descriptively from high to low through social classes and the natural order. Reversals and travesties of this interlocking order contribute to a dialectical and visual motion between heaven and earth. This, in turn, explains the dynamism in Burton's prose, the literary complexity of his medical categories, and the relations between cosmos and labyrinth, higher order and lower chaos. Stars mark the dividing line between metaphysics and natural philosophy, magic and science. Cosmographic parallels between "Digression of Air," "Digression of Spirits" and "Stars a Cause" clearly define Burton as Ptolemaic. His work is a philosophical repudiation of Skepticism, Hermeticism, and Neoplatonism. ;Burton's use of both dialectic and rhetoric effects smooth transitions from scientific to ethical or literary considerations. Every subsection uses Aristotle's four predicables , four causes , and ten categories to organize arguments hidden behind representations of chaos. Much that a modern reader regards as self-consciously paradoxical is an outgrowth of the habit of dialectical reasoning. Similarly, Burton's detached dialectical tone masks clear definitions and strong philosophical positions. Medical categories are used both artistically and philosophically. Cosmographic images endow the topoi in every subsection with Baroque capacities for heightened realism and metaphor. Burton's application of logic to the emblems in the Frontispiece indicate the harmony between cosmic, medical, moral, and logical order. These complex visual strategies drawn from scholasticism, astrology, and emblem literature show Burton, not merely as a melancholiac, but as a defender of scholarship