The anatomy of melancholy
by Burton, Robert, 1577-1640 · first published 1907
47% recommend53% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Dense, erudite survey of melancholy drawn from a huge range of classical and contemporary reading; praised for its insight into human nature and beautiful prose. Suited to readers who enjoy introspection and learning.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Originally published in 1652; "In three partitions, with their several sections, members & subsections philosophically, medicinally, historically opened & cut up"; "by Democritus Junior [Robert Burton]; with a satirical preface conducing to the following discourse"
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I see some of you commenting about being introvert and liking to be alone, but still feeling the sting of loneliness. I just wanted to share an excerpt from the abstract of Robert Burton's wonderful Anatomy of Melancholy published in 1621. I think the alternating allure of solitude is at the base of being human. Friends and companions get you gone, 'Tis my desire to be alone; Ne'er well but when my thoughts and…
on “How to be alone: the difference between loneliness and solitude” ↗…interested in catnip anyway? etc); - no fixed point of completion, everything is constantly being revised; - subscription-based fundraising model (Patreon is far from new in that regard). Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy is probably the best example I can think of that illustrates what I like about books from that period: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anatomy_of_Melancholy Montaigne's Essays and the works of Robert…
on “Catnip Immunity and Alternatives” ↗…here) Website: www.learnook.surge.sh Email: jaemez@outlook.com Quick learner, good at communication. Age 40. Previously worked as a uni teacher for over a decade. My favorite book (in English): the anatomy of melancholy by Robert Burton. Highly recommend it!
on “Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (July 2019)” ↗…recommendation I think "The Machine Stops" by E. M. Forster (1909) is an especially interesting read today. Extremely prescient and a fun, short book. For someone more ambitious I might recommend "The Anatomy of Melancholy," by Richard Burton (17th c.). At least the preface (around 100 pages) and maybe a smattering of the book proper. It's hard to explain - better to look it up. For something more recent and immediately…
on “Ask HN: What is one book you would recommend everyone to read?” ↗I recommend the 1621 book Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton. He was a big bibliophile with a huge collection, and also melancholic, so he wrote about melancholy while pulling material from his own reading. The result is a huge book that is figuratively…
on “"Bookfind of the century" sells for $2.23M” ↗I look forward to reading this. But anyone who thinks it's new should go back and read the first part of The Anatomy of Melancholy; there, a fictionalized Democritus, accused of insanity, turns the accusation back on the world at large, citing a surprisingly large and still relevant list of issues: information overload, self-serving…
on “Review: Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart” ↗Anatomy of melancholy
on “Ask HN: What books have you found understandable during serious depression?” ↗Some authours and books offer deep introspection of human lives, that you learn and realise things about yourself from reading them: I got that feeling from reading Montaigne's Essays. Anatomy of Melancholy by Burton and Samuel Johnson's essays also are effective in a similar vein. Plutarch's Parallel Live's is the essential book on politics, after reading it, when you read the newspapers you get a feeling…
on “Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?” ↗…going on for a long time, centuries, even millennia, and you may find yourself convinced if you read Bacon, or Burton, or Plato, who said things long ago that we are still saying today. The preface to the Anatomy of Melancholy is particularly insightful and beautiful despite being some 400 years old, and I recommend it to anyone interested in the idea of what ails "modern society" - it may be the same thing that ailed it in…
on “The Taming of Tech Criticism” ↗One day I mean to get around to reading "The Anatomy of Melancholy" by Robert Burton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anatomy_of_Melancholy
on “I like unusual books. Here’s what I’d read – if I had time” ↗I was more surprised that they included Tim Burton but not Robert Burton, considering he wrote The Anatomy of Melancholy
on “An Anatomy of Melancholy from Goya and Edgar Allan Poe to Bauhaus and Tim Burton” ↗…this black choler to it by a secret virtue [emphasis mine], and feeds upon it, conveying the rest to the bottom of the stomach, to stir up appetite, or else to the guts as excrement.” ~ Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy
on “Italian doctors successfully transplant a kidney in the place of the spleen” ↗There doesn't seem to be. They may have a line they don't cross in terms of the expense of the books, but they had the second edition of Robert Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" on the shelf which I imagine auctions for well into 4 figures, so they set the bar fairly high. The oldest book I saw was from around 1520 I believe. Hard to get much older than that given that serving…
on “In the Memory Ward: The Warburg is Britain’s most eccentric and original library” ↗See also My Mistress Melancholy: Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy - https://aeon.co/essays/robert-burton-lived-and-died-for-his-... (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22430219 - Feb 2020 but no comments)
on “Why Robert Burton’s masterpiece speaks to our pandemic age” ↗According to the capabilities of the reader, books have their own destiny (Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy).
on “Treat your to-read pile like a river, not a bucket” ↗