SE GUÉRIR ET GUÉRIR LES AUTRES DE LA MÉLANCOLIE: LES VERTUS THÉRAPEUTIQUES DE LA FACÉTIE CHEZ ROBERT BURTON (1577-1640) ALIAS DEMOCRITUS JUNIOR
HEAL YOURSELF AND OTHERS FROM MELANCOLIA: THE THERAPEUTIC VIRTUES OF FACETY IN ROBERT BURTON (1577-1640) AKA DEMOCRITUS JUNIOR

Summary/Abstract: The topos of curative laughter is omnipresent in the work of Robert Burton (1577-1640). In the second book of his Anatomy of Melancholy, the Oxonian scholar recommends moderate entertainment (laughing, playing games, joking) and the reading of pleasant books to those suffering from the disease. There is every indication that Burton, who also suffered from melancholia, applied the soft therapy recommended in his treatise to himself. The demonstration is based on biographical evidence and on the analysis of Burton’s personal library, which has been kept in the Bodleian Library and Christ Church College, Oxford, since the 17th century. Alongside scholarly works, Burton’s collection includes a peculiar assortment of comic books, including five jestbooks in English and around twenty facetious pamphlets. Their massive presence reflects the growth of chapbook literature in England in the early 17th century. Above all, it indicates that Burton, like other literati of his time, sought out and consumed these comic texts with great delight, without holding a quill in his hand, and with a view to relaxing and chasing away the melancholy humours that assailed him.

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