The Anatomy of Melancholy | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 9 pages of analysis & critique of The Anatomy of Melancholy.

The Anatomy of Melancholy | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 9 pages of analysis & critique of The Anatomy of Melancholy.
This section contains 2,490 words
(approx. 9 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Ruth A. Fox

SOURCE: Fox, Ruth A. “This New Science.” In The Tangled Chain: The Structure of Disorder in the Anatomy of Melancholy, pp. 45-53. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.

In the essay below, Fox examines the digressions from the conventional structure of the medical treatise in The Anatomy of Melancholy, proposing that the tension between the digressions and the more straightforward sections reflects an ambivalence about the reliability of knowledge.

For out of olde feldes, as men seyth, Cometh al this newe corn from yer to yere, And out of olde bokes, in good feyth, Cometh al this newe science that men lere. 

—Chaucer, The Parlement of Foules

Robert Burton's book conforms to that traditional order for the discussion of disease set forth in the title: The Anatomy of Melancholy. What it is, With all the kinds, causes, symptomes, prognostickes, & severall cures of it. In three Partitions, with their severall...

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This section contains 2,490 words
(approx. 9 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Ruth A. Fox
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Critical Essay by Ruth A. Fox from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.