Keats as a Reader of Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy

Despite being full of weighty analysis of serious medical, emotional and psychological concerns, and wearying in its copious classical quotations and references, yet Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy is also by turns light-hearted, enlightened, and witty. And despite its claim to be based on a methodical analytical system indicated in the taxonomically arranged table of contents, it is nothing if not digressive, anecdotal, opinionated and far from systematic, proceeding instead in a subjectively driven stream of consciousness. Burton’s style reflects the Anatomy of Melancholy’s multi-faceted and eccentric aspects which appealed to Keats. His own unique and irrepressible sense of humour, often reframing grim situations with word-play, puns and droll mockery, finds a ‘greeting of the Spirit’ in Burton, and by following his markings on his copy of The Anatomy we can see what he appreciated in a writer who in some ways was a kindred spirit. Findings from this chapter inform the next, covering style and substance which influenced Keats’s poetry.