The Anatomy of Love

With an introduction by Becca Rothfeld.

Dryness, paleness, waking, sighing, despair, frenzy, death: love's repercussions can be dire indeed. Perhaps that is why Robert Burton devoted the largest part of his pioneering 17th-century psychological work, The Anatomy of Melancholy, to this supreme passion. Edited to offer the modern reader easier access to this classic text, this abridged version preserves all the fantastic variety of the original, as Burton knits together stories and quotations drawn from millennia of European literature in order to understand love's causes, consequences, and cures.

We encounter gods and goddesses, ancient kings and queens, lascivious monks and pure-hearted shepherds, marriages happy and unhappy, allurements natural and unnatural, and, most importantly, many cures for love-melancholy, from the obvious to the arcane. Intricate yet commonsensical, learned yet earthy, and twinkling throughout with ironic warmth, Burton's masterpiece speaks to the deepest concerns of the human heart as well today as it did four centuries ago.