Robert Burton’s Rhetoric An Anatomy of Early Modern Knowledge / Susan Wells.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wells, Susan, 1947-

Series:

RSA series in transdisciplinary rhetoric.

RSA Series in Transdisciplinary Rhetoric 12

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rhetoric.

Burton, Robert, 1577-1640--Knowledge and learning.

Burton, Robert.

Burton, Robert, 1577-1640. Anatomy of melancholy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 211 pages) : illustrations.

Manufacture:

Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2021

Place of Publication:

University Park : Pennsylvania State University Press 2019.

Summary:

Published in five editions between 1621 and 1651, The Anatomy of Melancholy marks a unique moment in the development of disciplines, when fields of knowledge were distinct but not yet restrictive. In Robert Burton's Rhetoric, Susan Wells analyzes the Anatomy, demonstrating how its early modern practices of knowledge and persuasion can offer a model for transdisciplinary scholarship today. In the first decades of the seventeenth century, Robert Burton attempted to gather all the existing knowledge about melancholy, drawing from professional discourses including theology, medicine, and philology as well as the emerging sciences. Examining this text through a rhetorical lens, Wells provides an account of these disciplinary exchanges in all their subtle variety and abundant wit, showing that questions of how knowledge is organized and how it is made persuasive are central to rhetorical theory. Ultimately, Wells argues that in addition to a book about melancholy, Burton's Anatomy is a meditation on knowledge. A fresh interpretation of The Anatomy of Melancholy, this volume will be welcomed by scholars of early modern English and the rhetorics of health and medicine, as well as those interested in transdisciplinary work and rhetorical theory.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

1. A Monstrous Anatomy

2. Burton’s Anatomy: Genres as Species and Spaces

3. The Anatomy of Melancholy and Early Modern Medicine

4. Burton, Rhetoric, and the Shapes of Thought

5. Translingualism: The Philologist as Language Broker

6. The Anatomy of Melancholy and Transdisciplinary Rhetoric

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-271-08550-9

OCLC:

1144782495