When I lie waking all alone, recounting what I have

ill done, my thoughts on me then tyrannise.

Fear and sorrow of me surprise.

Whether I carry still or go, me thinks the time moves very slow.

All my griefs to this are jolly, not so mad as Melancholy.

So wrote Robert Burton in the author's abstract of Melancholy in his encyclopedic masterpiece,

The Anatomy of Melancholy first published 400 years ago in 1621 and described by today's

guest as perhaps the largest, strangest and most unwieldy self-help book ever written.

And it certainly was large and unwieldy.

He was some 500,000 words by the time of its sixth edition.

But it was very popular.

An instrumental health awareness week.

We thought it would be appropriate to think about what the 17th century thought were the

causes, symptoms and cures for Melancholy.

My guest is Dr. Mary Ann Lund.

She is associate professor in Renaissance English literature at the University of Lester,

and the author of a user's guide to Melancholy, published by Cambridge University Press in 2021.

Dr. Lund, thank you so much for joining me to talk about this really fascinating topic.

I suppose the first place to start is to think about language because it seems from

what you've written that Melancholy in its modern sense is not Melancholy in its historic

sense.

I mean, they don't map exactly onto each other.

...