Talk:The Anatomy of Melancholy

First publication date -- from NYTimes Book Review article

The article states, without a footnote, that The Anatomy of Melancholy was first published in 1621. I found a mention of this in one of the quotes listed on the complete-review.com entry linked from the page. The quote, "... Upon completing the first folio in 1621, Burton ..." is cited as coming from a book review by "Arthur Krystal" in "The New York Times Book Review" on July 20, 1986. The title is not given. The only mention I've been able to find of this book review is an abstract in the ProQuest National Newspapers Core database(Document ID: 8906542), available (with a library card) via the LAPL. It agrees with the above citation data, and provides the title as: "Fretting, chafing, sighing, weeping — A toast to the melancholic writer", and the page number as 3. I haven't been able to find any mentions of the review in Google or the NY Times' archive. I haven't been able to find a copy of the full text anywhere, yet. JesseW, the juggling janitor 03:27, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on The Anatomy of Melancholy. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051216201453/http://www.psyplexus.com/burton/ to http://www.psyplexus.com/burton/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 22:12, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Accuracy of quotations

So to recap, in March 2024 I added the statement that "Although his 'citations' sound convincing, many are incorrect, taken out of context, or simply fabricated", based on this source:

• Obladen, Michael (14 September 2021). "Ignored Papers, Invented Quotations: A History of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome". Neonatology. 118 (6): 647–653. doi:10.1159/000518534.

This is a direct quote from that paper, which cites two examples of misquotations (Gellius, Plutarch), and an apparently invented quotation (Aristotle). Recently, 68.118.97.72 has reverted this, with the statements:

• I don't think it is appropriate to cite an obscure passage in an unknown author's paper to the effect that Burton's quotations are "false", when the example of two or three deviant quotations is given out of the thousands in the Anatomy, otherwise a celebrated monument of learning. I believe if you're going to write that into this page, you should have more evidence of it.
• The source you are using is incorrect and flies in the face of the reception of the Anatomy by everyone else who ever wrote about it. The quotations in it are not fabricated, the names are simply Latinized forms. For example, Burton cites Petrus Canonherius; you Google and try to look him up and find nothing. It's not fabricated, it's the Latinized form of Pietro Canonieri. He cites Jacobus Middendorpius and you can't find the source: it's the Latin form of Jakob Middendorp. Not fabricated.

So first of all, the paper is in a decent journal in the "review" section. The author has published numerous articles in this journal, on different subjects, many of them historical reviews. He is a Professor of Pediatrics, Specialist in Neonatology, in Berlin. He wrote the book Oxford Textbook of The Newborn: A Cultural and Medical History. I don't find these to be "obscure" or "unknown". By all of my metrics, it is a reliable source and therefore the quote is verified.

Second, I am not clear that the Anatomy is a celebrated monument of learning. For example [1] claims it is a degenerate, wasteful, meaningless excess of words. Certainly many have enjoyed reading it, but the reviews I can find praise its eloquent prose and graceful style, rather than its efficiency in conveying information or its utility as a learning resource.

Now as far as how many of the quotations are incorrect, out of context, or fabricated, it is hard to say. It seems likely that a majority of the quotations are genuine. First, some quotations were simply quite popular at the time, and Burton knew that readers would call him out if he editorialized them. And some quotes Burton probably did not feel the need to change, because they suited his purposes perfectly. And for still more quotes, Burton simply did not put in the effort to change them, because Burton was more eager that he had found the quote in the first place. But I would argue that "many" is still appropriate, because for the most part, Burton's use of quotations is to support his points, and when he didn't have a quotation that supported his points, he "adapted" or invented ones to suit himself.

I have asked 68.118.97.72 for sources and so far none have been provided. Mathnerd314159 (talk) 19:49, 31 October 2024 (UTC)