The Anatomy of Melancholy

In Burton. Burton attacks nice and curious schismatics as over-scrupulous, but curious crosses and curious works concern elaborate or fine making. Curiously describes a mother’s scrupulous observance, while curiosity is expressly defined as tyrannical preoccupation with useless or forbidden things. His refusal to torture a patient for observation uses curious for excessively painstaking investigation. These judgments depend on the activity and its purpose.

The places. Religious scrupulosity is criticized. (p. 29; DJR-009-15.) Crosses are described as elaborate. (p. 29; DJR-009-12.) Craftsmanship sustains a trading city. (p. 55; DJR-014-31.) An observance is carried out scrupulously. (p. 147 [sequence; printed 143]; DJR-050-33.) Curiosity is defined as excessive or forbidden inquiry. (p. 166; DJR-055-16.) Painstaking observation is associated with cruelty. (p. 178; DJR-058-03.)

In this edition. “nice & curious” → “over-scrupulous” (DJR-009-15); “curious crosses” → “elaborate crosses” (DJR-009-12); “curious Wroks” → “fine craftsmanship” (DJR-014-31); “curiously” → “scrupulously” (DJR-050-33); “Curiosity” → “curiosity” (DJR-055-16); “curious” → “painstaking” (DJR-058-03). The modern column separates workmanship, exactness and misplaced inquiry. Where curiosity remains, Burton’s explicit definition supplies its critical sense.

See also. Nice; Precise; Scruple; Art.

Custom and education

Source forms: tuition; informed; discipline; inform; informs

The word. The vocabulary of education includes tuition as care or guardianship, discipline as training, and inform as teaching or giving form. Custom names the habitual practice through which dispositions develop.

In Burton. Burton warns guardians against excessive severity and criticizes schooling that produces a learned fool or sickly scholar. Later custom, discipline and education help explain differences among symptoms, while acquired habits can worsen the will’s condition. Inform extends from teaching a person to giving life its proper form in the contrast between kinds of love. These terms concern the shaping of a person, not merely the transmission of information.

The places. Tuition is the care and supervision of children. (p. 148 [sequence; printed 144]; DJR-050-40.) A child is entrusted to a schoolmaster to be informed. (p. 149 [sequence; printed 145]; DJR-050-55.) Training and custom shape individual dispositions. (p. 194; DJR-061-02.) Training and custom can form bad habits. (p. 29–30; DJR-026-40.) Inform means teach in the discussion of remarriage. (p. 345; DJR-095-07.) Divine love is said to give life its proper form. (p. 428; DJR-111-39.)

In this edition. “tuition and oversight” → “care and supervision” (DJR-050-40); “informed” → “educated” (DJR-050-55); “discipline” → “training” (DJR-061-02); “Custom” → “custom” (DJR-026-40); “inform another” → “teach another” (DJR-095-07); “informs” → “gives our life its proper form” (DJR-111-39). Care, training, educated and teach specify the personal actions; proper form retains the explicit opposition between informs and deforms.

See also. Commonwealth; Conversation.

Daemon and genius

Source forms: genius; substantiæ separatæ; dæmones; Genii; starve his Genius; starve their Genius; familiarem dæmonem

The word. Daemon can name a spirit without necessarily implying an evil Christian devil. Genius can be an attendant or guardian spirit, but in the idiom starve one’s genius it refers to denying one’s own enjoyment or comforts.

In Burton. Burton explicitly distinguishes the broad classical name for spirits from their goodness or evil, and gathers traditions of tutelary and familiar spirits. His self-description makes melancholy an evil genius, while the criticism of avarice and account of poverty use starving one’s genius for self-denial. In the discussion of Plotinus, Divell represents the ancient philosophical daemon. These contexts require different English renderings.