The Anatomy of Melancholy

Few seventeenth-century authors are stranger or more legendary than Robert Burton: the solitary, sedentary Oxford don and librarian who sought to read everything in the world—and write the world into a book. That book, his life’s work, was The Anatomy of Melancholy, an exhaustive account of every cause and cure for melancholy known to man, from existential despair and renewed faith to constipation and diuretics.

The Eno River Players’ adaptation brought the brilliant humor and pathos of Burton’s text to a new audience. We condensed the Anatomy’s 1,200 pages into a one-hour, form-bending play for a cast of three, posing questions no less vital in 2024 than they were in 1621: Why are we so melancholy, and what are we supposed to do about it? What’s the point of living a life devoted to reading and writing? For that matter, what’s the point of living at all?