‘Never to go forth of the limits’ Space and melancholy in Robert Burton’s library project

This article is a study of early seventeenth-century melancholy in the context of a library project introduced by Robert Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy (1621). Modelled on the great libraries of the times, Burton’s library is designed to function as the only space free of melancholy and as such is to be structured on the principle of isolation.

Discussing the interrelations between the Burtonian vision of the melancholy reader and his concepts of space, the article explores the terms of isolation Burton establishes in order to construct the library. The article is also an analysis of the problem ofborder transgression, which is constitutive for the notion of melancholy. Finally, the article presents issues involving the moulding of the brand new man Burton envisions: a man free of melancholy and inhabiting the supposedly isolated space of the library.