Memory and Poetry > Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy
Title Page
Burton's description of memory and the effects of melancholy on it
Robert Burton’s sprawling Anatomy of Melancholy was one of the most influential prose texts of the Renaissance. Burton, an enthusiastic reader of Spenser who quotes him often, seems to have taken some cues from Spenser’s depiction of memory as a library, describing it as a “register” (a common Renaissance term for a library catalogue) just as Spenser does.