This chapter focuses on a linguistic analysis of Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, Opened and Cut Up. It proposes a corpus analysis of his use of “seeing/chromatic” word concepts in his description of melancholy from both a medical and literary point of view. As introduced in the parallel chapter on the influence of the contemporary medico-cultural debate on Burton’s understanding of this physical and emotional state, we know that Burton produced one of the most thorough treatments of melancholy in 17th century England. His approach stems from the traditional association between bodily humors and colors, and then expands a new scientific method that fits well with the cognitive linguistic approach that I employ to analyze his linguistic choices and use of visual associations to demarcate melancholy. The objective is to define the underlying linguistic concepts that yield his construal of melancholy in the text.
A Cognitive Semantic Analysis of Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy
SANDFORD, Jodi Louise
2017
Abstract
This chapter focuses on a linguistic analysis of Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, Opened and Cut Up. It proposes a corpus analysis of his use of “seeing/chromatic” word concepts in his description of melancholy from both a medical and literary point of view. As introduced in the parallel chapter on the influence of the contemporary medico-cultural debate on Burton’s understanding of this physical and emotional state, we know that Burton produced one of the most thorough treatments of melancholy in 17th century England. His approach stems from the traditional association between bodily humors and colors, and then expands a new scientific method that fits well with the cognitive linguistic approach that I employ to analyze his linguistic choices and use of visual associations to demarcate melancholy. The objective is to define the underlying linguistic concepts that yield his construal of melancholy in the text.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
