The romantic Robert Burton or the art of forgery

Abstract

The art of forgery is, probably, one of the most ancient known arts, as we can read in Caro Baroja’s work (1991). 1 Cases such as that of the “Paeneste Fibula”, Ossian or Chatterton’s Rowley are well known examples of invented objects or pieces of literature which pretend to be ancient. Some of these feigned works appeared by the end of the eighteenth century or the beginning of the nineteenth, so that this kind of forgery is often connected with Romanticism. In this milieu we find Charles Lamb, the author of the text we are commenting, entitled Curious Fragments, Extracted from a Commonplace Book, which Belonged to Robert Burton, the Famous Author of the “Anatomy of Melancholy”. Lamb is well known thanks to his Tales from Shakespeare (1807), a version of the plays for children, and his Essays of Elia (1823). He was a close friend of Coleridge’s (whom he admired, mainly in his early years). It was Coleridge … [Texto extraído del artículo de Ana Sáez Hidalgo].