ABSTRACT
The physician Timothy Bright (c. 1549–1615) wrote his treatise on the ‘sadde and fearful’ humour of melancholy in 1586 and addressed the work to an unnamed ‘melancholicke friend’. Scholars have expended much ink over whether or not Shakespeare was familiar with this work and used it to create one of the most famous melancholics and fictional characters in English literature: Hamlet. The similarity between this work and Shakespeare’s depiction of melancholy is certainly suggestive. In his work, Bright explored and sought remedies to fear, sadness, desperation, tears, weeping, sobbing and sighing. As the following three chapters illustrate, Bright argued that the mind and the body are interdependent and the work places considerable emphasis on the way in which melancholy affects both the senses of the body and the soul and spirit of the sufferer.
