Emily Brady and Arto Haapala (2003) define melancholy as a complex emotion with aspects of both pain and pleasure that draw on a range of emotions — sadness, love and longing — all of which are bound with a reflective, solitary state of mind. Melancholy, they argue, does not just play a role in our encounters with artworks and the natural environment but also invites aesthetic considerations into play in more everyday situations. As such, melancholy can be considered an aesthetic (...) emotion per se. In this paper, I critically examine the various aspects of Brady and Haapala’s account, then present an alternative analysis of melancholy and its aesthetic relevance. (shrink)

Melancholy and The Critique of Modernity examines the connections between the emergence of modern society and the experience of melancholy. The idea of "sadness without a cause" has played an important part in human self-understanding throughout the development of Western society. But with the emergence of modernity melancholy has become its most pervasive and significant experience. The affinity between melancholy and modernity is examined through a comprehensive re-examination of the writings of Soren Kierkegaard. The whole range of Kierkegaard's work is (...) set in the context of a social and historical theory of melancholy. From this perspective Kierkegaard emerges as the most important, and the most typical, psychologist of the modern era. Melancholy and The Critique of Modernity makes Kierkegaard's rich and insightful writings accessible to a new audience and establishes him as a central figure for contemporary debates on the nature of modernity. (shrink)

"Der Aufsatz zielt darauf, der Prozess der historischen Überlagerung, Substitution und Verbreitung des theoretischen Paradigmas der Depression gegenüber jenem der Melancholie darzustellen. Im ersten Teil wird versucht, einige der einschneidenden Eigenschaften der Thematisierungen der Melancholie in der Frühen Neuzeit anzugeben, auch im Verhältnis zum Geist des Kapitalismus. Nachdem eine Skizze der Entstehung der moderne Kategorie der Depression, geht es darum, den Verlauf nachzuzeichnen, der im 20. Jahrhundert zu ihrer Transformation in ein weitläufiges theoretisches Paradigma geführt hat, das schließlich jenes der (...) Melancholie ersetzt hat. Der zweite Teil stellt den Versuch dar, eine Zeitdiagnose umzureißen: An dieser Stelle ist die psychosoziale Bedeutung bestimmter sozioökonomischer und kultureller Mechanismen zu untersuchen, unter besonderem Hinweis auf das, was als »der neue Geist des Kapitalismus« bezeichnet worden ist, sowie auf neue Formen des Individualismus und ihre paradoxen Dynamiken. Abschließend wird eine Brücke geschlagen, zwischen der Geschichte der beiden bezeichneten Paradigmen und der zeitgenössischen psychosozialen Dynamiken, die mit dem als »depressive Epidemie« interpretierten Phänomen verbunden sind. -/- The essay aims to analyse the gradual historical process of the partial overlap, replacement and expansion of the theoretical paradigm of depression with respect to that of melancholy. The first part is devoted to analysing some of the central features of the multivalent thematizations of melancholy drawn up during modernity, also with relation to the spirit of capitalism (in its Weberian acceptation). This is followed by an overview of the birth of the modern category of depression, and the process that during the twentieth century led to its transformation into a theoretical and nosological paradigm which in the end replaced that of melancholy. The second part is the attempt to draw up a Zeitdiagnose: the aim is to assess the ‘depressive’ psychosocial impact exercised by particular socio-economic mechanisms and cultural trends, with particular reference to what has been defined as the ‘new spirit of capitalism’, as well as the new forms of individualism and their paradoxical dynamics. In conclusion, I will form a bridge between the history of the two aforesaid paradigms and the contemporary psychosocial dynamics correlated to the phenomenon today interpreted as a ‘depression epidemic’.". (shrink)

The essay aims to analyse the gradual historical process of the partial overlap, replacement and expansion of the theoretical paradigm of depression with respect to that of melancholy. The first part is devoted to analysing some of the central features of the multivalent thematizations of melancholy drawn up during modernity, also with relation to the spirit of capitalism (in its Weberian acceptation). This is followed by an overview of the birth of the modern category of depression, and the process that (...) during the twentieth century led to its transformation into a theoretical and nosological paradigm which in the end replaced that of melancholy. The second part is the attempt to draw up a Zeitdiagnose: the aim is to assess the ‘depressive’ psychosocial impact exercised by particular socio-economic mechanisms and cultural trends, with particular reference to what has been defined as the ‘new spirit of capitalism’, as well as the new forms of individualism and their paradoxical dynamics. In conclusion, I will form a bridge between the history of the two aforesaid paradigms and the contemporary psychosocial dynamics correlated to the phenomenon today interpreted as a ‘depression epidemic’. Der Aufsatz zielt darauf, der Prozess der historischen Überlagerung, Substitution und Verbreitung des theoretischen Paradigmas der Depression gegenüber jenem der Melancholie darzustellen. Im ersten Teil wird versucht, einige der einschneidenden Eigenschaften der Thematisierungen der Melancholie in der Frühen Neuzeit anzugeben, auch im Verhältnis zum Geist des Kapitalismus. Nachdem eine Skizze der Entstehung der moderne Kategorie der Depression, geht es darum, den Verlauf nachzuzeichnen, der im 20. Jahrhundert zu ihrer Transformation in ein weitläufiges theoretisches Paradigma geführt hat, das schließlich jenes der Melancholie ersetzt hat. Der zweite Teil stellt den Versuch dar, eine Zeitdiagnose umzureißen: An dieser Stelle ist die psychosoziale Bedeutung bestimmter sozioökonomischer und kultureller Mechanismen zu untersuchen, unter besonderem Hinweis auf das, was als »der neue Geist des Kapitalismus« bezeichnet worden ist, sowie auf neue Formen des Individualismus und ihre paradoxen Dynamiken. Abschließend wird eine Brücke geschlagen, zwischen der Geschichte der beiden bezeichneten Paradigmen und der zeitgenössischen psychosozialen Dynamiken, die mit dem als »depressive Epidemie« interpretierten Phänomen verbunden sind. (shrink)

Spanning 24 centuries, this anthology collects over thirty selections of important Western writing about melancholy and its related conditions by philosophers, doctors, religious and literary figures, and modern psychologists. Truly interdisciplinary, it is the first such anthology. As it traces Western attitudes, it reveals a conversation across centuries and continents as the authors interpret, respond, and build on each other's work. Editor Jennifer Radden provides an extensive, in-depth introduction that draws links and parallels between the selections, and reveals the ambiguous (...) relationship between these historical accounts of melancholy and today's psychiatric views on depression. This important new collection is also beautifully illustrated with depictions of melancholy from Western fine art. (shrink)

_A leading European intellectual reflects on the changing concept of melancholy throughout history_ Alberto Manguel praises the Hungarian writer László Földényi as “one of the most brilliant essayists of our time.” Földényi’s extraordinary _Melancholy_, with its profusion of literary, ecclesiastical, artistic, and historical insights, gives proof to such praise. His book, part history of the term _melancholy_ and part analysis of the melancholic disposition, explores many centuries to explore melancholy’s ambiguities. Along the way Földényi discovers the unrecognized role melancholy may (...) play as a source of energy and creativity in a well-examined life. Földényi begins with a tour of the history of the word _melancholy,_ from ancient Greece to the medieval era, the Renaissance, and modern times. He finds the meaning of melancholy has always been ambiguous, even paradoxical. In our own times it may be regarded either as a psychic illness or a mood familiar to everyone. The author analyzes the complexities of melancholy and concludes that its dual nature reflects the inherent tension of birth and mortality. To understand the melancholic disposition is to find entry to some of the deepest questions one’s life. This distinguished translation brings Földényi’s work directly to English-language readers for the first time. (shrink)

According to Didier Eribon, melancholy is where it all starts and where it also ends: the lifelong process of mourning that each homosexual experiences, and through which they construct their own identity. In this beguiling book, an introverted, anxious, ambitious, artistically gifted queer Filipino-Canadian boy finds solace, inspiration, and a "syllabus for living" in art--works of literature and music, from the children's literary classic Anne of Green Gables to the music of Maria Callas. But their contribution to his intellectual, emotional, (...) and spiritual edification belies the fact that they were largely heteronormative and white, which had the effect of invisibilizing him as a queer person of colour. Part memoir, part cultural commentary, and a hybrid of besotted aesthetic appreciation and unsparing critique, Double Melancholy is by turns a passionate love letter to art and an embattled examination of its oppressive complicity with the society that produces it, and the depths to which art both enriches and colonizes us. (shrink)

Melancholy is a central expressive property of the Before films and key to understanding and appreciating the trilogy as a whole. That, in a nutshell, is the thesis I develop in this paper. In the first section, I present a philosophical account of melancholy in general and aesthetic melancholy in particular. Melancholy is understood here as the profound and bittersweet emotional experience that occurs when we vividly grasp a harsh truth about human existence in such a way that we come (...) to appreciate certain aspects of life more deeply. The second section of the paper focuses on the many intense as well as more subtle moments of melancholy in the various encounters between Celine and Jesse. These moments, I argue, are partly prompted by the environment and the circumstances in which they find themselves. But both of them also actively seek out and create such moments by the stories they tell and the reflections they engage in. That seems part of who they are as individuals and, I contend, it may be part of what attracts them to each other. In the third section, I address ‘film expression’, as opposed to ‘character expression’, and argue that melancholy is not just present in the characters’ dialogue and in their facial and bodily expressions but is also expressed through various cinematic means. The final section centres on the audience and the reception of the Before trilogy. I introduce the distinction between expression and expressiveness and suggest that the films may have resonated deeply with some viewers because they are so expressive of melancholy. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This introduction argues for competing diachronic and synchronic accounts of melancholy in European and American culture. Taking the pioneering and yet belated work Saturn and Melancholy (1964) of Erwin Panofsky, Fritz Saxl, and Raymond Klibansky as its starting point, this article situates melancholy as at once its own, often local and non-specialist discourse as well as a conceptual web binding together medical, artistic, and social innovations, competitions, and turmoil. As a subject, melancholy demands interdisciplinary study, as Dürer’s print Melencolia (...) I continues to prove. As a locus of methodological innovation, melancholy in the wake of Panofsky, Saxl, and Klibansky continues to yield the alternative genealogies, conceptual histories, and formal artistic vocabularies of this volume’s contributions whether moving backwards from Dürer to Homer or forward to the present day with Lars von Trier and major European novelists. (shrink)

Placing readings of early modern painting and literature in conversation with psychoanalytic theory and assemblage theory, this book argues that, far from isolating its sufferers, melancholy brings people together.

This book traces the concept of melancholy in Walter Benjamin's early writings. Rather than focusing on the overtly melancholic subject matter of Benjamin's work or the unhappy circumstances of his own fate, Ferber considers the concept's implications for his philosophy. Informed by Heidegger's discussion of moods and their importance for philosophical thought, she contends that a melancholic mood is the organizing principle or structure of Benjamin's early metaphysics and ontology. Her novel analysis of Benjamin's arguments about theater and language features (...) a discussion of the _Trauerspiel_ book that is amongst the first in English to scrutinize the baroque plays themselves. _Philosophy and Melancholy_ also contributes to the history of philosophy by establishing a strong relationship between Benjamin and other philosophers, including Leibniz, Kant, Husserl, and Heidegger. (shrink)

Saturn and Melancholy remains an iconic text in art history, intellectual history, and the study of culture, despite being long out of print in English. Rooted in the tradition established by Aby Warburg and the Warburg Library, this book has deeply influenced understandings of the interrelations between the humanities disciplines since its first publication in English in 1964. This new edition makes the original English text available for the first time in decades. Saturn and Melancholy offers an unparalleled inquiry into (...) the origin and development of the philosophical and medical theories on which the ancient conception of the temperaments was based and discusses their connections to astrological and religious ideas. It also traces representations of melancholy in literature and the arts up to the sixteenth century, culminating in a landmark analysis of Dürer's most famous engraving, Melencolia I. This edition features Raymond Klibansky's additional introduction and bibliographical amendments for the German edition, as well as translations of source material and 155 original illustrations. An essay on the complex publication history of this pathbreaking project - which almost did not see the light of day - covers more than eighty years, including its more recent heritage. Making new a classic book that has been out of print for over four decades, this expanded edition presents fresh insights about Saturn and Melancholy and its legacy as a precursor to modern interdisciplinary studies. (shrink)

_A leading European intellectual reflects on the changing concept of melancholy throughout history_ Alberto Manguel praises the Hungarian writer László Földényi as “one of the most brilliant essayists of our time.” Földényi’s extraordinary _Melancholy_, with its profusion of literary, ecclesiastical, artistic, and historical insights, gives proof to such praise. His book, part history of the term _melancholy_ and part analysis of the melancholic disposition, explores many centuries to explore melancholy’s ambiguities. Along the way Földényi discovers the unrecognized role melancholy may (...) play as a source of energy and creativity in a well-examined life. Földényi begins with a tour of the history of the word _melancholy,_ from ancient Greece to the medieval era, the Renaissance, and modern times. He finds the meaning of melancholy has always been ambiguous, even paradoxical. In our own times it may be regarded either as a psychic illness or a mood familiar to everyone. The author analyzes the complexities of melancholy and concludes that its dual nature reflects the inherent tension of birth and mortality. To understand the melancholic disposition is to find entry to some of the deepest questions one’s life. This distinguished translation brings Földényi’s work directly to English-language readers for the first time. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that temporality, as described in Being and Nothingness , is a central theme in Nausea . In the first section I make the point that one of Sartre's guiding concerns at the time of publishing Nausea is temporality and the temporal nature of freedom. In the second section, the theme of melancholy and its relationship to temporality is explored. The third section explores Sartre's use of this image of being taken 'from behind'. I use this (...) temporal imagery as a guide for interpreting Roquentin's reaction to the rape and murder of Lucienne. By interpreting this scene by way of the temporality of Being and Nothingness , we can duly recognize the early Sartre's concern with temporality, understand the melancholia that arises because of the 'internal' negation of the past, and give a more satisfying account of a scene which is often ignored in the secondary literature. (shrink)

In this article, we want to show the relevance and importance of melancholy as an aesthetic emotion. Melancholy often plays a role in our encounters with art works, and it is also present in some of our aesthetic responses to the natural environment. Melancholy invites aesthetic considerations to come into play not only in well-defined aesthetic contexts but also in everyday situations that give reason for melancholy to arise. But the complexity of melancholy, the fact that it is fascinating in (...) itself, suggests the further thought that it may be considered as an aesthetic emotion per se. To this end, we argue that it is the distinctive character of melancholy, its dual character and its differences from sadness and depression, which distinguishes it as an aesthetic emotion. (shrink)

The paper attempts to construct a theoretical account of what melancholy—in a psychoanalytical and cultural sense—may mean for jurisprudence. It argues that the map of relations and displacements between the object and the subject that is associated with melancholy in different psychoanalytical approaches can be fruitfully adopted for understanding of normativity. Based on a thorough re-reading of Freud’s Trauer und Melancholie, it suggests that there is an irremovable component of melancholy contained in the primordial act of separation of normativity from (...) non-normative reality. This interpretation is confronted with Kelsen’s Theory of Pure Law in order to analyse in which respect the momentum of self-sufficiency within normativity entails structures of melancholy. Kelsen’s concept of ‘effectiveness’ is proposed as a key link which explains how melancholic withdrawal allows the law to interact with reality. Then the paper discusses Agamben’s theory of applicability and of the state of exception to demonstrate the law’s melancholic trap. Finally, the paper draws on Lacanian and post-Lacanian approaches to melancholy in order to investigate how melancholic momentum is inherent in the very structure of the law’s validity. (shrink)

Melancholy occupies a privileged place in the Kantian taxonomy of temperaments since the pre- critical phase, but it is in the Nineties that it reveals its philosophical fecundity. Melancholy becomes, in fact, an interesting notion not so much because of its relationship with Kantian biography, nor because of its presence in the description of psychopathies, but because it lies, unique in this, on the borderline between pathology and sanity. Melancholy thus provides an opportunity to show the topicality of Kantian reflection (...) on mental illness since it underlines the continuity, and not the rupture, between the healthy mental state and that affected by illness, in line with today's most widespread tendencies to consider mental illness as a privileged observatory of the subject. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Melancholy and the Therapeutic Language of Moral Philosophy in Seventeenth-Century ThoughtJeremy SchmidtThe concept of melancholy comprehended a wide range of characteristics and conditions in seventeenth-century European culture, from the brooding introspection of the genius and the scholar to a condition of delirious and delusory madness.1 Its central and most immediately identifiable characteristic, however, was the excessive and unreasonable nature of its symptomologically defining emotions of fear and sorrow. As (...) Robert Burton noted out in The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), the melancholic condition was commonly taken to be "a kind of dotage without fever, having for his ordinary companions fear and sadness, without any apparent occasion."2 The presence of a pervasive and unreasonable sense of fear and sorrow invariably solicited the melancholic label. Indeed, melancholic emotions were the primary substance of melancholic dotage; the ravings of the melancholically mad and their frequent obsession with a single idea were often driven by an overwhelming feeling of fear and sorrow.3The concept of melancholy as a mental disorder involving these specific emotions had coalesced under the gaze of medical observation in ancient Greece, and the melancholic condition was thought by many medical theorists of classical [End Page 583] antiquity to be caused by a physiological surfeit of black bile, the Greek word for which was melancholia.4 Western medicine, profoundly influenced by the Greek medical tradition, continued to diagnose and treat melancholic disturbance as a physical distemper well into the nineteenth century. Yet the kind of mental anguish which early medical observers labeled melancholic bore a striking resemblance to forms of emotional disorder whose point of origin was thought to be the mind itself. Various traditions of classical moral philosophy sought to treat disorders of the mind that unchecked emotion could create primarily by directing, ordering, and correcting the thought of the sufferer. Where the melancholic condition displayed qualities of the emotions as these were represented and analyzed by moral philosophers it was viewed as susceptible to philosophical treatment and insight.5Early modern English writers, no less than classical writers, thought it appropriate to apply to cases of melancholy therapies derived from the philosophic endeavor to define and achieve peace of mind. Burton argued explicitly in The Anatomy of Melancholy for the rightful authority of the philosophical "physician of the soul" in the treatment of melancholy; and the conceptual similarity of melancholy to moral diseases of the soul which provided the basis for this authority is evidenced in the works of several seventeenth-century moralists, as well as in the writings of the influential seventeenth-century physician and natural philosopher Thomas Willis on melancholy and the passions. Willis noted that melancholic emotions were structured and caused by the judgments of the mind rather than by the force of physiological dysfunction alone. His recognition of the importance of the mental aspects of melancholy provided the basis for his prescription of moral therapies for the government of the mind in addition to therapies for the body. Moreover, his writing on the passion of grief displays the ability of moral philosophical language to represent melancholic-like states as problems of the moral life, to be engaged through rational meditation and control.The importance of moral philosophy in understanding and treating melancholy has been largely ignored in current scholarship in the history of psychiatry and madness, which has concentrated on early modern medical concepts of mental disorder that traced its origins to the body. The historian of psychiatry and "madness" Roy Porter has, for instance, referred to Willis's medical writings as evidence for the "thoroughgoing somatic grounding of disorders of thought, feeling and behavior" that he alleged to have dominated the era's medical [End Page 584] conceptualization and treatment of madness.6 While Michel Foucault insightfully noted that Willis's ostensibly chemical account of the nature of melancholy was in fact "a phenomenology of the melancholic experience," he dismissed out of hand the relevance of classical moral philosophical language to the early modern treatment of madness, asserting the complete absence of moral treatments of madness until the end of the eighteenth century.7 In analyzing Willis's writing he thus failed to note the broader moral philosophical... (shrink)

This probing study of melancholy invites readers to view "depression" genealogically through the history of its interpretation. It plumbs interior depths where psychology, theology, philosophy, and literary creation intersect. Therapies proposed for the dark mood have included work, prayer, care of the self, and deepening awareness of its indispensable role in the development of consciousness of oneself and God. Reflecting on these historical responses and cures can prompt a personal exploration, making this a practical manual for self-knowing and self-transcending, a (...) philosophical "guide for the depressed.". (shrink)

Aan de hand van het werk van de Duitse romancier W.G. Sebald breekt Mark Anderson een lans voor een herwaardering van de melancholie, als enig mogelijke houding om de last van het verleden die we moeten dragen, te kunnen torsen. De kunsten zijn het aangewezen instrument voor deze ‘daad van verzet’ ‘tegen de krachten van vernietiging en vergeten in het menselijk leven’. Het werk van Sebald, achtervolgd door de ‘postmemory’ aan het Duitse oorlogsgeweld dat hij zelf alleen indirect had meegemaakt, (...) is hiervan een veelzeggende illustratie. (shrink)

Johannesburg has been described variously as an elusive, genre-less, blank, even self-cannibalizing city. Without refusing such rhetorical play, this article seeks to secure a mode of urban analysis that attends to the city’s material losses as well as its conceptual elisions. In so doing, it engages the critical potential, in particular, of melancholy, establishing through this concept not just an affective condition or a psycho-spatial categorization, but a way of mapping the city. Through analysis of Mark Gevisser’s Lost and Found (...) in Johannesburg, this article follows his self-styled ‘dispatcher’s eye’ in its efforts to navigate those spaces in the city otherwise erased from the city’s self-image. In particular, it finds important precedence in Ranjana Khanna’s notion of a ‘postcolonial melancholia’, as well as interventions by Roland Barthes and Walter Benjamin, as it elaborates upon the imaginative as well as political claims made available by such a melancholy mapping of Johannesburg. (shrink)

Section 1 proposes a new philosophical account of melancholy. Section 2 examines the reasons why one might think that pornography and melancholy are incompatible. Section 3 discusses some successful examples of melancholic pornography and makes the case that feminist pornographers are particularly well-placed to produce such material.

This paper explores the nature and value of melancholy and the rationality of being in such a state. I defend a view of melancholy as a highly complex mood-like state. This complexity shows itself...

Neoliberalism co-opts noisy riots like feminism and hardcore music--can melancholic siren songs fight back?

In 2021, the men’s English national football team reached their first final at a major international tournament since winning the World Cup in 1966. This success followed their previous achievement of reaching the semi-finals (knocked-out by Croatia) at the 2018 World Cup. True to form, the defeats proved unfalteringly English; with the 2021 final echoing previous tournament defeats, as England lost to Italy on penalties. However, what resonated with the predictability of an English defeat, was the accompanying chant, ‘it’s coming (...) home’. A ubiquitous presence throughout the course of both tournaments—while chanted at England football matches, it was also repeated across social media, the press and commercial advertising—the chant originates from the 1996 single, Three Lions (Football’s Coming Home), performed by David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and The Lightning Seeds. In what follows critical attention will be given to examining how the song offers what will be argued is a melancholic outlook. By re-approaching examples of English nostalgia and hubris, this chapter will expose how illustrations of English melancholy offer the potential for promoting collective forms of expression, which, when contextualized alongside England’s lack of footballing success (for the men’s team, at least), can be offset against a melancholic mediation that is cognizant of the centrality of loss—both for the subject and our collective sporting endeavours. (shrink)

Here Donald Livingston traces this distinction through all of Hume's writings and reveals its relevance for contemporary discussion.

ABSTRACT This essay considers how various European novels written and published around the turn of the millennium may be grouped together as an historically and geographically contingent literary genre, while also reflecting on the implications of this. In doing so, this essay coins the term ‘melancholy cosmopolitanism’ to best describe this genre of literary works. Ultimately, this genre suggests, first of all, that the sense of melancholy obsolescence articulated by European writers at this time is not confined to discrete national (...) literary contexts. Moreover, this essay argues, it implies a form of solidarity among these writers and their works, such that they encapsulate the possibility of working through the melancholy of history precisely through the aesthetic similarities among their literary explorations of it. Contemporaneous melancholy works of European literature are understood here as ‘cosmopolitan’ in a hermeneutic sense: their aesthetics resonate with each other beyond discrete national literary contexts, while also exemplifying individually assumed poses of melancholy amid a broader collective. In construing European melancholy aesthetics as a form of cosmopolitanism, then, the literary genre proposed by this essay suggests that mutual articulations of melancholy in various European novels collectively embody a potential for the melancholy of history to be overcome. (shrink)

A partir da perspectiva intelectualista grega, na qual o dualismo entre corpo e alma requer o primado do discurso racional [lógos] em detrimento do páthos filosófico, busca-se com este artigo associar a noção de "desmedida" [hybris] com a noção de melancolia. Essa associação ganha ainda mais relevo, quando a aproximamos da interpretação de Simone Weil para o poema épico de Homero, a Ilíada. Se essa aproximação se justifica, então é patente a aproximação entre o caráter trágico que o destino adquire, (...) na perspectiva clássica, e a noção de contingência enquanto fundamento do absurdo existencial, no pensamento existencialista. We seek to associate the notion of "excess" [hubris] with the notion of melancholy from the intellectualist Greek perspective, in which the dualism between body and soul requires the rule of rational discourse [logos] at the expense of philosophical pathos. This association becomes more relevant when understood in light of Simone Weil's interpretation of Homer's epic poem, the Iliad. If this approach is justified, then a rapprochement becomes evident between the tragic character takes on destiny in the classical view, and the notion of contingency as the basis of existential absurdity in existentialist thought. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay analyses the visual representation of melancholy and related themes in the work of American artist Thomas Eakins (1844–1916). Its particular focus is Home Scene (1870–1871), an intimate portrait of two of the artist’s sisters in the parlour of their family home in Philadelphia. Through a close examination of Home Scene in relation to later portraits by and of the artist, my analysis sheds new light on how and why Eakins reshaped ideations of melancholy based in European art (...) and intellectual history within the context of nineteenth century American culture. While representing both the appearance and effects of melancholy in Home Scene and many other of his portraits, Eakins also constructed aspects of his own artistic identity in accordance with this theme. Analysing the ideas and practices that impacted these processes, this study shows how the artist’s life-long fascination with the intertwined subjects of melancholy, mental illness, and the trope of the misunderstood artist-genius informed his personal and professional lives as it intersected with prominent discourses on women, gender, and medicine in post-Civil War America. (shrink)

The article explores Adorno’s understanding of fetishism and melancholy as immanent to the artwork’s autonomous structure. In order to understand the relation between them, the Freudian understanding of fetishism and melancholy has to be considered along with the more explicit reference to the Marxist concept of commodity fetishism. Analysing the implications of Adorno’s claim that commodity fetishism is at the origin of artistic autonomy, the article shows how it should be understood not only as a materialist demystification but also as (...) a reaffirmation of art’s apparent self-sufficiency and its capacity to resist the commodification of society. Nevertheless—the article claims—thas this is only possible if art’s fetishism is dialectically opposed to its melancholy, through which art establishes a relation to the heterogeneous element of the lost object produced by its autonomous form. (shrink)

This probing study of melancholy invites readers to view "depression" genealogically through the history of its interpretation. It plumbs interior depths where psychology, theology, philosophy, and literary creation intersect. Therapies proposed for the dark mood have included work, prayer, care of the self, and deepening awareness of its indispensable role in the development of consciousness of oneself and God. Reflecting on these historical responses and cures can prompt a personal exploration, making this a practical manual for self-knowing and self-transcending, a (...) philosophical "guide for the depressed.". (shrink)

The pathologization of women’s depression covers over the social and institutional causes of that symptomology. Insofar as patriarchal values continue to devalue and debase women and mothers in ways that colonize psychic space, and depression becomes a cover for what I call ‘social melancholy.’ This is not the melancholy of traditional psychoanalysis, but a form of melancholy that results from oppression, domination, and the colonization of psychic space. Social melancholy differs from both Freud’s notion of melancholy in that it is (...) the result of social factors that constitute the depressed subject as ashamed and lacking agency. Crucial to my analysis is a distinction between shame and guilt missing from traditional psychoanalytic accounts of melancholy and depression. (shrink)

Psychiatry has a habit of ignoring its past, which is understandable but, in some instances, a mistake. It is my contention that some of the lacunae about mood disorder in today's psychiatric understanding and treatment may be illuminated by the medical lore captured in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy (1621). The implications of the present analysis for network based accounts of depression seem to encourage a reconsideration of therapeutic and remedial principles based on those found in Burton's work.

ExcerptResigned and Radical Thought It has been said on numerous occasions that Frankfurt School critical theory is, and always was, a spent force. Its totalizing theory of reification leads to a reification of the theory itself. Famously, Adorno was forced to answer to the “reproach” of “resignation” from his students during the 1960s.1 Adorno had already defined his project as “melancholy science,” and it is not difficult to connect melancholia to resignation.2 In this essay Adorno will be read by way (...) of a polemical inversion of melancholy, as it is commonly understood. This interpretation is motivated by…. (shrink)

In this article, I draw on Kierkegaard’s often over-looked work, The Concept of Anxiety, to gain deeper insight into the tenor of melancholy. We discover that Kierkegaard labels anxiety, due to its connection to hereditary sin, as the source for melancholy. Thus, contrary to the usual interpretation of Kierkegaard, I argue that melancholy is more than an individual’s struggle with existence, but is intimately tied to the historical environment, because it is steeped in an ever-increasing, ever-deepening anxiety. This link be­tween (...) anxiety and melancholy clears away misunderstandings about Kierkegaard’s description of melancholy and suggests implications in psychology, philosophy, and theology. (shrink)

1 Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge, CB2 3RH, UK.

Some significant receptions of Epicurean philosophy take place in nineteenth century European thought. For Marx, writing in the 1840s, and in defiance of Hegel’s negative assessment, Epicurus is the ‘greatest representative of the Greek enlightenment’,1 whilst for Jean-Marie Guyau, writing in the 1870s, Epicurus is the original free spirit, ‘Still today it is the spirit of old Epicurus who, combined with new doctrines, works away at and undermines Christianity.’ 2 For Nietzsche, Epicurus is one of the greatest human beings to (...) have graced the earth and the inventor of ‘heroic-idyllic philosophizing’.3 Here my focus is on the reading of Epicureanism to be found in Bergson’s commentary on Lucretius’s remarkable poem, De Rerum Natura. For Bergson the task Lucretius sets himself is a ‘pioneering one’, one that will serve humanity, in particular making the Romans aware of previously unknown or misunderstood truths. In order to demonstrate these truths with precision it was necessary for Lucretius to be acquainted with Greek philosophy, and especially the teaching of Epicurus. (shrink)

In this paper I explain what the duty of artists could be according to the philosopher R.G. Collingwood. My aim is not only to focus on Collingwood’s writings on the philosophy of art, but to show the parallel between the concepts used in his aesthetics and his ethics. In fact, the major role of “emotion” in both his art and moral theory gives me the occasion to develop an understanding of artists’ tasks within their communities. Moreover, it provides an occasion (...) to define what, for Collingwood, the subject of ethics is and to explore an almost uncharted part of his work: his “Lectures on Moral Philosophy” delivered from 1921 to 1940. (shrink)