Melancholia
Melancholia (from Greek μελαγχολία - melancholia "sadness, lit. black bile"), also lugubriousness, from the Latin lugere, to mourn; moroseness, from the Latin morosus, self-willed, fastidious habit; wistfulness, from old English wist: intent, or saturnine, (see Saturn), in contemporary usage, is a mood disorder of non-specific depression, characterized by low levels of enthusiasm and eagerness for activity.
In a modern context, "melancholy" applies only to the mental or emotional symptoms of depression or despondency; historically, "melancholia" could be physical as well as mental, and melancholic conditions were classified as such by their common cause rather than by their properties.[1]
Similarly, melancholia in ancient usage also encompassed mental disorders which might now be classed as schizophrenias or bipolar disorders.[1]
Notes
- G E Berrios (1988) Melancholia and depression during the 19th century. A conceptual History. British Journal of Psychiatry 153: 298-304
- Hippocrates, Aphorisms, Section 6.23
- Hanafy A. Youssef, Fatma A. Youssef and T. R. Dening (1996), "Evidence for the existence of schizophrenia in medieval Islamic society", History of Psychiatry 7: 55-62 [56].
External Links
- Grunwald Center website: Durer's Melencolia and clinical depression, iconography and printmaking techniques
- "Dürer's Melancholia": sonnet by Edward Dowden
- Melancholy and abstraction, on the Berlin exhibition "Melancholy: Genius and Madness in Art"
- Diderot's historic writing on Melancholy - translated into English by Matthew Chozick
