Melancholy

One of the four temperaments in Greek ancient medicine, melancholy referred to a disease of the mind, body and soul. The word 'melancholy' derives from the Greek word for the humour black bile (μελαν- dark,+ χολή bile), a disposition in which a natural preponderance of black bile over the other humours (blood, phlegm, and yellow bile) was assumed to cause a wealth of symptoms including delusions, anxiety, griefs, phobia, stomach-aches, migraines, and skin rashes. While it was already discussed by the Father of Medicine, Hippocrates, melancholy reached its highest prominence during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the illness came to be perceived as a European epidemic. At the same time, melancholy constituted a source of fascination for artists, writers and philosophers alike, being seemingly accompanied by a touch of brilliance in those who displayed its symptoms. In Problems Pseudo-Aristotle had posed the question, "Why is it that all those men who have become extraordinary in philosophy, poetry or the arts are obviously melancholic?“ (Aristotle 155, 953a, II. 10- 12). This link between genius and melancholy was given a special place in the work of Renaissance scholars, such as Robert Burton, author of the Anatomy of Melancholy, who translated and reinterpreted Greek philosophical and medical texts. In Elizabethan England, melancholy retained its status as a highly fashionable albeit elusive malady, and the association between melancholy and artistic genius remained a powerful one. In the tradition of Aristotle, numerous artists and writers of the time explored the creative side of melancholy, while also stressing the inevitable pain and frustration that accompanied greatness. William Shakespeare is a case in point: Among the melancholic characters in his comedies and tragedies, Hamlet – caught up in morbid philosophical ruminations – is perhaps the most famous one, but the melancholic condition can also be linked to love-sick Romeo, to Jacques, when he reflects on the seven ages of man in As You Like It, as well as to Don John and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, who are described as being „of a very melancholic disposition“ (2.1.5).

Aristotle. "Book XXX." Problemata / Problems II. Books XXII-XXXVIII. Trans. W. S. Hett. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1965 [c. 350 BC]. 154-81.

Burton, Robert. The Anatomy of Melancholy. Ed. and introd. by Angus Gowland. London: Penguin, 2021 [1621].

Jouanna, Jacques. Greek Medicine from Hippocrates to Galen: Selected Papers. Ed. Philip van der Eijk. Trans. Neil Allies. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2012.

Lund, Mary Ann. A User's Guide to Melancholy. Cambridge: CUP, 2021.

Shakespeare, William. Much Ado About Nothing. Ed. R.A. Foakes. London; New York: Penguin, 2005.