Melencolia I by Albrecht Dürer.

Melancholia (Greek μελανχολία), in contemporary usage, is a mood disorder of non-specific depression, characterized by low levels of enthusiasm and low levels of 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. Similarly, melancholia in ancient usage also encompassed mental disorders which would later be differentiated as schizophrenias or bipolar disorders. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya ) is the name of the 2006 television anime about a girl who, unbeknownst to her, possesses the power to change reality. ... Melancholia Records is a mainly Black metal label, co-created in 2002 by Emperor Xaëlis & T.Nairolf. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 464 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (2196 × 2835 pixel, file size: 2. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 464 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (2196 × 2835 pixel, file size: 2. ... Albrecht Dürers engraving Melancholia I (originally known by Dürer as Melencolia I) is notable for being an allegorical depiction of the main symptoms of Melancholy, now better known as depression. ... Albrecht Dürer (pronounced /al. ... A mood disorder is a condition whereby the prevailing emotional mood is distorted or inappropriate to the circumstances. ... In everyday language depression refers to any downturn in mood, which may be relatively transitory and perhaps due to something trivial. ... For other uses, see Bipolar. ...

History

The name "melancholia" comes from the old medical theory of the four humours: disease being caused by an imbalance in one or other of the four basic bodily fluids, or humours. Personality types were similarly determined by the dominant humour in a particular person. Melancholia was caused by an excess of black bile; hence the name, which means 'black bile' (Ancient Greek μελας, melas, "black", + χολη, kholé, "bile"); a person whose constitution tended to have a preponderance of black bile had a melancholic disposition. See also: sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric The word theory has a number of distinct meanings in different fields of knowledge, depending on their methodologies and the context of discussion. ... This article is about humors in Greco-Roman medicine. ... Bile (or gall) is a bitter, yellow or green alkaline fluid secreted by hepatocytes from the liver of most vertebrates. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Sanguine can refer to: Sanguine personality - optimistic, cheerful, even-tempered, confident, rational, popular, fun-loving Sanguine is the temperament of blood - one of the four humours Sanguine is a tincture in heraldry, otherwise one of the staynard colours (stains). ... Phlegmatic is a temperament in the theory of the four humours. ... Choleric is a temperament in the ancient medical theory of the four humours. ...

Melancholia was described as a distinct disease with particular mental and physical symptoms as early as the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Hippocrates, in his Aphorisms, characterized all "fears and despondencies, if they last a long time" as being symptomatic of melancholia.^[1] This article is about the medical term. ... The 5th century BC started the first day of 500 BC and ended the last day of 401 BC. // The Parthenon of Athens seen from the hill of the Pnyx to the west. ... The 4th century BC started the first day of 400 BC and ended the last day of 301 BC. It is considered part of the Classical era, epoch, or historical period. ... For other uses, see Hippocrates (disambiguation). ...

The most extended treatment of melancholia comes from Robert Burton, whose The Anatomy of Melancholy treats the subject from both a literary and a medical perspective. Robert Burton Robert Burton (February 8, 1577 – January 25, 1640) was an English scholar and vicar at Oxford University, best known for writing The Anatomy of Melancholy. ... Front page of The Anatomy of Melancholy The Anatomy of Melancholy (Full title The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. ... Perspective in theory of cognition is the choice of a context or a reference (or the result of this choice) from which to sense, categorize, measure or codify experience, cohesively forming a coherent belief, typically for comparing with another. ...

Burton wrote in the 16th century that music and dance were critical in treating mental illness, especially melancholia.^[2][3][4] In November 2006, Dr. Michael J. Crawford ^[5] and his colleagues again found that music therapy helped the outcomes of Schizophrenic patients. ^[6] Schizophrenia (from the Greek word σχιζοφρένεια, or shjzofreneja, meaning split mind) is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by impairments in the perception or expression of reality and by significant social or occupational dysfunction. ...

A famous allegorical engraving by Albrecht Dürer is entitled Melencolia I. This engraving portrays melancholia as the state of waiting for inspiration to strike, and not necessarily as a depressive affliction. Amongst other allegorical symbols, the picture includes a magic square, and a truncated rhombohedron [2]. The image in turn inspired a passage in The City of Dreadful Night by James Thomson (B.V.), and, a few years later, a sonnet by Edward Dowden. Allegory of Music by Filippino Lippi. ... Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. ... Albrecht Dürer (pronounced /al. ... Albrecht Dürers engraving Melancholia I (originally known by Dürer as Melencolia I) is notable for being an allegorical depiction of the main symptoms of Melancholy, now better known as depression. ... In recreational mathematics, a magic square of order n is an arrangement of n² numbers, usually distinct integers, in a square, such that the n numbers in all rows, all columns, and both diagonals sum to the same constant. ... The n-sided trapezohedron or deltohedron is the dual polyhedron of a regular n-sided antiprism. ... The City of Dreadful Night is a long poem by the Scottish poet James B.V. Thomson, published in 1880 in a book entitled Thomson, who sometimes used the pseudonym Bysshe Vanolis — in honour of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Novalis — was a thorough pessimist, suffering from lifelong melancholia... James Thomson (1834 - 1882) was a Scottish poet, best known for his long poem The City of Dreadful Night (1874). ... Edward Dowden (May 3, 1843 - April 4, 1913), was an Irish critic and poet. ...

The cult of melancholia

During the early 17th century, a curious cultural and literary cult of melancholia arose in England. It was believed that religious uncertainties caused by the English Reformation and a greater attention being paid to issues of sin, damnation, and salvation, led to this effect. (16th century - 17th century - 18th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... Religious is a term with both a technical definition and folk use. ... This box:      King Henry VIII of England. ... For other uses, see Sin (disambiguation). ... “Dammit” redirects here. ... For other uses, see Salvation (disambiguation). ...

In music, the post-Elizabethan cult of melancholia is associated with John Dowland, whose motto was Semper Dowland, semper dolens. ("Always Dowland, always mourning.") The melancholy man, known to contemporaries as a "malcontent," is epitomized by Shakespeare's Prince Hamlet, the "Melancholy Dane." Another literary expression of this cultural mood comes from the death-obsessed later works of John Donne. Other major melancholic authors include Sir Thomas Browne, and Jeremy Taylor, whose Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial and Holy Living and Holy Dying, respectively, contain extensive meditations on death. John Dowland (1563 – February 20, 1626) was an English composer, singer, and lutenist. ... For other uses, see Hamlet (disambiguation). ... For the Welsh courtier and diplomat, see Sir John Donne. ... Sir Thomas Browne (October 19, 1605 – October 19, 1682) was an English author of varied works that disclose his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric. ... Jeremy Taylor is depicted in this portrait at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University. ... Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial, or a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk, is a work by Sir Thomas Browne, published in 1658 as the first part of a two-part work that concludes with The Garden of Cyrus. ... Holy Living and Holy Dying is the collective title of two books of Christian devotion by Jeremy Taylor. ...

A similar phenomenon, though not under the same name, occurred during Romanticism, with such works as The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe. Romantics redirects here. ... The Sorrows of Young Werther (originally published as Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) is an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774. ... “Goethe” redirects here. ...

In the 20th century, much of the counterculture of modernism was fueled by comparable alienation and a sense of purposelessness called "anomie." (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... For Christian theological modernism, see Liberal Christianity and Modernism (Roman Catholicism). ... Look up alienation, alienate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Anomie, in contemporary English, means a condition or malaise in individuals, characterized by an absence or diminution of standards or values. ...

Melancholy in Arab culture

The Arabic word found as ḥuzn and ḥazan in the Qur'an and hüzün in modern Turkish refers to the pain and sorrow over a loss, death of relatives in the case of the Qur'an. Two schools further interpreted this feeling. The first sees it as a sign that one is too attached to the material world, while Sufism took it to represent a feeling of personal insuffiency, that one was not getting close enough to God and did not or could not do enough for God in this world.^[7] The Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk in ^[7] further elaborates on the added meaning hüzün has acquired in modern Turkish. It has come to denote a sense of failure in life, lack of initiative and to retreat into oneself, symptoms quite similar to melancholia. According to Pamuk it was a defining character of cultural works from Istanbul after the fall of the Ottoman empire. One may see similarities with how melancholic romantic paintings in the west sometimes used ruins from the age of the roman empire as a backdrop. The Qur’ān [1] (Arabic: , literally the recitation; also sometimes transliterated as Quran, Koran, or Al-Quran) is the central religious text of Islam. ... Sufism is a mystic tradition within Islam that encompasses a diverse range of beliefs and practices dedicated to divine love and the cultivation of the heart. ... Ferit Orhan Pamuk (born on June 7, 1952 in Istanbul) is a Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist. ... Istanbul (Turkish: , Greek: , historically Byzantium and later Constantinople; see other names) is Turkeys most populous city, and its cultural and financial center. ... Ottoman redirects here. ... For other uses, see Roman Empire (disambiguation). ...

As a parallel with physicians of classical Greece, ancient Arabic physicians also categorized ḥuzn as a disease. Al-Kindi (c. 801–873 CE) links it with disease-like mental states like anger, passion, hatred and depression, while Avicenna (980–1037 CE) diagnosed ḥuzn in a lovesick man if his pulse increased drastically when the name of the girl he loved was spoken. ^[8] Avicenna discuss, in remarkable similarity with Robert Burton, causes like fear of death, intrigues, love, and food and treatments combining medicine and philosophy. Including rational thought, morale, discipline, fasting and coming to terms with the catastrophe. For the Christian theologian, see Abd al-Masih ibn Ishaq al-Kindi. ... (Persian: ابن سينا) (c. ...

The various uses of ḥuzn and hüzün thus describe melancholy from a certain vantage point, show similarities with Female hysteria in the case of Avicenna's patient and in a religious context it is not unlike sloth, which by Dante was defined as "failure to love God with all one's heart, all one's mind and all one's soul". Thomas Aquinas described sloth as "an oppressive sorrow, which, to wit, so weighs upon man's mind, that he wants to do nothing". ^[9] Water massages as a treatment for hysteria c. ... For other uses, see Cardinal sin (disambiguation). ... DANTE is also a digital audio network. ... Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225 - March 7, 1274) was a Catholic philosopher and theologian in the scholastic tradition, who gave birth to the Thomistic school of philosophy, which was long the primary philosophical approach of the Roman Catholic Church. ...

Notes

1. ^ Hippocrates, Aphorisms, Section 6.23
2. ^ cf. The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton, subsection 3, on and after line 3480, "Music a Remedy":

   But to leave all declamatory speeches in praise [3481]of divine music, I will confine myself to my proper subject: besides that excellent power it hath to expel many other diseases, it is a sovereign remedy against [3482] despair and melancholy, and will drive away the devil himself. Canus, a Rhodian fiddler, in [3483]Philostratus, when Apollonius was inquisitive to know what he could do with his pipe, told him, "That he would make a melancholy man merry, and him that was merry much merrier than before, a lover more enamoured, a religious man more devout." Ismenias the Theban, [3484]Chiron the centaur, is said to have cured this and many other diseases by music alone: as now they do those, saith [3485]Bodine, that are troubled with St. Vitus's Bedlam dance. [1]

3. ^ "Humanities are the Hormones: A Tarantella Comes to Newfoundland. What should we do about it?" by Dr. John Crellin, MUNMED, newsletter of the Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1996.
4. ^ Aung, Steven K.H., Lee, Mathew H.M. (2004). "Music, Sounds, Medicine, and Meditation: An Integrative Approach to the Healing Arts". Alternative & Complementary Therapies 10 (5): 266-270. doi:10.1089/act.2004.10.266. 
5. ^ Dr. Michael J. Crawford page at Imperial College London, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Psychological Medicine.
6. ^ Crawford, Mike J.; Talwar, Nakul, et al. (November 2006). "Music therapy for in-patients with schizophrenia: Exploratory randomised controlled trial". The British Journal of Psychiatry (2006) 189: 405-409. doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.105.015073. PMID 17077429. 
7. ^ ^{a b} 'Istanbul', chapter 10, (2003) Orhan Pamuk
8. ^ Avicenna, Fi'l-Ḥuzn, (About Ḥuzn)
9. ^ "Summa Theologica", Thomas Aquinas

A digital object identifier (or DOI) is a standard for persistently identifying a piece of intellectual property on a digital network and associating it with related data, the metadata, in a structured extensible way. ... Affiliations Russell Group Association of MBAs IDEA League Association of Commonwealth Universities Golden Triangle Oak Ridge Associated Universities Nobel laureates 14 Website http://www. ... A digital object identifier (or DOI) is a standard for persistently identifying a piece of intellectual property on a digital network and associating it with related data, the metadata, in a structured extensible way. ... Ferit Orhan Pamuk (born on June 7, 1952 in Istanbul) is a Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist. ...

See also

• Depression (mood)
• Dysthymia
• Nostalgia
• Saudade

In everyday language depression refers to any downturn in mood, which may be relatively transitory and perhaps due to something trivial. ... Dysthymia (or dysthymic disorder) is a form of the mood disorder of depression characterized by a lack of enjoyment/pleasure in life that continues for at least two years. ... One may feel nostalgic for the familiar routine of school, conveniently forgetting the painful experiences such as bullying. ... Saudades (pron. ...

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