melancholy

slang

Victorian Age

is a fixation not on some lost object, but rather on some object which he possesses but has lost his desire for (because the cause of desire has withdrawn).

From this perspective, the melancholic is not primarily the subject fixated on the lost object, unable to perform the work of mourning on it... he is, rather, the subject who possesses the object, but has lost his desire for it, because the cause which made him desire this object has withdrawn, lost its efficiency. (zizek 'how to read lacan' 57)

is, along with suffering and disappointments, are there to mature and transfigure us: Not to vex us or cheapen us or deprive us of our dignity.

I began to understand that suffering and disappointments and melancholy are there not to vex us or cheapen us or deprive us of our dignity but to mature and transfigure us. Hermann Hesse

is always proleptic. One grieves for the loss that one anticipates.

Zizek, following Agamben, supports this understanding of melancholia. He argues that melancholia is always proleptic. One grieves for the loss that one anticipates.

is marked by the fact that, in contrast to mourning where a loss is recognized and painfully dealt with, the loss in melancholia remains unconscious. The melancholic is unaware that any loss has occurred.

Freud's answer is that while loss is the precipitating cause in instances of both mourning and melancholia, in melancholia the loss remains unconscious. The melancholic displays the same symptoms of mourning, but is unaware that any loss has occurred. The melancholic's inhibitions thus become a puzzle to him or her. In addition to these characteristic inhibitions the melancholic incessantly verbalises selfreproach. Rather than the shame one might expect to find in someone who actually feels that these reproaches are justified, Freud notes a 'trait of insistent communicativeness which finds satisfaction in self-exposure'.

is morbid only when it occupies too much place in life... but it is equally morbid for it to be wholly excluded from life.

Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, and the pleasure taken in them naturally has a somewhat melancholy character. So, melancholy is morbid only when it occupies too much place in life... but it is equally morbid for it to be wholly excluded from life.

is most diabolical not in that it makes one ill but that it makes one conceited and shortsighted... yes almost arrogant, ignorant to the fact that thousands lost in the same maze, have endured the same agonies.

The diabolical thing about melancholy is not that it makes you ill but that it makes you conceited and shortsighted... yes almost arrogant. You lapse into bad taste, thinking of yourself as Heine's Atlas, whose shoulders support all the world's puzzles and agonies, as if thousands, lost in the same maze, did not endure the same agonies.

is not only the failure of the work of mourning, it is also its very opposite: It is an intention to mourn that precedes and anticipates the loss of the object.

Giorgio Agamben emphasized how, in contrast to mourning, melancholy is not only the failure of the work of mourning, the persistence of the attachment to the real of the object, but also its very opposite: 'melancholia offers the paradox of an intention to mourn that precedes and anticipates the loss of the object.' (Zizek 2000 : 661)

melancholy, n.All

melancholy