Sara Schlemm, a PhD candidate in the English department at Cornell University, led a talk about melancholy and sadness and the nuanced  differences between the two. The format of the initial discussion was quite good because she asked us how might we differentiate between sadness and melancholy. It sounds the same but one is more ephemeral and the other is a nostalgic sadness or sadness without any obvious reason, respectively. This difference as you might imagine was not necessarily common knowledge and it is not surprising to learn that melancholy was misdiagnosed for schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.

Unfortunately I have never seen Vertigo but it was evidently a very good example of how melancholy is portrayed in literature and culture. Madeline, the female protagonist, was quite beautiful when had a melancholic, somber air around her. The state of reminiscence, tinged with sadness, is quite mysterious and explains why it is so compelling to many and something that art strives to portray and describe in many pieces. Enigmas has always interested man and a melancholic individual would not be any different.

Etymology has never been a major interest of mine but it is always fun to learn about the very small, and often pedantic, differences that will almost always have very good reasons why they differ; whether such a distinction is relevant in modern society is another story in itself involving the evolution of language and communication. However, I am glad I attend Sara’s talk on the difference between melancholy and sadness and perhaps I will evaluate an individual, both in literary and in person, if they are truly sad or just merely melancholic. The latter is of course no less alarming but making such a distinction can help assess his or her state more appropriately. What other pairs seemingly identical words actually in fact have quite different meanings?