Last Wednesday, Sara Schlemm led a discussion on melancholy, starting by asking us how we would differentiate it from sadness. The room came up with that melancholy is often longer-lasting and pervasive, but also more mellow. Sara pointed out that in older times, melancholy did not necessarily have the same strong negative associations that it does in modern-day society. Nowadays, being sad is seen as something that we should strive to avoid. However, in the past there was a view that writers could be driven by their melancholy to write effusively and create worthwhile works. She then brought our attention to specific works where she found melancholy such as Hamlet and Vertigo. In the scenes of Vertigo she showed, there was a sense of the bizarre, of feeling out of place, that was strongly attached to the melancholy atmosphere. Personally, I feel that melancholy is not necessarily always a negative thing. As long as it does not disrupt a person’s life too severely, it can simply be a natural, passing emotional state. It can lead to some serious self-reflection and re-evaluation, and so could even be of value.