Sara Schlemm led a wonderful Rose Cafe today regarding melancholy. While we began our discussion with comparing and contrasting sadness to melancholy, we also explored many other dimensions of this state of mind.

How is melancholy different from sadness? Some Rose Scholars pointed out that sadness is more of an emotion that is directed towards something, while melancholy may be just a general numbness. To add on to this description, we looked to Freud and learned that he wrote about melancholy and its differences from mourning. Freud argued that melancholy includes an aspect of self reproach and is more of a literary mourning while mourning itself is a feeling regarding an actual physical loss.

We learned that we can also relate melancholy to nature. It has been associated with the Earth, and with the season of Autumn, which is described as cold and dry. The word itself is Greek and means “black spleen” and thus implies that what you are feeling is directly connected to changes that are taking place in your body.

On the other hand, melancholy has also been linked to genius and art. The pain of a genius is put to work to yield brilliant creations, as is evidenced by some of the artistic masterpieces and the masterminds behind them of the past centuries. During the time of the Renaissance, melancholy was thought to be tied to the inability to stop writing, which is a form of art. The brilliant playwright Shakespeare delved into the theme of melancholy in Hamlet, which includes many interesting ideas on what it means for a person to be melancholy. One example is Hamlet’s monologue in Act 1 Scene 2 in which he talks about his grief being much more profound and deep than the symbols of it which he displays on the surface.

Finally, we watched a few scenes from the movie Vertigo and discussed what we can learn from them. I deduced the message that melancholy is a state that can suck you in, and so although it is natural (and “of the earth”, as mentioned above), happiness and joy are natural too and thus it is important to have a balance of those contrasting emotions.