I still don’t understand the definition of melancholy.  After reading definitions, melancholy usually means “pensive sadness” or even “depression”, but these terms should be differentiated.  I think the best definition so far is “a gloomy state of mind, especially when habitual or prolonged”.  I hoped that going to last week’s Rose Café Series with Sara Schlemm would help me understand.  The talk helped me understand that melancholy is a very complex term that can be applied to a lot of scenarios and ideas.

It was an interesting topic to relate to literature such as Hamlet and film scenes in Vertigo.  I appreciated how melancholy was portrayed by Kim Novak in the femme fatale character as she solemnly and deeply looked down at the cemetery.  Or when she stared in numbing melancholy at a portrait of a person dressed in the same garb as her.

For now, I will continue to contemplate what it means to be melancholy.  But my favorite melancholy association is a hauntingly beautiful piece of music written by Erik Satie entitled, Gymnopedie No 1.  The melodies in the piano piece create mild dissonances with the harmony, emoting a painful and numbing sound to which I believe is melancholic.