A Field Guide to Melancholy

From Sartre to emo, this survey of a complex, contradictory condition encompasses literature, art, film, music, and architecture to find melancholy s presence woven through the histories of both science and artA depressive illness or a passing feeling? Mental detachment or a precursor to genius? Mel [...]
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From Sartre to emo, this survey of a complex, contradictory condition encompasses literature, art, film, music, and architecture to find melancholy s presence woven through the histories of both science and artA depressive illness or a passing feeling? Mental detachment or a precursor to genius? Melancholy is a critical part of what it is to be human, yet everything from Prozac to self-help psychology books seems intent on removing all signs of sadness from contemporary existence. "A Field Guide to Melancholy "surveys this ambivalent concept and takes a journey through the articulation of melancholy in a variety of languages, from the Russian toska of Pushkin s "Eugene Onegin" to kaiho which is expressed in the dancing of the Finnish tango. Melancholy is found in the historic traditions of death s presence in paradise, the tears of nature, along with nostalgia, pathos, and melancholy s presiding god, Saturn. In contemporary society, melancholy becomes a fashion statement in the emo subculture. This guide finds melancholy within the work of writers such as W. G. Sebald and Jean-Paul Sartre, the art of photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto and multi-media artist Gerhard Richter, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and Patrick Keiller, the music of Erik Satie and Tom Waits, the architecture and landscapes of ruins, and the 21st century s predilection for memorials."