What is melancholy and why does it appear?
2 Answers
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Melancholy is a form of insanity(a mental disorder). Many people have forgotten what madness is, so let me remind you. This is something that goes beyond the generally accepted moral principles and norms, sometimes accompanied by various types of “seasonings and spices” such as hallucinations, fits of anger or inability to control emotions. And melancholics have their own signs. Falling into apathy, depression a person does not care about everything, mopes, is sad, and so on. But this is already more serious, a person endures the strongest mental torments and torments. From Greek, it translates literally “dark anger” or something like that
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In medical theory, which existed before modern science, the “theory of the four humors”, i.e. fluids that controlled the human body, was widespread: 1) melancholy – literally from other Greek, “black bile”, 2) blood, 3) ordinary bile, 4) lymph. This idea arose from the natural observation of a person in the absence of other opportunities to penetrate deeper into his body. Blood was seen flowing from wounds, lymph-from the nose, bile – from the mouth when vomiting, black bile – when defecating (in modern medicine, there is no division of bile into black and ordinary.)
Four “humors” reflected the four main elements (fire-air, earth-water, which make up the world), and the predominance of one of them in a person meant his special predisposition to a certain type of behavior, a way of interacting with the world around him. Black bile was considered by nature a dry and cold liquid, with its constant overabundance, it overheated time after time (for example, from sex) and, boiling, its vapors clouded the human brain: he became prone to sudden actions, inconsistency, could not find peace in any occupation. Such a bodily constitution, however, made him sensitive, prone to contemplation, open to the perception of the world around him. So most of the Renaissance geniuses-Raphael, Michelangelo, and others-described themselves as”melancholic geniuses.” The book “Saturn and Melancholy” (“Saturn and Melancholy”) is written about this phenomenon of science of the past and the history of art, it can be easily found on the Internet; you can also find relevant illustrations there, for example, such an image of “melancholy”.
We can say that “melancholy” as a physiological disease does not exist in modern medicine (now the body is not considered to consist of four fluids, everything is much more complicated). “Melancholy” today metaphorically refers to the psychological state of a person when he is restless and too receptive to others, is inclined to “suffer” (now doctors will say that you have “depression”). In the Renaissance, it was recommended as a medicine not to inflame the body's fire too much, but to have intellectual and moderate fun-as Socrates did. I think this recipe is still very much relevant today.
Just as “melancholy” used to be considered one of the most common diseases, so now “depression” is observed in a significant part of our population. The concepts have changed, but the meaning hasn't changed much.
Melancholy is a form of insanity(a mental disorder). Many people have forgotten what madness is, so let me remind you. This is something that goes beyond the generally accepted moral principles and norms, sometimes accompanied by various types of “seasonings and spices” such as hallucinations, fits of anger or inability to control emotions. And melancholics have their own signs. Falling into apathy, depression a person does not care about everything, mopes, is sad, and so on. But this is already more serious, a person endures the strongest mental torments and torments. From Greek, it translates literally “dark anger” or something like that
In medical theory, which existed before modern science, the “theory of the four humors”, i.e. fluids that controlled the human body, was widespread: 1) melancholy – literally from other Greek, “black bile”, 2) blood, 3) ordinary bile, 4) lymph. This idea arose from the natural observation of a person in the absence of other opportunities to penetrate deeper into his body. Blood was seen flowing from wounds, lymph-from the nose, bile – from the mouth when vomiting, black bile – when defecating (in modern medicine, there is no division of bile into black and ordinary.)
Four “humors” reflected the four main elements (fire-air, earth-water, which make up the world), and the predominance of one of them in a person meant his special predisposition to a certain type of behavior, a way of interacting with the world around him. Black bile was considered by nature a dry and cold liquid, with its constant overabundance, it overheated time after time (for example, from sex) and, boiling, its vapors clouded the human brain: he became prone to sudden actions, inconsistency, could not find peace in any occupation. Such a bodily constitution, however, made him sensitive, prone to contemplation, open to the perception of the world around him. So most of the Renaissance geniuses-Raphael, Michelangelo, and others-described themselves as”melancholic geniuses.” The book “Saturn and Melancholy” (“Saturn and Melancholy”) is written about this phenomenon of science of the past and the history of art, it can be easily found on the Internet; you can also find relevant illustrations there, for example, such an image of “melancholy”.
We can say that “melancholy” as a physiological disease does not exist in modern medicine (now the body is not considered to consist of four fluids, everything is much more complicated). “Melancholy” today metaphorically refers to the psychological state of a person when he is restless and too receptive to others, is inclined to “suffer” (now doctors will say that you have “depression”). In the Renaissance, it was recommended as a medicine not to inflame the body's fire too much, but to have intellectual and moderate fun-as Socrates did. I think this recipe is still very much relevant today.
Just as “melancholy” used to be considered one of the most common diseases, so now “depression” is observed in a significant part of our population. The concepts have changed, but the meaning hasn't changed much.
The previous answers are completely objective. And I agree that the question suggests an answer that can hardly be crammed into a few paragraphs. So just a few more “pennies”…
In the period of antiquity, obsessed with sports, in order to achieve harmony of the external and internal, beauty of the body and soul, a rather athletic figure was in fashion.
Then, the “dark Middle Ages” with the ideas of asceticism and the priority development of the spiritual sphere, introduced the fashion for thinness.
The Renaissance gave a person the opportunity to enjoy life in all available ways, as a result of which “physicality” gradually began to gain popularity, reaching its apogee in the Baroque era. Rubens ' beauties are a direct proof of this.
“Nervous” and a little hysterical romanticism again made me fall in love with thinness and pallor, because it was not very convenient to talk about fate, shoot a duel and be part of “the force that always wants evil”, after a hearty dinner.
Then the culture gradually returned to naturalness (but without reckless body positivity, because corsets and weight loss products were actively advertised in the press).
In a woman, beautiful fullness was valued, because pulling cast iron pots from the stove, tubs of dough, tubs of water, having 45 kg of weight, simply would not work. I also had to give birth every year. Therefore, the “lady in the body”, able to work without complaints, and to bear children, was just in the topic.
The beginning of the Soviet era, with its definite return to the ideals of antiquity (“Stalin's Empire style”, processions, etc.), brought back to life the ideal of a girl athlete (Komsomol member and just a beauty)-not a skinny girl, but not a pyshechka.
The” second wave ” of feminism in the West in the 1960s, which combined the natural-feminine with the cultural-masculine, brought out a teenage girl-thin, short-haired, angular (for example, Twiggy), similar to a boy.
Modern fashion for thinness is connected, in my opinion, with ideas about healthy lifestyle (from arugula and chia seeds, which are not available to everyone – this is another reason to be proud of thinness! – they do not get better, and the excess weight is from pasta and potatoes).
In general, all our beauty comes from the prevailing ideas and ideas in society))
The question is very voluminous and will draw at least a PhD thesis, since even one nation's concepts of beauty have sometimes changed dramatically: for example, the fashion for Russian corpulence was replaced in the 19th century by subtlety, in the 20th by Soviet body positivity and naturalness, and in the 21st by European beauty standards
I'm not an expert, but I dare say that beauty is strictly tied to the quality of life. In times of war and famine, women in the body are always more beautiful. In the 50s after World War II, girls like Marilyn Monroe were considered the standard of beauty, although in our time she would have been recommended to lose a little weight. In short, fat people are popular when everyone is starving, and thin (slim) when there is a lot of cheap food (which makes you fat).