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A Brief History of Melancholy
Melancholy has a long and fascinating history
According to Oxford Languages, Google’s English dictionary, melancholy, or melancholia, is “a feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause.” Although today it’s commonly used as a synonym for depression or deep sadness, the term melancholy has a long, fascinating history and a complex denotation. In particular, as the above definition suggests, it’s been historically associated with contemplation and self-reflection.
Throughout the centuries, scholars interwove the link between melancholy and intellectual insight with the dominant medical theories, ways of thinking, and social organization of their time. Thus, the concept of melancholy slowly became a multilayered cultural and artistic phenomenon.
1. “Melaina Kholé.” Melancholy in Ancient History
In Ancient Greece, the word for melancholy was melancholia, meaning “black bile” (from melas, “dark,” and kohlé, “bile”). This term derived from the dominant medical doctrine at the time: the Humoral Theory, or Humoralism. According to this scientific belief, the human body was composed of four humors or bodily fluids: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Each humor was responsible for one of the four main temperaments: sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic. The bodily fluids were also associated with the four seasons and elements of nature.
Hippocrates, a Greek physician traditionally considered the “Father of Medicine” and creator of the Hippocratic Oath, believed that all diseases were caused by an imbalance in one of these fluids. Melancholy, in particular, was attributed to an excess of black bile, which originated in the spleen. In his Aphorisms, Hippocrates stated that the most common symptoms of this ailment were “fear or despondency persevering for a long time.” Other symptoms included poor appetite, sleeplessness, irritability, and lack of initiative. After the diagnosis, the physicians aimed to restore balance between the humors. Their therapies were usually based on the Hippocratic principle that “opposites are cured with the opposites.” In the most severe cases, they resorted to directly purging the excess fluids.
