Melancholia and Depression During the 19th Century: a Conceptual History

1988 ◽  
Vol 153 (3) ◽  
pp. 298-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. E. Berrios

The meaning of ‘melancholia’ in classical antiquity is opaque and has little in common with 20th-century psychiatric usage (Drabkin, 1955; Heiberg, 1927). At that time, melancholia and mania were not polar opposites (i.e. one was not defined as having opposite features to the other). Melancholia was defined in terms of overt behavioural features such as decreased motility, and morosity (Roccatagliata, 1973; Simon, 1978). Hence, in medical usage, ‘melancholia’ referred to a subtype of mania and named, in general, states of reduced behavioural output. These included disorders that might “exhibit depressed, agitated, hallucinatory, paranoid and even demented states … the ancient diagnosis of melancholy has no correct analogue in modern psychiatric practice …” (Siegel, 1973, p. 274).

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-24
Author(s):  
Akmal Hawi

The 19th century to the 20th century is a moment in which Muslims enter a new gate, the gate of renewal. This phase is often referred to as the century of modernism, a century where people are confronted with the fact that the West is far ahead of them. This situation made various responses emerging, various Islamic groups responded in different ways based on their Islamic nature. Some respond with accommodative stance and recognize that the people are indeed doomed and must follow the West in order to rise from the downturn. Others respond by rejecting anything coming from the West because they think it is outside of Islam. These circles believe Islam is the best and the people must return to the foundations of revelation, this circle is often called the revivalists. One of the figures who is an important figure in Islamic reform, Jamaluddin Al-Afghani, a reformer who has its own uniqueness, uniqueness, and mystery. Departing from the division of Islamic features above, Afghani occupies a unique position in responding to Western domination of Islam. On the one hand, Afghani is very moderate by accommodating ideas coming from the West, this is done to improve the decline of the ummah. On the other hand, however, Afghani appeared so loudly when it came to the question of nationality or on matters relating to Islam. As a result, Afghani traces his legs on two different sides, he is a modernist but also a fundamentalist. 


Classics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis

Since the Western Roman Empire collapsed, classical, or Greco-Roman, architecture has served as a model to articulate the cultural, artistic, political, and ideological goals of later civilizations, empires, nations, and individuals. The Renaissance marked the first major, widespread re-engagement with classical antiquity in art, literature, and architecture. Debates over classical antiquity and its relation to the modern world continued ever since. One such important debate was that of the quarrel between the Ancients and Moderns, which resulted when Charles Perrault published his Parallèles des anciens et des modernes in 1688. This dispute focused on whether the modern age could surpass antiquity, especially in literature. The Greco-Roman controversy (1750s and 1760s) was another example of Europeans engaging with the classical past; this debate focused on whether Greek or Roman art was of greater historical value; an argument has continued unabated to this day. Figures like Johann Joachim Winckelmann argued (in publications such as Winckelmann 1764, cited under Early Archaeological Publications on Greece and Classical Ruins in the Roman East, on Greek art) for the supremacy of Greek forms, while others like Giovanni Battista Piranesi (whose 1748–1778 views of Rome are reproduced in Ficacci 2011, cited under Early Archaeological Publications on Italy) advocated for Rome’s preeminence. Such debates demonstrate how classical antiquity was an essential part of the intellectual and artistic milieu of 18th-century Europe. This bibliography focuses on the appropriation of classical architecture in the creation of built forms from 1700 to the present in Europe and North America, which is typically called neoclassical or neo-classical, both of which are acceptable. Scholars often define the neoclassical period as lasting from c. 1750 to 1830, when European art and architecture predominantly appropriated classical forms and ideas. The influence of classical architecture continued in popularity throughout the 19th century and early 20th century in the United States. The early 19th century saw the flourishing of the Greek Revival, where Greek forms dominated artistic and architectural production, both in Europe and the United States. The ascendance of Queen Victoria in 1837 marked a shift toward a preference for the Gothic and Medieval forms. Neoclassical forms saw a resurgence in the second half of the 19th century, as Roman architectural forms became increasingly popular as an expression of empire. The term “Neo-classical” was coined as early as January 1872 by Robert Kerr, who used the term positively. It later took on certain negative overtones, when it was used as a derogatory epithet by an unknown writer in the Times of London in 1892. Neoclassical architecture has fared no better with the rise of modernism in the early 20th century onward and since then it has been seen as old-fashioned and derivative. Neoclassical architecture was not a mindless imitation of classical architectural forms and interiors. The interest in classical architecture and the creation of neoclassical architecture was spurred on by important archaeological discoveries in the mid-18th century, which widened the perception of Greek and Roman buildings. The remarkable flexibility of ancient architecture to embody the grandeur of an empire, as well as the principles of a nascent democracy, meant that it had great potential to be interpreted and reinterpreted by countless architects, patrons, empires, and nation states—in different ways and at different times from the 18th to the 20th century. This bibliography is organized thematically (e.g., General Overviews; Companions, Handbooks, and Theoretical Works; Reference Works; Early General Archaeological Publications; The Reception of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the Bay of Naples; and World’s Fairs and Expositions) and then geographically, creating country- or region-specific bibliographies. While this model of organization has some flaws, it aims to avoid repetition and highlights the interconnected nature and process of the reception of classical architecture in later periods.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 72-84
Author(s):  
S. T. Zolyan

The concept “sootechestvenniki” is one of the key tools for self-description of society; it is an instrument for drawing borderlines between “we” and “they”. The article describes the development of the meaning of this word since its coinage. The word appeared in the 18th cen­tury as a merger of the Old Slavic and Old Russian ‘otechestvo’ (fatherland, understood as one’s place of origin) and the French ‘compatriot’. This merger resulted in the formation of two new prototypical meanings: one is civic, collective and elevated, and the other gravitates to ethnicity since it is used to refer to Russians. With the strengthening of state institutions in Russia, the first meaning was bound to dominate and it did at the beginning of the 19th century. However, one should speak not about the synthesis, but rather about the discordance of the two meanings. In the 19th century, another meaning developed in the semantic struc­ture of the word: ethnic Russians living abroad. Gradually, the word acquired new evaluative meanings, while negative connotations still prevailed. The basic oppositions (we — they, here — there, ours — alien) interacted in an ambiguous way, substituting each other. A variety of hy­brid “compatriots” arose: we are there, they are here, etc. The heterogeneity of the seman­tics of the word reflects collisions within society, which faced a tragic internal split in the 20th century.


Author(s):  
Beloglazov I.A. ◽  
Biryukova N.V. ◽  
Nesterova N.V.

The authors of the work analyzed the sources that characterize the influence of absinthe on human culture. Absinthe, an alcoholic drink containing wormwood (Artemisia absinthium L.), was banned in the early 20th century due to unusual properties attributed to the side effects of drinking this alcohol. This review contains information about the history of the drink. On the one hand, absinthe left its mark in the culture as a “muse” for the creators, remaining forever imprinted in the works of various types of art, on the other hand, it became the main enemy for the most part of society because of the harmful properties that was characterized by researchers of the 19th century.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 16-39
Author(s):  
Olaf Krysowski

Juliusz Słowacki and Teilhard de Chardin did not have much in common. The former was a Polish poet who wrote in the first half of the 19th century using a literary-pictorial style. The latter, on the other hand, was a French philosopher working in the first half of the 20th century using a scientific and intellectual style. In spite of these differences, one may get the impression that they both followed the same goal: to learn and explain the principles of the development of the world, from its origin to its end, from Alpha to Omega. This aspiration was accompanied by a belief (in Słowacki’s case, a messianic one) that the progress of existence leads to salvation and takes place according to a certain plan. One of the main mecha- nisms of this plan is the process of lifting the consciousness through the evolution of various biological forms towards its final shape – unity with God who is both a person and the absolute which encompasses all of the creation. Although the poet and the philosopher used different communication codes, their works share a common vision of evolution as a transition from an unconscious, dispersed exist- ence to a united being in which the spirit, the knowledge and the mind can achieve a “global”, yet personalized level.


Mäetagused ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 71-88
Author(s):  
Merili Metsvahi ◽  

The article gives a short overview of the Estonian werewolf tradition in the 16th and 17th centuries and a glimpse into the 19th–20th-century werewolf beliefs. The image of werewolf of the earlier and later periods is compared. The differences between the images of these two periods are explained with the help of the approaches of Tim Ingold and Philipp Descola, which ground the changes in the worldview taking place together with the shift from the pre-modern society into modernity. The mental world of the 16th–17th-century Estonian and Livonian peasant did not encompass the category of nature, and the borders between the human being and the animal on the one side and organism and environment on the other side were not so rigid as they are in today’s people’s comprehension of the world. The ability to change into a wolf was seen as an added possibility of acquiring new experiences and benefits. As the popular ontology had changed by the second half of the 19th century – the human mind was raised into the ultimate position and the animal was comprehended as being inferior – the transformation of a man into an animal, if it was seriously taken at all, seemed to be strange and unnatural.


Author(s):  
Jesper Brandt Andersen

Jesper Brandt Andersen: Curious case reports in the works of the Danish physician and anatomist Thomas Bartholin Scattered through the voluminous authorship of the Danish physician and anatomist Thomas Bartholin (1616–1680), famous for his discovery of the lymph vessels in the early 1650s, case reports can be found, for which Bartholin was criticized and accused for verbosity and lack of scientific judgment by contemporary scholars and later medical historians. In this article 15 such case reports, mainly from the work Historiarum Anatomicarum Rariorum 1654–1661, are presented, analyzed and perspectivated. It is concluded, that much of the criticism, especially the one submitted by the posteriority and especially during the era of positivism by the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century and the one concerning observations made by Bartholin himself, is unjustified. When practising science himself Bartholin felt responsible for reproducing his observations correctly and trustworthy, and he was not satisfied by making conclusions on the basis of knowledge handed over by others. The author of this article has not succeded in finding one single example indicating that Bartholin doesn’t reproduce his own observations correctly and truthfully. On the other hand there are in his authorship numerous examples of case reports originating from others, which he either didn’t believe himself or at least doubted. When he published case reports originating from other people, he didn’t feel responsible for the truthfulness. His purpose bringing these case reports was to present his reader for new and interesting matter, to entertain his reader, to arouse his reader’s curiosity and to challenge his reader’s own judgment. Thomas Bartholin was one of the most excellent, diligent and passionate intermediaries of scientific matter of his time, and as a scientist he was characterized by openness. Often he was among the first to recognize, verify and publish new knowledge.


2005 ◽  
Vol 09 (01) ◽  
pp. 47-71
Author(s):  
Prudence Jones

The Triple Moon Goddess of contemporary Pagan and New Age thought is generally assumed to be an invention ex nihilo of the 20th century, with no precursor in classical antiquity, created by the poetic imagination of Robert Graves (1895-1985), with possible inspiration from the classicist and anthropologist Jane Ellen Harrison (1850-1928). However this hypothesis is incorrect. The Triple Goddess was presented in the 20th century before Graves. In addition, this paper is the first to reveal some astrological and esoteric as well as scholarly writings of the 19th century which presented and discussed a triple moon goddess from the ancient world whose identity would have been familiar to most educated men (and a few women) of the time.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Mujiburrahman Mujiburrahman

The article will discuss various viewpoints on the issues affecting women in Islam, and how they influence the views regarding women education. Their views generally can be divided into conservative, progressive and philosophical. All these views, in general, regard that like men, women are obliged to search for knowledge. In Indonesia, since the 19th century, women have already been involved in learning religion. However, for some cultural reasons, in this period, the access for women to modern education was still limited. On the other hand, from the 20th century up to now, like male Muslims, Indonesian female Muslim have more opportunies in education. Moreover, the symbolic-philosophy of complementary relations between male and female can also become an alternative to conservative or liberal philosophy of education


2001 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-205
Author(s):  
Richard Swedberg

If a non-Swedish observer was asked to hazard a guess if Tocqueville had influenced Swedish political, cultural and intellectual life, she would probably answer that this would be quite unlikely, given the strong position of colleetivistic ideologies in this country.1 This answer is both correct and incorrect, as I shall try to show in this brief note which attempts to add to our knowledge of the reception of Tocqueville in Europe — a genre that was initiated by Francoisc Mélonio in Tocqueville et les Français in 1993. During the 19th century Tocqueville’s ideas were well known in political as well as cultural and intellectual circles in Sweden. During the 20th century, on the other hand, the interest more or less disappeared, although there exist some signs of a recent revival, set off by a new translation of De la démocratie en Amérique in 1997 (L’Ancien régime has never been translated into Swedish).


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