Talk:Melancholia

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Dürer's woodcut is actually entitled Melencholia and is usually referred to by that spelling.
S.


It is? if so please update this page & the Durer page

From the article:

It was characterized by "aversion to food, despondency, sleeplessness, irritability, restlessness," as well as the statement that "fear or depression that is prolonged means melancholia."

Can anyone say where those quoted passages are from?

Stanley Jackson, Melancholia and Depression: From Hippocratic Times to Modern Times, (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1986) p.30. cites Hippocrates, Works, 1: 263, 4:185. I am not sure how much of this [and in what form] should be included in the article.

I love that image used for this page. Studio1991 06:16, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the first direct quote is probably from Hippocrates's On Epidemics. It's from the end of Sixteen Cases of Disease - Case i, and deals with a case which is not explicitly described as a melancholic disease. From Adams's translation :
In this case the urine throughout was black, thin, and watery; coma supervened; there was aversion to food, despondency, and insomnolency; irritability, restlessness; she was of a melancholic turn of mind.
I suspect that the quote was added to the article because of the "melancholic turn of mind" line.
The second direct quote is definitely from Hippocrates's Aphorisms (Section 6.23). Adams translates it :
If a fright or despondency lasts for a long time, it is a melancholic affectation.
Best, -- Docether 20:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

But the writing in the woodcut itself spells it "Melencolia"

Per this, I am changing the spelling. --MarkBuckles 03:22, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Nevermind, see Melancholia I --MarkBuckles 03:26, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] melancholy

wikipedia would be better with a page on "melancholy" as it is used contemporarily. should the modern use go on this page or another page? Id like to know the consensus before i begin work on this page that angers somebody. Spencerk 17:58, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Durer's Solid

The object in the woodcut is clearly not a truncated cube, as defined in the linked page. The truncated cube has no pentagonal faces, while the object in the woodcut has many. It is a symbol of melancholy in art, so I think it would be nice to know the correct name for it. Cgray4 13:58, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

You are correct. It is a truncated rhombohedron (but not cube, a cube being a special case of a rhombohedron). I've corrected the text with an external link to a mathematical discussion of the shape. I found the link and the correct name in the article about the artwork itself. Aleta 20:19, 1 January 2007 (UTC) (edit Aleta 04:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC))
It's an ENGRAVING not a woodcut Johnbod 20:53, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Good point, even if it was meant as sarcasm. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia - accuracy matters. Since, according to Melancholia I, much has been written about the solid, apparently there are others who think it important that it was not a truncated cube. Aleta 21:27, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Sarcasm? See a dictionary Johnbod 10:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Sardonicism, pardon me. Aleta 23:46, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
try exasperation Johnbod 04:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name

On the name thing, I definitely agree with Spencerk it should be listed under the modern name, although it is worth mentioning that it is derived from another word. Going back to old fashioned terms for stuff makes wikipedia go out of sync.

On the article, I think their is something mayor missing in this article as it states: "It is now generally believed that melancholia was the same phenomenon as what is now called clinical depression." That is a bit harsh, everybody feels melancholic at times, it does not qaulify as a 'clinical depression', it is an emotion. Only when stretced to the extreme it can be called a depression. So jay for the backdrop and a little bit of history but where is the detailed description of (normal) melancholy? Oliver Simon 21:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Greek spelling of "melancholia" (μελαγχολία)

I corrected the Greek word "μελαγχολία" that had been mistakenly written as "μελανχολία". Anyone interested could check the Lidell-Scott dictionary or some texts: Galenus, De locis affectis libri, 8,193,10; Anonymus Medicus, De alimentis, 75,43; Palladius Medicus, Commentarii in Hippocratis librum sextum, 2,21,13.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.75.20.24 (talk)

It was me that made the changes. I couldn't find a source outside of Wikipedia that spelled it the way you did. It doesn't seem that gamma would be the appropriate letter for that. I don't think I've ever seen it used for an "n" sound. --Infosocialist 09:21, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
The ni letter is always converted to gamma when it is placed before the following consonants: kappa, gamma, chi. Examples: ἔγκυος < ἐν+κύω (=pregnant); ἐγχέω < ἐν+χέω (=I pour a liquid inside something).
Greek is my mother tongue. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.75.251.245 (talk) 14:02, 23 February 2007 (UTC).
Interesting. Thanks for that. I'm just learning... And on my own. --Infosocialist 00:14, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Ishaq ibn Imran

It is referred to Ishaq ibn Imran as diagnosing a type of melancholia, but did he use the word 'melancholia', the word 'ḥuzn' as used by Avicenna or some other word? Or was his finding only later classified as melancholia? I unfortunately don't have access to the reference.

The word 'Melancholia' may in ancient times been referring to illnesses with several different labels today, such as clinical lycanthropy and schizophrenia, which this article should of course reflect. But we then need to stay as true as possible to the history and don't make their concepts vaguer than they were. If arabic scholars recognized a mood disorder with symptoms similar to schizophrenia as a separate mood disorder, this in fact has implications for today's debate on the "schizophrenia label". EverGreg (talk) 11:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

This has now been clarified by Jagged 85's edits on 25th of January 2008. Thanks! :-) EverGreg (talk) 15:16, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology

Can someone explain how the etymology is simultaneously Greek and Arabic? How is that not a contradiction? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.86.37.47 (talk) 19:32, 1 February 2008 (UTC)