Sadness
Wistfulness describes a feeling of tender sadness caused by memories of the past.
Demarcation
The reference to the past is probably the only differentiation to the term melancholy , which deals with a rather diffuse feeling of sadness that laments the senselessness of the present. With wistful emotions, on the other hand, the present circumstances are not necessarily underestimated; however, the past remains the source of bitter-sweet joy. If melancholy can thus be described more as a thoughtful, sometimes even nihilistic emotion (see also the genealogical relationship to depression ), melancholy is the more emotional reflection of the past and feelings, that is, wistful sadness can still be accompanied by amusement and satisfaction.
Basic philosophical concept
In Friedrich Kirchner / Carl Michaëlis: "Dictionary of Philosophical Basic Concepts" from 1907 it says about melancholy: Melancholy is the affect of sadness, either the memory of a past pleasure, a lost good or the insight into the impossibility, a longed-for good to attain springs. There is also a feeling of pleasure mingled with that sadness ("I once had what is so delicious" or: "It lingers so high, it flashes so beautifully, like that star above"), which is why one speaks of sweet melancholy .
poetry
In poetry, the melancholy topos found expression in the elegy genre and gained in importance especially in romanticism , such as Ernst Moritz Arndt's poem An die Wehmut . According to Kirchner / Michaelis, Goethe's poems "To the Moon" and "Consolation in Tears" also belong to the "Wonnen der Wehmut" .
literature
Christoph Demmerling, Hilge Landweer (2007): Sadness and Melancholy. In: Philosophy of feelings: From attention to anger, Verlag JB Metzler, Stuttgart & Weimar 2007, ISBN 978-3-476-01767-3 , pp. 259–285.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Zeno: Lexicon entry on »Wehmut«. Kirchner, Friedrich / Michaëlis, Carl: Dictionary of ... Accessed December 2, 2019 .
- ↑ Zeno: Literature in full text: Ernst Moritz Arndt: Works. Part 1: Poems, Berlin a. a. 1912, pp. 141-142 .: ... Accessed December 2, 2019 .