Everyday Canvas

On Melancholy

Prompt: Melancholy
Melancholy, which afflicts the creative types, was around in antiquity and is still present in civilizations that think of themselves as modern.
What do you think melancholy is?

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Melancholy is a mystery, especially in the way that it is understood by many. Then, because it is a mystery, it is difficult to slap a definition on it.

The way I understand it, melancholy has to do with understanding and experiencing the complexity and the depth of the human experience by finding beauty in sorrow. It is, therefore, not a synonym for depression, although it may contain depressive feelings.

Yes, it has the touch of depressive feelings in it, but it also contains introspection, loss, longing, sorrow, and beauty. It shows us the human race's shared vulnerability and the depth of the heart.

Melancholy can be a fleeting mood or a trait that insists to stay; yet, it has the power to touch, move, and transform us that a few other emotions can. The perspective that overlooks the value of melancholy and sees it as an unhealthy or unproductive state might very well be committing a "word" sin. Through melancholy, most poets, writers, and other artists process their deepest feelings, gain insight into the human experience and the world, and find meaning in their lives.

The beauty of melancholy is that some turn it into art. It seems John Keats in his odes and Emily Dickinson in her short but concise offerings experienced melancholy to its heights. These two were not the only creative people to do this, but for the sake of time and place, it is a good idea for me to keep to these two, here. These two both meant to show us that we're all held tightly by our pasts and our everyday experiences whether we admit to it or not.

Here are a few short lines clipped from John Keats' To Sleep:

"Then save me, or the passèd day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
Save me from curious conscience, that still hoards
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like the mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards,

And here is “Hope” is the thing with feathers I think Emily Dickinson is showing us both faces of melancholy here, as well as, possibly describing it.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.