The Nature of Melancholy: From Aristotle to Kristeva
Radden (philosophy, Univ. of Massachusetts, Boston) presents a compelling and accessible history of the identifying and describing Western thinkers have applied to the titular emotional disposition. Each brief chapter situates the chronologically arranged theorist's ideas on melancholy within the larger frame of his or her philosophical, theological, or medical writings and then offers excerpts to demonstrate Radden's theory that, from Aristotle until Freud, melancholy's analysis underwent an accretion process as its place in culture and its role in behavior were examined. After Freud, Radden posits, melancholy lost its organizing status and became a minor category subsumed into the larger realm of developmental psychology. Radden allows readers to consider the theories of Galen, Avicenna, Hildegard of Bingen, Teresa of Avila, Cotton Mather, Goethe, Keats, Baudelaire, and Melanie Klein along the way. This unique history will well serve students, general readers, patients, and caregivers.DFrancisca Goldsmith, Berkeley P.L., CACopyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.