السوداوية : المصطلح و المفهوم

Abstract EN

Melancholia is an ancient term that was born in medicine, before moving to philosophy, where Aristotle had given it a strong impetus when he established a link between it and the high degrees of excellence that those who suffer from it achieve in art, politics, and the other realms of life.

Then, this term migrated modern times from medicine and philosophy to the rest of sciences and fields of knowledge.

It was received by literature starting from the seventeenth century, and enjoyed a widespread use and fame among poets and literary figures due to its association with an extreme phenomenon of sadness and grief surrounded by perpetuation and the chronic threat of the danger of suicide; this term was dominated by knowledge tightly linked to mental and physical health as well as rectitude in conduct and ,consequently, contributed to the crystallization of the concept ,the formation of its constituents ,and its characteristics.

Psychoanalysis is perhaps the luckiest of the these sciences in terms of the monopolization of this concept as a result of the huge efforts dispensed by its pioneers led by Freud in the study of melancholia and the analysis of its neurotic aspects along with its behavioral and psychological implications.

Through psychoanalysis, literature has attempted to find an access that enables it to establish its specific conception of melancholia and the way it is related to writing and fiction.

In this regard, language has been perceived as an effective means capable through its symbolization power to replace the lost topic which led to chronic depression .Thus, language enables the melancholic to succeed in cohabitating with his state and taming it with the tools of sublimation and the methods of its realization in different genres and types of literary creativity.