ABSTRACT
Nothing is more idiosyncratic than melancholia, and yet nothing is more public and histrionic in its expression. “Idiosyncratic” comes from Greek …dioj-one’s own, personal, private, peculiar, separate, distinct-and krasij commixture, tempering. It’s a word with both medical and literary implications, referring to the physical or mental constitution peculiar to an individual, and also to the mode of expression peculiar to an author. Interestingly, there is a shared etymology with “idiot,” from …dièt¾j, referring to a private person, someone who is unsociable, lives a cloistered life, and takes no interest in the concerns of the polis. Melancholia is persistent ill-temper, groundless fear and anger, inexplicable despondency. Use of the word “melancholy” to identify a state of mind is a metonymic usage, substituting a cause for its effect. The cause is an excess of black bile, a bodily fl uid that cannot actually be observed. And this fi ts well with what can be observed in melancholy people, who typically exhibit strong states of feeling that have no apparent cause at all.
