ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the powers or capacities traditionally associated with melancholy. The aim of this chapter is to uncover the positive potential that melancholy traditionally had in order to counteract a merely pathological picture of melancholy affect. Importantly, the powers of melancholy discussed here are grounded in melancholy’s darkness. That is to say, they do not involve a romantic approach to melancholy that makes it lighter and less dangerous. Rather, these powers supervene on melancholy’s darkness. Discussing the powers of melancholy is important, as it gives us a more holistic picture of melancholy experience, in contrast to the reductionist picture of melancholy affect as merely disabling or merely decreasing our powers. In this sense, the perspective developed in this chapter is characterised by a double affirmation: yes, melancholy is dark, disabling and dangerous, and yes, it can be enabling in certain respects as well. The chapter is divided in several sections, each working out different melancholic powers, based on a wide range of authors including Sigmund Freud, Giacomo Leopardi, Arthur Schopenhauer, William James, Søren Kierkegaard, Robert Burton and Immanuel Kant.
