Word: melancholia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...From outward appearances, theirs was a childless union of matched temperaments enjoying similar tastes, opinions and well-bred friends in Boston, Washington and London. Friedrich fills that gap with a fresh supply of letters, observations and a perceptive linkage of occurrences that could have turned Clover's basic melancholia into self-destruction...
...diminished mental capacity" left him unable to premeditate, deliberate, or harbor malice, the standards for first degree murder. One defense expert, Dr. Jerry Jones, told the jury that what White suffered from was "not the blues, what you and I call being depressed." It was genetically caused melancholia, "as if the world were viewed through black glasses." Another defense doctor refused to elevate White's condition to a mental illness. He maintained that White was "discombobulated...
...Jaques with the same wide-stanced, pigeon-toed gait he used for Malvolio. To this he has added a wonderful pasty face and a hilarious mannerism of gargling his r's in words like 'warble' and 'warp.' Since Jaques not only is a malcontent but also enjoys parading his melancholia, he carries a little notebook and pencil in which to jot down cynical quips for future use. Another bull's-eye for Kerr...
...patient is dying of cancer, but all of them are terminal cases. One is a hopeless alcoholic; another is drowning in a morbid, pervasive melancholia; still another, a boy of 19, has not only totaled his motorcycle but also his mind. Several are old, old men for whom life has become the cruelest possible bondage. The hospital can offer them everything except dignity...
From the Diary of a Snail concludes with a lecture on Durer's engraving Melancholia I, describing the modern predicament in terms of various types of melancholy. Grass criticizes the melancholy of the utopians and ideologues. He praises the melancholy of the snail, working his way along the progressive path, and that of the writer brooding over his work. In the end it all sounds suspiciously like the voice of a snail who, having left his artistic shell, is not sure just where to go next...