Left Melancholy

It is fascinating to see the extent to which European thought took a melancholic turn in the decades before World War I. Almost simultaneously, a number of related ideas became matters of major concern, particularly for middle-class intellectuals. Among these were the notion that life is by nature “incomplete,” that there is an irreconcilable opposition between desire and fulfillment, that the contemporary world is ugly and “impure,” and that existence itself is in a “fallen” state and apparently unredeemable. These ideas stimulated a mood of melancholic sadness, since the realm of values and the realm of matter were by all appearances unbridgeable. Not surprisingly, a whole literary and philosophical generation felt compelled to speak of the “tragic,” or the “tragic vision,” or “tragic consciousness.”

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