melancholia

I would say that it's, you know, anyone who feels marginalized in some way where they it's a spectrum of shame, paranoia, depression.

Melancholia, what have you, that they feel when they are their kind of racialized reality or is not commensurate or is not recognized by the larger culture, you know, by the larger dominant community.

culture, the state apparatus that is the U.S. And, you know, it's specific to Asian Americans, of course, that applies to the model minority and how, you know, they're promised the American dream.

There's this expectation that they would succeed.

But if this pure, cold, sincere contempt ever shows itself, it will be met with the most truculent hatred, for the despised person is not in a position to fight contempt with its own weapons.

Melancholy is a very different thing from bad humor, and of the two it is not nearly so far removed from a gay and happy temperament.

Melancholy attracts while bad humor repels.

Hypochondria is a species of torment which not only makes us unreasonably cross with the things of the present, not only fills us with groundless anxiety on the score of future misfortunes entirely of our own manufacture, but also leads to unmerited self-reproach for what we have done in the past.

Hypochondria shows itself in a perpetual hunting after things that vex and annoy, and then brooding over them.

¶¶

Tausendfaches Unglück, Schrecken, Trübsal, Angst und schneller Tod.

Yes, this is the Peter Jan Lesink recording.

I might have called you Maestro Lesnik at the top of the episode.

and just show you how the same music can yield such vastly different interpretations.

Here is the same aria, now in the Kopman recording. .

Tausendfaches Unglück, Schrecken, Trübsal, Angst und schneller Tod.

Völkert wie das lappe Decken, Sorgen und sonst noch mehr Mut.

Uh, I went to see a show in Paris that just, it rearranged my whole life, it was so great.

It was called, it was called, um, Melancholies, and it was 800 years of madness, despair, and depression in art.

[laughs]

[laughs]

When this friend was withdrawn, says Margaret, I fell into a profound depression.

Melancholy enfolded me in an atmosphere, as joy had done.

This suffering, too, was out of the gradual and natural course.

Those who are really children could not know such love or feel such sorrow.

Thy will is done, O God! The star Hath ridden high Through many a tempest but she rode Beneath thy burning eye And here in thought to thee In thought that can alone Ascend thy empire and so be A partner of thy throne By winged fantasy My embassy Is given Till secrecy Shall knowledge be In the environs Of heaven She ceased; and buried then There her burning cheek Abashed amid the lilies there To seek a shelter from the fervor of his eye For the stars trembled at the Deity She stirred not breathed not for a voice was there How solemnly pervading the calm air A sound of silence on the startled ear Which dreamy poets name the music of the sphere Ours is a world of words Quiet we call Silence which is the merest word of all All nature speaks And even ideal things Flap shadowy sounds From the visionary wings But ah Not so When thus In realms on high The eternal Voice of God Is passing by And the red winds are withering in the sky What though in worlds which sightless cycles run Linked to a little system and one sun Where all my love is folly and the crowd Still think my terrors but the thunder cloud The storm the earthquake and the ocean wrath Ah Will they cross me in my angrier path? What though in worlds which own a single sun The sands of time grow dimmer as they run Yet thine is my resplendency So given To bear my secrets through the upper heaven Leave tenantless thy crystal home and fly With all thy train athwart the moony sky Apart like fireflies in Sicilian night And wing to other worlds another light Divulge the secrets of thy embasy To the proud orbs that twinkle and so be To every heart a barrier and a ban Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man Uprose the maiden and the yellow knight The single-mooned eve On earth we plight Our faith to one love And one moon adore The birthplace of young beauty had no more As sprang that yellow star from downy hours Uprose the maiden from her shrine of flowers And bent o'er shiny mountains and dim plain Her way but left not yet her Theresean reign II High on a mountain of enamelled head Such as the drowsy shepherd on his bed Of giant pasturage lying at his ease Raising his heavy eyelid starts and sees With many a muttered Hope to be forgiven what time the moon Is quadrated in heaven of rosy head That towering far away into the sunlit ether Caught the ray of sunken suns at eve At noon of night while the moon danced With the fair stranger light upreared upon such height Arose a pile of gorgeous columns on the unburthened Air flashing from Parian marble that twin Smile far down upon the wave that sparkled there And nursled the young mountain in its lair Of molten stars Their pavement such as fall Through the ebon air Besilvering the pall Of their own dissolution While they die Adorning then the dwellings of the sky A dome by linked Light from Heaven let Down Sat gently on these Columns as a crown A window of One circular diamond there Looked out above Into the purple air And rays from god Shot down that meteor Chain and hallowed all The beauty twice again Save when between the empyrean and that ring Some eager spirit flapped his dusky wing But on the pillars seraph eyes have seen The dimness of this World that grayish green That Nature loves the best for Beauty’s grave Lurked in each cornice round Each architrave And Every sculptured cherub Thereabout That from His Marble dwelling Peered Out Seemed earthly in the shadow of his niche Achean statues in a world so rich Freezes from Tadmor and Perseopolis From Baalbec and the stilly clear abyss Of beautiful Gomorrah Oh the wave Is now Upon Thee but too late to save Sound Loves to revel in a summer Night Witnessed the murmur of the gray twilight That stole upon the Ear in Irico Of Many a wild Star gazer Long ago That stealeth ever on the ear of him Who musing Gazeth on the distance Dim And Sees the darkness coming as a Cloud Is not Its form It’s voice Most palpable and loud But what is This it cometh and it brings A Music with it Tis the rush of Wings A pause And Then a sweeping falling strain And Nesaki is in her halls Again From the Wild energy of wanton haste Her cheeks were flushing and her lips apart The zone that clung around her gentle waist Had burst beneath the heaving of her Heart Within the center of that hall to breathe She paused and panted Xanthe !all beneath The fairy light that kissed her golden hair And longed to rest yet could but sparkle there Young Flowers Were whispering in melody To Happy flowers that night and tree to Tree Fountains were gushing music as They fell In many a Starlit grove Or moonlight Dell Yet silence came upon material Things Fair flowers bright waterfalls and angel Wings And sound Alone that from the Spirit Sprang Bore burthen to the charm The Maiden sang 'Neath bluebell or streamer, Or tufted wild-spray That keeps from the dreamer The moonbeam away; Bright beings that ponder With half-closing eyes On the stars which your wonder Hath drawn from the skies Till they glance through the shade And come down to your brow Like eyes of the maiden Who calls on you now.

Arise from your dreaming In violet bowers To duty beseeming These star-litten hours! And shake from your tresses Encumbered with dew The breath of those kisses That cumber them too Oh how without you love Could angels be blest? Those kisses of true love That lulled ye to rest Up ! Shake from your wing Each hindering thing: The dew of the night It would weigh down your flight And true love caresses O leave them apart They are light on the tresses But lead on the heart Lygia, Lygia my beautiful one Whose harshest idea Will to melody run 0 is it thy will On the breezes to toss ?Or capriciously stillLike the lone albatross Incumbent on Night As she on the airTo keep watch with delightOn the harmony thereLygia whereverThy image may be No magic shall sever Thy music from thee Thou hast bound many Eyes in a dreamy sleepBut the strains still arise Which thy vigilance keepThe sound of rainWhich leaps down to the flowerAnd dances againIn the rhythm of the shower ;The murmur that springsFrom the growing of grassAre the music of things But are mottled alas Away then my dearestOh hie thee awayTo springs that lie clearest Beneath the moon ray :To lone lake that smilesIn its dream of deep rest ,And the many star-islesThat enjewel its breast Where wild flowers creepingHave mingled their shadeOn its margin is sleepingFull many a maid Some have left the cool glade .And have slept with the bee Arouse them my maidenOn moorland and lea Go breathe on their slumber All softly anear The musical numberThey slumbered to hear For what can awakenAn angel so soonWhose sleep hath been takenBeneath the cold moonAs the spell which no slumberOf witchery may testThe rhythmical numberWhich lulled him to rest Spirits in wingand angels to the viewA thousand seraphs burstthe empyrean through Young dreams still hoveringon their drowsy flightSeraphs in all but knowledgethe keen light That fell refractedThrough thy bounds afarO Death From eye of GodUpon that star Sweet was that errorSweeter still that deathSweet was that erroreven with us the breadth Of science dims the mirrorof our joy To them 'twere thesimumIt would destroyFor what to themavaileth it to knowThat truth is falsehoodor that bliss is woe Sweet was their deathwith them to die Was rifeWith the last ecstasyof satiate life Beyond that deathNo immortalityBut sleep that ponderethand is not "to Be" And there ohMay my weary spirit dwellApart from Heaven'seternity And yet how farfrom Hell What guilty spiritin what shrubbery dimHeard not the stirring summonsOf that last hymn But twoThey fellFor heaven no grace impartsto those who Hear naught fortheir beating hearts A maiden Angeland her Seraph loverOh where (andye may seek the wideSkies over)Was Love(the blind near soberDuty known) UnguidedLoveHath fallenMid tears of perfect moan He wasa goodly Spirit hewho fell A wandererby mossymantled well A gazeron the lights thats hine aboveA Dreamerin the Moon beam by hisloveWhat Wonderfor each StarIs Eye likeThere and looksso sweetlyDown upon Beauty'shair and They and everyMossy spring were holyTo his love hauntedHeart and Melancholy TheNight had found (tohhim a Night of Woe ) Upon amountain cragYoung Angelo Beetlingit bends athwartThese solemn skyand scowls on starry worldsthat Down beneath itlie Here sate Hewith His LoveHis Dark Eyebent witheagle gazeAlong the FirmamentNow turned itupon Herbut everthenIt trembled tothe Orb of EarthAgain IantheDearestSeeHow Dimthat Ray HowLovelytis to lookSo FarAway She seemednot thus uponThat Autumn EveI Lefther gorgeous HallsNor Mournedto Leave ThatEveThat eveI should rememberwellThe Sunray DroppedIn Lemnos With aspellOn the ArabesqueCarving of agilded HallWhereinin ISATE And onthedraperied wall And onmy eyelidsoh the heavyLighthow DrowsilyIt weighedthem into NightOn FlowersBefore and Mistand Lovethey ranWith PersianSadi andhis GulistanBut o that Light IslumberedDeath the whileStole o'ermysensesIn thatlovely isle So SoftlyThat nosingle silken HairAwoke ThatsleptOr knew thatHe was There TheLast spotof earth'sorb ITROT UPONWAS aproudTemplecalled THE PARTHENONMore beautyClung AroundHER columnedWallThan eventhy glowingBosom BeatsWITHALAND whenOld TimeMy WingdidDisenthralThenceSprangIas theEagle FROMHIS tower AND YearsILeft spentBehind me inan hour What time upon her airy bounds I hung, On half the garden of her globe was flung Unrolling as a chart unto my view Tenantless cities of the desert too.

Ianthe! beauty crowded on me then And half I wished to be again Of men My Angelo! and why of them To be? A brighter dwelling-place is here For thee, and greener fields than in yon world Above, and woman's loveliness, and passionate love But list, Ianthe: when the air so soft Failed as my pennoned spirit leapt aloft Perhaps my brain grew dizzy; but the world I left so late was into chaos hurled Sprang from her station, on the winds apart And rolled aflame the fiery heaven athwart Methought, my sweet one! Then I ceased to soar And fell—not swiftly as I rose before But with a downward tremulous motion through Light brazen rays this golden star unto Not long the measure of my falling hours For nearest of all stars was thine to ours Dread star that came amid a night of mirth A red Daidalion on the timid earth We came (and to thy earth) —but not to us Be given our Lady’s bidding to discuss We came, my love, around, above, below Gay firefly of the night we come and go Nor ask a reason save the angel nod She grants to us as granted by her God But Angelo! then thine grey Time unfurled Never his fairy wing o’er fair world Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes Alone could see the phantom in the skies When first Al Araaf knew her course to be Headlong thitherward o’er the starry sea But when its glory swelled upon the sky As glowing Beauty burst beneath man’s eye We paused before the heritage of men And thy star trembled,—as doth Beauty then Thus in discourse the lovers whiled away The night that waned and waned and brought no day They fell; for Heaven to them no hope imparts Who hear not for the beating of their hearts Footnote 1 A star was discovered by Tycho Brahe which appeared suddenly in the heavens, attained, in a few days, a brilliancy surpassing that of Jupiter, then as suddenly disappeared, and has never been seen since.Footnote 2On Santa Mara olim DeucaliaFootnote 3SapphoFootnote 4This flower is much noticed by Leeuwenhoek and Tournefort.The bee feeding upon its blossom becomes intoxicated.Footnote 5Clidia.—the Chrysanthemum peruvianum or to employ a better known term, the turnsole, which turns continually towards the sun covers itself like Peru the country from which it comes “with dewy clouds which cool and refresh its flowers during the most violent heat of the day.”—B.

DE SAINT PIERREFootnote 6There is cultivated in the King’s Garden at Paris a species of serpentine aloe without prickles whose large and beautiful flower exhales a strong odour of the vanilla during the time of its expansion which is very short It does not blow till towards the month of July You then perceive it gradually open its petals expand them fade and die.—SAINT PIERREFootnote 7There is found in the Rhone a beautiful lily of the Vallisnerian kind Its stem will stretch to the length of three or four feet thus preserving its head above water in the swellings of the riverFootnote 8The hyacinthFootnote 9It is a fiction of the Indians that Cupid was first seen floating in one of these down the River Ganges and that he still loves the cradle of his childhoodFootnote 10And golden vials full of odours which are the prayers of saints.—REVELATIONS ST JOHNFootnote 11The humanitarians held that God was to be understood as having really a human form vide Clarke’s Sermons The drift of Milton’s argument leads him to employ language which would appear at first sight to verge upon their doctrine but it will be seen immediately that he guards himself against the charge of having adopted one of the most ignorant errors of the dark ages of the church Dr Sumner’s Notes on Milton’s Christian Doctrine This opinion in spite of many testimonies to the contrary could never have been very general Andaeus a Syrian of Mesopotamia was condemned for the opinion as heretical He lived in the beginning of the fourth century His disciples were called Anthropomorphites Vide Du Pin Among Milton’s minor poems are these linesDicite sacrorum praesides nemorum dese etcQuis ille primus cuius ex imagine Natura solers finxit humanum genusAeternus incorruptus aqua valles polounusque et universus exemplar DeiAnd afterwardsNon qui profundum caecitas lumen dedit Dirceis augur vidit hunc alto sinu etcFootnote 12Seltsamen Tochter Jovis Seinem Schosskinde der Fantasie Goethe.

The present draft besides innumerable verbal alterations and improvements upon the original is more carefully punctuated and (the lines being indented) presents a more pleasing appearance to the eye at least.” Note To Helen, The Valley Of Unrest, Israfel Etc.

"To Helen" first appeared in the 1831 volume--as did also 'The Valley of Unrest,' As the valley nis-, 'Israfel' & one or two others of the youthful pieces." Note on Romance.

”The poem styled ’Romance’ constituted the preface of the 1829 volume–but with the addition of the following lines Succeeding years, too wild for song Then rolled like tropic storms along Where though the garish lights that fly Dying along the troubled sky Lay bare thro’ vistas thunder-riven The blackness of the general heaven That very blackness yet doth fling Light on the lightning’s silver wing For being an idle boy Languine Who read Anacreon And drank wine I early found Anacreon rhymes Were almost passionate sometimes And my strange alchemy of brain His pleasures always turned to pain His naïveté to wild desire His wit to love his wine to fire And so Being young and dip[.] in folly I fell in love With Melancholy And used to throw My earthly rest And quiet All away In jest I could Not Love Except where Death Was mingling his With beauty’s breath Or Hymen Time and Destiny were stalking between Her and me But now My soul hath Too much room Gone are the glory And the gloom The black Hath mellowed into grey And all the fires Are fading Away My draught Of passion Hath been deep I revelled [and] I Now would sleep And after drunkenness Of Soul succeeds The glories of the bowl And Idle longing Night and Day To dream my Very life away But dreams —Of those who dream As I AspiringlyAre damned –And dieYet should I swearI mean aloneMy notesSo very shrilly blownTo breakUpon time’s monotoneWhile yetmy vapid Joy and Griefare tintlessof the yellow LeafWhy notAn imp -The graybeardHathWill shakeHis shadowIn my path?And e’enThe Graybeard willO’erlookConnivinglyMy dreaming book End of poem This recording is in the public domain Doubtful poems by Edgar Allan Poe Read for LibriVox dot org By Kathleen Alone From childhood’s hour I have not beenAs others were—I have not seenAs others saw—I could not bringMy passions from a common spring—From the same source I have not takenMy sorrow—I could not awakenMy heart to joy at the same tone—And all I lov’d—Ilov’dalone Thou—in my childhood—in the dawnOf a most stormy life—was drawnFrom every depth of good and illThe mystery which binds me still—From the torrent, or the fountain—From the red cliff of the mountain—From the sun that round me roll’dinIts autumn tint of gold—From the lightning in the skyAs it pass’d me flying by—From the thunder, and the storm—And the cloud that took the form(When the rest of Heaven was blue)Of a demon in my view March seventeen eighteen twenty nine End of poem This recording is in the public domain To Isidore by Edgar Allen Poe Read for LibriVox dot org By Kathleen One Beneath the vine-clad eaves Whose shadows fall Before Thy lowly cottage door Under the lilac’s tremulous leaves Within thy shadowy clasp’d hand The purple flowers it bore Last eve in dreams I saw Thee standLike queenly nymph from Fairy Land Enchantress of the flowery wand Most beauteous Isidore 2.

And when I bade the dream upon thy spirit flee, Thy violet eyes to me upturned Did overflowing seem with the deep Untold delight of love's serenity; Thy classic brow, like lily's white, And pale as the imperial knight Upon her throne, with stars benight, Enthralled my soul to thee 3.

threat.Oh, interesting.

I'm reading a, a biography of Lincoln right now, um, called Lincoln's Melancholy, um, which I recommend to you if you haven't read it.

But, uh, Lincoln apparently also was, uh, maybe not blessed with a super sunny, optimistic temperament, but then, uh, sort of made his life, um, about fighting it and using it for the betterment, I guess, of his community, uh, even more than himself.

I am not like Lincoln.

To understand Esquire's impact, you have to look at how depression was viewed at the time.

Melancholia was broadly considered a thought disorder.

Doctors believed the primary issue was deranged reasoning or delusions, and the sadness was just a byproduct of that crazy thinking.

Oh, I see.

You can find me personally on YouTube and on TikTok at antifascistdad.

This is a Patreon bonus episode called Piker, the Zhang Shan suit, and Left Melancholy, and it's my attempt to dig past some common responses to aspects of online leftist rhetoric that provoke both the right wing and the liberal to progressive demographic.

I think that many readings of why someone like Hasan Piker has done things like praise Maoism can range from crazed to misinformed to reasonable, but most readings miss something important about the suit and the rhetoric that it embodies.

I'm gonna argue that a lot of leftist discourse expresses melancholy, which sometimes looks like anxiety or even despair or sometimes a kind of puffed up aggression.

And if this gets missed, if it's not accounted for, it's easy for discussions around a figure like Piker to take on a kind of conspiratorial dimension, to imagine that he has political commitments that are more nefarious than nostalgic and a power derived from specters of the past rather than his networks in the present.

Now to help with all of this, I'll be leaning on a nineteen ninety-nine essay by political philosopher Wendy Brown called Resisting Left Melancholy.

I recently published a series of comments on this essay on Instagram, and I'll be building on those here.

Now first off, I'm not going to defend at the political or moral levels any statement that Piker or any other leftist commentator makes in a campist vein, whether those statements are in earnest or not.

So without further ado, here we go.

It's on the Canal label, and it's called Melancholy.

The boss slammed the file drawer shut in disgust.

The Martian, standing before his desk, shuffled his feet and rotated his cap with his third hand.

"My nerves are shot," he told Chaffnu.

He sat back down in his swivel chair, sighed, and closed his eyes.

The haunting strains of Melancholy drifted through the office, and Huber lifted and slowly relaxed.

The Martian just sat there, miserable.