Depresja a melancholia
Depression Versus Melancholy

Depression as an Interpretative Category

Author(s): Zuzanna Sala
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: depression; melancholy; hauntology; dyschrony
Summary/Abstract: The article discusses three books of interpretative essays from the past decade that use the category of “depression” to analyze texts: "Ghosts of my Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures" by Mark Fisher (2014), "Going Nowhere, Slow: The Aesthetics and Politics of Depression" by Mikkel Krause Frantzen (2018) and "Pokolenie wyżu depresyjnego. Biografia" ["The Depression Boom Generation. A Biography"] by Michał Tabaczyński (2019). In the article the authors’ decision to include the psychopathological term in the titles or subtitles of their works (not the transhistorical category of “melancholy”) is understood in the socioeconomic context. The inspired on critical theory interpretations made by the authors in question, provide a basis for exploring the features of depressive literature in a non-individual context and for examining the aesthetic consequences of dealing with depression in literature and art.

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