To think the melancholy: from Hippocrates to Walter Benjamin’s revolutionary pessimism

Abstract

This article aims to present the revolutionary aspect of Walter Benjamin's pessimism and melancholy. To this end, we have made a historical rescue of the concept of melancholy, from the Hippocrates' theory of humors, through "Problem XXX" by Aristotle, to "Mourning and Melancholia" by Freud. Next, we present an excerpt from the work "Origin of the German Tragic Drama", where Walter Benjamin presents a brief analysis of the notion of melancholy in the Baroque period, on which his text dwells. Finally, we analyze the essay "Surrealism: the last snapshot of European Intelligentsia", written by Walter Benjamin, where we believe the genesis of the elements that will become the basis of the author's understanding of melancholy is present, fundamentally the idea of a necessary organization of pessimism, aiming at revolution. By distancing himself from the notions about melancholic feeling previously conceived, Walter Benjamin inaugurates a new vision about melancholia, no longer apathetic, but active and revolutionary.