Fowler, Mourning, Melancholia and Masculinity in Medieval Literature

Following are my notes on Rebekah M. Fowler’s dissertation “Mourning, Melancholia and Masculinity in English Literature”. Fowler wants to explore a pattern of emotion that consists of love, loss, grief madness and/or melancholy, wilderness lament/consolation, and synthesis and application of information gleaned from the grieving process, which is found in diverse texts from the twelfth… Continue reading Fowler, Mourning, Melancholia and Masculinity in Medieval Literature

Mourning and Melancholia by Sigmund Freud

Freud’s Mourning and Melancholia distinguishes between the two on the basis of self-knowledge. Melancholia is related to an “object loss which is lost from consciousness”– the melancholic might know rationally what they have lost, but not what specifically was lost to them. In mourning, there is “nothing about the loss which is unconscious” (245). In… Continue reading Mourning and Melancholia by Sigmund Freud