Abstract

SOARES, Sylvia Salles Godoy de Souza. Ensaio sobre a melancolia: suas origens, sua dialética, seus caminhos tortuosos e seu destino inelutávelEssay on melancholy: its origins, dialectic, winding paths, and ineluctable destinyEnsayo sobre la melancolía: sus orígenes, su dialéctica, sus caminos tortuosos y su destino ineluctable. Rev. bras. psicanál [online]. 2015, vol.49, n.2, pp. 105-116. ISSN 0486-641X.

Inspired by the work of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, the author ponders over the genealogy of melancholy, starting from patristics references in the Middle Ages - when it was termed "acedia" -, passing through associations with western cosmology and other theories throughout history, to its current expressions. The core of this paper is based on Freud's work "Mourning and melancholy" and on the peculiar review made by Giorgio Agamben. By comparing psychoanalytic understanding of the mechanism of melancholy with the saturnine humoral complex, Agamben emphasizes two elements of acedia: recess of the object and a self-alienation from the contemplative intention. The author also writes about concepts of object relations, fetichism and narcissism, in order to clarify the relational dialectic, its tortuous intent to pursue the object, and the melancholic nature underlying these processes.

Keywords : genealogy of melancholy; religion; phantasmagoria; dialectic; object of desire.

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