Melancholic Dissonance and the Limits of Psycho-Humoralism

The chapter argues that Much Ado About Nothing and The Merchant of Venice underscore the limits of a psycho-humoural definition of melancholy, where Don John’s participation in Much Ado offers a blueprint of such a process, while the pattern is fully developed in The Merchant of Venice through the titular melancholic protagonists. The chapter suggests that rather than seeking a clear cause for it, the merchant’s melancholy needs to be understood as a vital part of the comedy; the why of Antonio’s sadness does not matter as much as the fact that he consistently strives to remain as such. Both Don John and Antonio’s insistent clamouring as to the irremediableness of their melancholy bring attention to the incompatibility of traditional definitions of melancholy with the comic genre. This revisionism disassociates melancholy from the psycho-physical binary offered by traditional understandings and undertakes a turn towards a more multifocal emotional imprint.

Melancomic Time in Late Shakespeare

The chapter suggests that late Shakespearean drama develops a melancomic philosophy predicated on the yoking together of past memories of sorrow and a present sense of gratification. The late plays’ the staging of a miraculous resolution to powerful trauma stems from taxonomies related to comic melancholy rather than from the tragic overtones of their initial premises. In late Shakespeare, irreparable past tragedies, exacerbated by lengthy time gaps, haunt seemingly joyous conclusions. This melancholy suggests a voluntary sense of comic failure, since the melancomic quality of the plays infers both the legitimising of melancholy as a valid comic emotion and the nostalgic impossibility of return to a dramatic state of bliss. This emotional response transcends generic quagmires in representing a highly pleasurable feeling that can be understood as a precursor to nostalgia. Lastly, the chapter examines The Two Noble Kinsmen as evidence that, despite its transformative achievements, Shakespeare’s comic melancholy loses out in the dramatic landscape of the seventeenth-century, being supplanted by works predicated on a focal return towards humourality and the increased dramatic presence of medical practitioner characters.

Melancholic Ambience at the Comic Close

The chapter underscores the powerful emotional ambiguity that characterises the final moments of As You Like It and Twelfth Night. This alteration introduces a new understanding of melancholy that revolves around ideas of mood, time and setting. No longer tied to physical characterisations but grounded instead in the languor elicited by the inevitable passage of time, melancholy impresses itself into the very fabric of the plays it occupies. It finds particular resonance within the various musical interludes they contain, as well as in the several allusions to the bittersweet temporal perception that characters express. In both plays, the sense of a comic ending is seriously problematised by the growing sense of wistfulness that develops. Despite the promise of a return to court, the multiple loose ends in As You Like It undercut the otherwise joyful resolution. Similarly, a strong sense of this more spectral melancholy, embodied in Feste’s closing ballad, sweeps through the final act, coating it in a wistful longing for times past. The powerful emotional ambiguity of these final moments underscores the symbiotic revisions of melancholy and comedy into a melancomic theatrical and philosophical affect.

Comic Symmetry and English Melancholy

The chapters attest to the mutual transformation of comedy and melancholy that Shakespeare develops. considers the ways in which early Shakespearean comedies interrogate established conceptions of english melancholy such as lovesickness, mourning and interiority. Both The Comedy of Errors and Love’s Labour’s Lost apply pressure on these melancholic expressions by developing them within explicitly comedic settings. The chapter underscores the critique that Shakespearean comedy performs in reworking such philosophical notions, which culminates in the ambiguously happy resolution put forth. In both plays, there exist parallel efforts to neutralise and rehabilitate melancholic characters. The humour is not easily purged away through medical expertise, nor is it ultimately celebrated as a sign of interiority. There remains a perceptible sense of doubt as to whether characters eventually do away with the melancholy they express. Love’s Labour’s Lost in particular, with the jarring announcement of the King’s death, suggests that the melancholy of early comedies shatters established classification. In its initial form, the chapter suggests, Shakespearean comedy already rejects traditional definitions of melancholy.

The Philosophical Afterlives of Shakespearean Melancholy

The concluding chapter charts out potential critical links between Shakespearean comic melancholy and modern conceptualizations of melancholia in the works of Freud, Butler and Ngai. It argues that the comic philosophy of melancholy and of the melancomic, through its performative and affective dimensions, dovetails with the theoretical frameworks of all three writers. The chapter positions the representation of melancholy as a productive emotional marker akin to nostalgia in its conflation of sorrow and pleasure, as well as the artistic and creative repercussions that such a connection suggests over the years.

What’s So Funny About Humours? Melancholy, Comedy and Revisionist Philosophy

The introductory chapter addresses both the prevalence of melancholy within Shakespearean comedy as well as the extensive revisions of relevant philosophical discourses that the genre undertakes. It initially charts out the history of the dual melancholic traditions that emerge out of Antiquity (and traces their revisions through the Middle Ages before providing an account of their development in Renaissance treatises that conflate medical and literary aspirations. In doing so, the chapter draws out the various principles that will inform Shakespearean comedy’s depiction of melancholy. The chapter then offers a survey of Shakespearean comic criticism that draws attention to its shortcomings in lieu of a sustained melancholic treatment. The chapter concludes with a preliminary outlining of modern, psychoanalytical engagements with melancholy and its related concepts that highlights the upshot of Shakespeare’s transformation of melancholy.