Basing our analysis on the concepts of ‘emotion’, ‘feeling’, and ‘mood’ as defined by data from the cognitive sciences, we argue that human emotions are both universal and intrinsically linked to literary and artistic chronotopes. In her study of 'reflective' and 'restorative' nostalgia, Svetlana Boym (2001) shows that 'nostalgia' itself represents pure ambivalence that takes on a particular shape in response to the mood, thoughts, and psychological state of the author. Its ultimate expression might assume the form of either monological ideology or of paradoxical existential emotion. It is this second type of nostalgia that we can link most closely link to understandings of both 'melancholy' and 'identity' or 'self-consciousness'. Brooding and melancholic toska is shared by persons who suffer from what we might call 'existential ambivalence'; these persons are 'mercurials' in the terminology of Yuri Slezkine (2004). Within the field of Russian literature, this 'mercurial' sense of melancholy is particularly well developed.
University of Genoa, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-2917-7630
Chapter Title
Chronotopes of Affectivity in Literature. On Melancholy, Estrangement, and Reflective Nostalgia
Authors
Laura Salmon
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/978-88-6655-822-4.02
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2015
Copyright Information
© 2015 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
Melancholic Identities, Toska and Reflective Nostalgia
Book Subtitle
Case Studies from Russian and Russian-Jewish Culture
Editors
Sara Dickinson, Laura Salmon
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
194
Publication Year
2015
Copyright Information
© 2015 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/978-88-6655-822-4
ISBN Print
978-88-6655-821-7
eISBN (pdf)
978-88-6655-822-4
eISBN (xml)
978-88-9273-384-8
Series Title
Biblioteca di Studi Slavistici
Series ISSN
2612-7687
Series E-ISSN
2612-7679