The aim of this thesis is to provide a close reading and a philosophical and anthropological interpretation of Burton's understanding of the concept of melancholy (as well as the concept of the human being and the world) as it is presented in his work ​The Anatomy of Melancholy​. The primary objective will be gradually to respond to the following questions: How did Burton perceive the concept of melancholy? How did he make use of it within his notion of ​the melancholic world​? Based on this, his vision of a remedy to the melancholic disease afflicting the whole world, together with the form of this treatment presented in The Anatomy of Melancholy will be thereafter shown and explained. This task will be preceded by an analysis situated on the edge between the history of ideas and intellectual history, cultural history, and philosophical anthropology with a small overlap with the history of mentalities. This analysis will firstly reveal the diversity and rich history of the concept of melancholy and, subsequently, open up the intellectual milieu and ideas which form the basis of Burton's notion of the problem of the melancholic world and its treatment. This thesis, especially in its final part, will rely on a contextual reading of ​The Anatomy of Melancholy​. In order to acquire an overall...

Première femme à publier un roman en Angleterre, Lady Mary Wroth (1587 ?-1651 ?) est l’auteur d’une œuvre profondément marquée par la mélancolie. En 1621, soit la même année que la première édition de l’Anatomie de la mélancolie de Robert Burton, elle publie sous son propre nom un roman pastoral, The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania, suivi d’un recueil de poèmes intitulé Pamphilia to Amphilanthus en référence au couple central du roman. De la représentation du paysage à la structure narrative en passant par les symptômes physiques et psychologiques que manifeste l’ensemble des personnages, la mélancolie est partout dans ce roman. Maladie érudite et culturelle propre à une élite sociale mais réservée aux hommes lorsqu’elle révèle les génies, objet d’une véritable mode dans l’Angleterre du dix-septième siècle, la mélancolie devient pour Lady Mary Wroth l’instrument privilégié de la légitimation de son projet romanesque. Le roman se caractérise en effet par une poétique de la mélancolie qui se traduit par la mise en scène réflexive de l’écriture, par une écriture noire typiquement maniériste dans laquelle l’auteur s’affirme en se niant. Mais la mélancolie est aussi dans ce roman le symptôme d’un monde en crise dans lequel les valeurs morales qui ont triomphé à l’époque élisabéthaine, telles que l’héroïsme martial, sont désormais obsolètes. Le roman présente le sombre tableau d’un monde déchu sans espoir de rachat. En imitant aussi systématiquement l’Arcadie de Sidney – dont Wroth était la nièce –, l’Urania met en scène une nostalgie littéraire qui souligne l’incapacité de l’auteur à égaler ses modèles, mais fait parallèlement de cet aveu d’échec l’affirmation de sa propre légitimité. / Lady Mary Wroth (1587 ? -1651 ?), who was the first woman to publish a prose romance in England, authored works that are pervaded by melancholy. In 1621 – the same year as the first edition of Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy – she published a single volume containing her pastoral romance The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania and a sonnet sequence entitled Pamphilia to Amphilanthus which refers to the main couple in the romance. Melancholy is an overwhelming presence in Urania, as it appears not only in the setting and in the characters’ bodies and minds, but in the narrative structure of the romance as well. In seventeenth-century England, there was a well-known fashion for melancholy, which was seen as a sign of nobility and cultural genius, but only as far as men were concerned. Lady Mary Wroth uses melancholy to legitimize her authorial position inside the romance. Urania, indeed, is characterized by a poetics of melancholy which appears both in a self-conscious representation of the writing process and in a black, mannerist style which enables Wroth to make a claim for the legitimacy of her works by denying her own agency in them. Melancholy also functions as the symptom of moral decline, as the moral values which triumphed in the Elizabethan period, such as martial heroism, now appear irrevocably obsolete. The romance portrays a fallen world which reveals no hope of redemption whatsoever. In its systematic imitation of Sidney’s Arcadia, Urania showcases a literay nostalgia which enables Wroth to affirm her own authorial position by demonstrating her inability to equal her models.

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Gjenskinn is a graphic novel about feeling stuck, and the attempt to walk it off. The comic follows the young student Mia as she leaves her apartment around midnight to go buy snacks, ending up on a trip that is both longer and more social than planned.  Exploring themes of melancholia through excessive overthinking and awkward conversations, Gjenskinn tries to put images to feelings it's hard to put words to. It is a story about finding your way back (from the store), told with both humor and seriousness. / Gjenskinn er en grafisk roman om følelsen av å stå fast og forsøket på å gå det av seg. Historien følger den unge studenten Mia når hun forlater leiligheten sin litt før midnatt for å kjøpe snacks, på en tur som både blir lengre og mer sosial enn planlagt. Tegneserien utforsker tema som melankoli gjennom alt fra kontinuerlig overtenking til kleine samtaler, og prøver å sette bilde på følelser det er vanskelig å sette ord på. Det er en historie om å finne veien tilbake (fra butikken), fortalt med både humor og alvor.

La découverte d’œuvres du Sturm und Drang et de la tendance sentimentale (allemande et anglaise) fut pour le jeune K. Ph. Moritz une expérience déterminante, aussi bien pour le développement de sa personnalité que pour ses débuts comme écrivain. Nous avons entrepris d’étudier les différentes « traces » laissées par cette littérature dans les écrits de l’auteur, ainsi que leur évolution, notamment dans le cadre d’une pratique de l’intertextualité transformant de simples « réminiscences » littéraires en procédés d’écriture maîtrisés, voire même en « tableaux poétiques ». Nous analysons tout d’abord la réception du Sturm und Drang et de la tendance sentimentale par Anton Reiser (« double » du jeune Moritz) comme lecteur, poète et spectateur, réception « mise en scène » par l’auteur dans son roman autobiographique Anton Reiser. Nous tentons ensuite de montrer comment Moritz, entre 1780 et 1790, prend de la distance avec « l’enthousiasme » caractérisant sa réception de jeunesse de ces courants, sur lesquels il pose désormais un regard « éclairé » et objectif, depuis son point de vue d’écrivain, de critique littéraire et de psychologue empirique des « Lumières tardives », rejetant l’outrance dans le tragique, critiquant la Schwärmerei et observant les « maladies de l’âme ». Enfin, nous consacrons notre dernière partie au point de vue « esthétique » depuis lequel Moritz considère certaines œuvres du « temps des génies » (particulièrement Les Souffrances du jeune Werther), qui trouvent également leur place dans la théorie littéraire de l’auteur (exposée dans plusieurs écrits publiés après son séjour en Italie, entre 1792 et 1794), et dans sa pratique de la description de paysages. / To discover works from the Sturm und Drang (« Storm and stress ») movement and from the sentimental trend (German and British) was a determining experience to the young Karl Philipp Moritz, for the development of his personality as well as for the beginning of his career as a writer. The present study aims at researching the « traces » left by this literature in Moritz’ work, and their evolution, in particular through intertextuality, which transforms simple literary « reminiscences » into mastered literary techniques, even into « poetic pictures ». First we analyse the reception of the Sturm und Drang and of Sentimentalism by Anton Reiser (« double » of Moritz in his youth) as reader, poet and spectator, reception « represented » by Moritz in his autobiographical novel Anton Reiser. We then examine how the author, between 1780 and 1790, distances himself from his former « enthusiastic » reception of those literary trends: from now on, he considers them from his « enlightened » and objective point of view as a novelist, a dramatist, a critic and an empirical psychologist of the « Late Enlightenment », rejecting excesses in tragedy, criticising the Schwärmerei and studying the « diseases of the soul ». The last part of our study is devoted to the « aesthetic » point of view, from which Moritz considers some works from the sentimental trend and from the Sturm und Drang (in particular The Sorrows of the Young Werther), which have also found a place in the literary theory of the author (expounded in several writings published between 1792 and 1794, after Moritz’ stay in Italy) and in his pratice of landscape description.

Cette étude esquisse un réseau dynamique des expériences mélancoliques chez Simone de Beauvoir, du point de vue de l’autobiographie et de la philosophie de l’existence. En transformant en désir d’exister la passion inutile de l’homme vers l'être chez Jean-Paul Sartre, la pensée beauvoirienne se repose sur la problématique de la morale, l’existence de l’individu concret et séparé du monde, ainsi que la relation intersubjective. Cependant elle aspire sans cesse à l’Absolu abstrait qui la conduit inévitablement à la frustration ontologique, qui est une structure inhérente à la mélancolie. Ainsi s’établit un dialogue permanent dans son oeuvre-vie, que nous ont révélé ses autobiographies, entre désir d’exister et non-désir qui est exprimé par l’apathie, la fatigue et le dégoût. Cela nous aide à déterminer l’existence de la mélancolie chez elle. La tâche est cependant rendue difficile par son ambition de décrire la totalité de la vie et du monde. De plus, les instants et les sentiments mélancoliques sont dispersés à travers toute une vie, racontée par l’autobiographe qui joue le jeu de l’ombre-claire. Bien que l'on risque de perdre ce qui en fait la spécificité et la complexité, la mélancolie nous paraît inaccessible sans la lier à ses métamorphoses. C’est pourquoi nous effectuons une étude soigneuse de ces autobiographies pour en suivre les instants et les sentiments : la solitude de l’ennui adolescent, la mélancolie d’amour, l’impuissance du sujet politique, le deuil des êtres chers, jusqu’à l’angoisse du temps et du vieillissement. Le premier chapitre tente de dégager une infrastructure philosophique de la mélancolie, qui est la tension entre désir d’exister et non-désir. La recension de la représentation littéraire et de l’ontologie phénoménologique de la mélancolie chez Sartre, et les nouveaux apports de Simone de Beauvoir dans l’après-guerre, nous incitent à discerner une théorie de la mélancolie féminine dans Le Deuxième Sexe. Étant donné la similitude des expériences vécues entre son projet féministe et son projet autobiographique, nous cherchons à construire un réseau intertextuel entre son écriture de soi et sa théorie anthropologique existentielle des femmes, en étudiant nécessairement les romans corrélés. En tenant compte du petit nombre de pages, notre choix se porte plutôt sur ses autobiographies, ainsi que sa théorie et ses romans sur les femmes qui servent de références essentielles. Dans les chapitres suivants, nous tachons d'explorer les expériences vécues par/avec Beauvoir, dans la mesure où elles concernent la mélancolie. Le deuxième chapitre porte exclusivement sur le récit d’enfance, en vue de son autonomie relative aux récits ultérieurs, et se concentre sur la solitude et l’ennui adolescent. Le troisième chapitre essaie d’établir une relation entre la passion amoureuse et la mélancolie. Le quatrième constate l'impuissance du sujet dans l’expérience de la guerre. Le cinquième tache de découvrir la relation entre mère et fille dans l’essai du deuil maternel, et à partir de cela, d’examiner son dernier roman pour connaître la diversité de la mélancolie féminine. Le dernier chapitre veut rassembler les moments indépassables de l’être humain autour de la mort et de l’angoisse du temps, pour éclaircir leur rapport à la mélancolie chez notre auteur. / This study outlines a dynamic network of melancholic experiences in Simone de Beauvoir, from the perspective of autobiography and philosophy of existence. Transforming into "desire to exist", the useless passion human towards the Being in Jean-Paul Sartre, Beauvoir's thought rests on the problem of morality, of the existence of the concrete and separate individual in the world, as well as the intersubjective relationship. However, Beauvoir aspires continually to the Absolute abstract which inevitably leads to the ontological frustration, which is an inherent structure to melancholy. This establishes an ongoing dialogue in her work and life, we have revealed her autobiographies, between desire for existence and non-desire which is expressed by apathy, fatigue and disgust. This helps us to determine the existence of melancholy at Beauvoir. However, the task is made difficult by its ambition to describe the totality of life and of the world. In addition, times and melancholy feelings are scattered throughout a lifetime, narrated by autobiographer who plays the game of shadow-clear. Although we risk losing what makes the specificity and complexity, melancholy seems unattainable without linking it to its metamorphoses. That's why we make a careful study of these autobiographies to follow the moments and feelings: solitude adolescent boredom, melancholy of love, the impotence of the political subject, mourning of loved ones, until the anxiety of time and aging. The first chapter discusses the philosophical infrastructure of melancholy, which is the tension between the desire to exist, and non-desire. The review of literary representation and the phenomenological ontology of Sartre melancholy, and new contributions of Simone de Beauvoir in the postwar, encourage us to discern a theory of feminine melancholy in The Second Sex. Given the similarity of experiences between her feminist project and autobiographical project, we seek to build an intertextual network between his self-writing and its existential anthropological theory of women, studying necessarily correlated novels. Considering the small number of pages, our choice is rather on his autobiographies, and his theory and novels about women which serve as key references. In the following chapters, we try to explore the experiences of / with Beauvoir, to the extent that they relate to melancholy. The second chapter focuses exclusively on the childhood story, to its autonomy on the later accounts, and focuses on loneliness and adolescent boredom. The third chapter tries to establish a relationship between the passion of love and melancholy. The fourth finds impotence of the subject in the experience of war. The fifth discover the relationship between mother and daughter in the essay of maternal grief, and from this, to look for his latest novel about the diversity of women's melancholy. The last chapter wants to gather the insurmountable moments of the human being around death and anguish of time, to clarify their relation about melancholy in our author.

Parmi les réalisateurs, producteurs et acteurs de Bombay, Raj Kapoor (1924-1988) est certainement l’un des plus célèbres et des plus originaux, qu’il s’agisse de son œuvre ou de sa personnalité. Sa vaste filmographie qui rassemble quelques-uns des plus beaux mélodrames du cinéma populaire hindi reste méconnue en France. Proches du peuple, ces mélodrames révèlent un phénomène présent dans différentes situations et sous différents aspects : le sentiment d’incompréhension.Ce travail de recherche, inspiré par la lecture de Peter Brooks et Stanley Cavell sur le mélodrame, se donne pour but de montrer que les mélodrames de Kapoor sont porteurs d’un concept particulier qui les unit et les définit comme un genre cinématographique propre que nous appellerons « mélodrame de l’incompréhension ». Le sentiment de ne pas comprendre ou d’être « mal compris » qui hante ces mélodrames se cristallise non seulement à partir des enjeux esthétiques, historiques, politiques et culturels mais aussi des événements personnels.S’appuyant sur l’esthétique du mélodrame, Kapoor multiplie la présence métaphorique du héros aveugle qui pointe la difficulté ou l’impossibilité de communiquer et fait grief à la société de ne pas le comprendre. Inscrivant sa souffrance dans un contexte plus large, le mélodrame kapoorien dépasse les frontières du drame intimiste pour s’élever au niveau du peuple, voire de la nation, selon certains auteurs. Pour amplifier le phénomène d’incompréhension, le mélodrame utilise le malentendu, la méprise, l’ignorance, la confusion, l’illusion, etc. au point que ces difficultés de communication paraissent très clairement représenter des éléments structurels marqués par la réflexion de Kapoor sur l’incompréhension, teintée de mélancolie et de tristesse. / Among Bombay’s directors, producers and actors, Raj Kapoor (1924-1988) is certainly one of the best known and most original both for his work and for his personality. His vast filmography which constitutes a collection of some of the most beautiful melodramas of Hindi popular cinema remains virtually unknown in France. Close to the people, these melodramas reveal a theme which is universally present, illustrated in a variety of situations and different lights. It is the phenomenon of incomprehension.The present work, inspired by a reading of Peter Brooks and Stanley Cavell on the subject of melodrama, aims to show that Kapoor’s melodramas treat this specific theme which unites them and allows them to be defined as a distinct cinematic genre here termed "melodrama of incomprehension." The feeling of inability to understand or of being misunderstood which haunts these melodramas is gleaned not only from aesthetic, historical, political and cultural subjects but also from personal experience.Drawing on the aesthetics of melodrama, Kapoor multiplies the metaphorical presence of the blind hero illustrating the overwhelming difficulty of communication, and blames society for a lack of understanding. Extending the resulting suffering to a wider context, Kapoor’s melodrama transcends the bounds of individual drama, reaching out to the level of the people as a whole, indeed to the entire nation according to some authors. To amplify the phenomenon of incomprehension, his melodrama uses misunderstanding, scorn, ignorance, confusion, illusion, and more. Kapoor does this to a point at which these difficulties of communication clearly represent identifiable structural elements in his portrayal of incomprehension imbued with melancholy and sadness.

Building on recent scholarship in the history of art which has started to reappraise the meaning of grotesque and scatological motifs, this thesis examines how digestion was conceived of as a model of creation, and how this was translated visually. Renaissance creativity was increasingly modelled on a series of natural processes like digestion, following a trend in favour of Aristotelian psychology. However, it has been largely overlooked in comparison to the bleeding, the pneumatic, and especially the procreative natural models, which have been extensively studied. The central argument of this thesis is that digestion constituted an alternative-albeit less 'decorous'-model of creation, denoting the intervention of a more 'earthbound' ingenium. I argue that this model was used by certain classes of artists as an acknowledgement of a strong engagement with materials and of the labour of a round-the-clock imagination. Goldsmithing and printmaking are artistic professions whereby the artistic process was often considered as an act of 'soiling' oneself, both in the sense of the body and the phantasia. This thesis focuses on a period spanning c. 1530 to 1675, from Rabelais' works to the facetious printer Jacques Lagniet. It mines a corpus of little-studied textual and visual sources from the north of the Alps, examining a continuity between France and the German lands: geographical areas which both had an especially pronounced 'culture of excretion'. From a broader perspective, this research responds to a widespread scholarly call for more attention to the organic soul and the lower body, nuancing the alleged hegemony of the brain and the higher senses throughout history. It seeks to modify the perception of early modern artists and viewers as cerebral intellectuals, presenting them as individuals who also 'thought with their guts'.

E' possibile approfondire la conoscenza del pensiero senecano tenendo conto delle conoscenze mediche del filosofo. L'influenza della scuola medica Pneumatica, di ispirazione stoica, consente di dimostrare che le passioni come l'ira non sono per Seneca solo malattie dell'anima, ma sindromi psicofisiche che coinvolgono tutti i livelli dell'individuo, alla luce di un monismo corpo- anima possibile solo alla luce delle dottrine Pneuamtiche. Malattie come la mania e la melancolia, inoltre, hanno un decorso particolare che oltre ad influenzare la visione senecana dell'ira, permette anche di comprendere il carattere apparentemente incoerente di alcuni personaggi delle tragedie (Clitennestra, Atreo, Fedra e Medea), che possono essere considerati traduzioni drammaturgiche di sindromi maniaco- depressive. / It's possible to deepen our knowledge of Senecan thought by considering his medical knowledge. The influence of the Pneumatic school, inspired by Stoic philosophy, makes possible to show that passions like anger are for Seneca not only soul diseases, but also a kind of psycho- physical syndrome that concerns every aspect of the individual in the light of a psycho- physical monism that is possible to understand only through the Pneumatic doctrines. Diseases like mania and melancholy, moreover, have a peculiar development which, influencing Senecan view of anger, let us understand the apparently incoherent features of some characters of the tragedies (Clitaemestra, Atreus, Phaedra, Medea) who can be considered dramatic translations of manic- depressive syndromes