A Politics of Melancholia
eBook - ePub

A Politics of Melancholia

From Plato to Arendt

  1. 288 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

A Politics of Melancholia

From Plato to Arendt

About this book

Why melancholia is a vital form of social critique and a catalyst for political renewal

Melancholia is wrongly condemned as a condition of withdrawal and despair that alienates its sufferer from community. Countering that misconception, A Politics of Melancholia reclaims an understanding of melancholia not as an affliction in need of a remedy but as an affirmative stance toward decay and ruination in political life, and restores the melancholic figure—by turns inventive and destructive, outraged and inspired—to their rightful place as the poet of political thought.

George Edmondson and Klaus Mladek identify pivotal moments of political melancholia in ancient and modern texts, offering new perspectives on the death of Socrates in Plato’s dialogues, the fratricide in Hamlet, Woyzeck’s killing of Marie in Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck, the murder of Moses in Freud’s thought, and the betrayal of the revolutionary idea that Hannah Arendt identifies in her critique of eighteenth-century revolutions. Melancholia emerges here as a disposition that is mournful but also jubilant, a mood of unbending disconsolation that remains faithful to a scene of downfall, to events that cannot be forgotten, and to things that cannot be governed.

Recovering a tradition of thought that is both affirmative and hopeful, this eloquent book reveals how political melancholia embodies a shared condition of discontent that binds communities together and inspires change.

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Yes, you can access A Politics of Melancholia by George Edmondson,Klaus Mladek in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Literary Criticism. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Prologue
  7. Chapter 1. The Eros of Stasis: Plato’s Melancholic Republic
  8. Chapter 2. Hamlet, the Melancholic Prince
  9. Chapter 3. Woyzeck Is the Worst
  10. Chapter 4. The Melancholic Transformation of Dr. Freud
  11. Chapter 5. Melancholia under Capitalism: Marx, Schumpeter, Adorno
  12. Chapter 6. Arendt’s Melancholic Revolution
  13. Notes
  14. Bibliography
  15. Index