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
Titolo del capitolo
Chronotopes of Affectivity in Literature. On Melancholy, Estrangement, and Reflective Nostalgia
Autori
Laura Salmon
Lingua
English
DOI
10.36253/978-88-6655-822-4.02
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2015
Copyright
© 2015 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Titolo del libro
Melancholic Identities, Toska and Reflective Nostalgia
Sottotitolo del libro
Case Studies from Russian and Russian-Jewish Culture
Curatori
Sara Dickinson, Laura Salmon
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
194
Anno di pubblicazione
2015
Copyright
© 2015 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
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
Collana
Biblioteca di Studi Slavistici
ISSN della collana
2612-7687
e-ISSN della collana
2612-7679