Mental Melancholy Explained

 So here we are, back to the four humours. As we know, this methodology or idea was heavily believed in ancient times. It is almost like they were pulling things from thin air (literally and metaphorically) to find reasonings for all of the detrimental and sorrowful situations happening in front of their eyes. Even though people of this time didn't know what was happening, they tried to pull a reason to explain it. To be fair, they really didn't have many advances so their imagination and provoked thoughts were the best they had. Something also predominantly believed was supernatural possession or witchcraft. Could this have been deemed because they didn't have any other reasoning for such happenings? Or could it have been because they saw something bad and put a negative connotation around it for the person to be socially persecuted or undesired? I, as I am sure many people today, am grateful Shakespeare had a different way or thinking. In Macbeth, Shakespeare alluded to "illness of the mind" (mentioned in the article) through being marked of hallucinations and delusions allowing us to imagine a psychotic disorder of some sort which we now know to be mental illness and not caused by the four humors or demonic advances of any sorts. Additionally, Hamlet experiences visual hallucinations through the hearing of his father's voice followed by depression and mania experienced. To top it off, Ophelia in Hamlet was quiet, weak and timid with little decision making skills and adamantly allowed people to practically walk all over her. This is alluding to depression as well. I find it fascinating that Shakespeare weaved in his personal opinion which happened to be vastly different from others during his time simply through his writing. I wonder if this was a way for Shakespeare to just get his thoughts out of his mind and onto paper, if he truly knew he would reach an audience in hopes they would be onboard with what he has to say, or mocking (in a sense) the common beliefs about the four humours. I find it eye opening that Shakespeare was one of the first to understand mental disorders and be able to incorporate it in his writing to share with others as time goes on even though close to no one else had this way of thought. 


http://elsinore.ucsc.edu/melancholy/melLover.html




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