Asst. Prof. Jonathan C. Williams from the Department of English Language and Literature has published a monograph with Bloomsbury Academic. The book, “Melancholic Life: Literary Expression and the Experience of History from Burton to Keats,” traces the long historical transformation of melancholia from a medical condition into a distinctly political mode of feeling. Dr. Williams interprets literary melancholy in the eighteenth century as a mode of social criticism: a solitary protest against the exploitative features of social life such as global commerce and print capitalism. He argues that the political significance of eighteenth-century melancholy lies precisely in its minimal efficacy: a form of critical theorization that persists even when meaningful political action seems impossible.
Jonathan Williams’ New Book on Melancholy in 18th-Century Literature
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