From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the Canadian comic strip, see Weltschmerz (comic
strip).
Weltschmerz (from the German, meaning
world-pain or world-weariness) is a term coined
by the German author Jean Paul and denotes the kind of feeling
experienced by someone who understands that physical reality can never satisfy the demands
of the mind. This kind of pessimistic world view was widespread
among several romantic authors such as Lord Byron, Giacomo
Leopardi, François-René de
Chateaubriand, Alfred de Musset, Nikolaus Lenau,
Herman Hesse, and Heinrich Heine. It is also used to
denote the feeling of sadness when thinking about the evils of the world—compare empathy, theodicy.
The modern meaning of Weltschmerz in the German language
is the psychological pain caused by sadness that can occur when
realizing that someone's own weaknesses are caused by the
inappropriateness and cruelty of the world and (physical and social) circumstances.
Weltschmerz in this meaning can cause depression,
resignation and escapism, and can become a
mental problem (compare to Hikikomori). The modern meaning should also
be compared with the concept of anomie, or a kind of alienation, that Émile
Durkheim wrote about in his sociological treatise Suicide.
Applications
John
Steinbeck wrote about this feeling in The Winter of Our
Discontent and referred to it as the Welshrats;
and in East of
Eden, it is felt by Samuel Hamilton after meeting Cathy Trask
for the first time. Ralph Ellison uses the term in
Invisible Man with regard to the pathos inherent in the
singing of spirituals: "...beneath the swiftness of the hot tempo
there was a slower tempo and a cave and I entered it and looked
around and heard an old woman singing a spiritual as full of
Weltschmerz as flamenco."
In music, pseudo-Weltschmerz,
and especially dark "romanticism," play an important part in Gothic rock.
In Music
- Song title from the band The Cutler on their Black Flag album.
See also
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