We explain what nostalgia is, the origin of the term and various ways of understanding it. Also, its relationship with melancholy.
What is nostalgia?
Nostalgia is a feeling of longing for events or situations in the past, generally those that are pleasant, important or unforgettable. It is, from the outset, a difficult feeling to define, close to the sadness that past things do not return, and at the same time to the joy that remembering brings.
In fact, according to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, nostalgia would be the "Pain of being absent from the homeland or relatives or friends", or the "melancholic sadness caused by the memory of a lost happiness". So it is not easy to tell if it is a pleasant or painful feeling.
The word nostalgia comes from the Greek words nostos ("Return") and something (“Pain”), so it could be defined as pain in the face of the impossible return, or as the longing to return (to the past, to the homeland, etc.).
It began to be used at the end of the 17th century, when the young Swiss Johannes Hofer (1669-1752) proposed it as part of his thesis 1688 physician at the University of Basel, describing the cases of a servant and a student who appeared to be dying, for no apparent reason, but who were cured as soon as they returned home. The young Hofer baptized them as cases of heimweh, which in German would translate “home pain”.
Many described it as a disease or a disease, and sought to cure it in different ways. On the contrary, today there are psychoanalytic interpretations that see in it an attempt by the mind to give meaning and, therefore, transcendence to life itself.
According to this point of view, nostalgia can also be a storehouse of positive emotions that would give us a push to face the uncertainties of the future with better spirit.
Although the term is relatively recent, the feeling of nostalgia has a long and ancient history, as evidenced by the epics and narrations of antiquity, such as Odyssey of Homer (8th century BC), for example.
Nostalgia and melancholy
Nostalgia and melancholy can often be used as words synonymous, since both tend to be associated with a sad, contemplative or reflective feeling.
However, melancholy is considered an abolish state (lack of desire), calm, sadness and disinterest, which often leads the subject to get lost in memory or fantasy. So they are not even similar.
Formerly melancholy was also known as lead poisoning. The French writer Victor Hugo (1802-1885) defined it as "The joy of being sad." It was traditionally considered as a disease of poets, linked to the creative act from the beginning of the Romanticism and the so-called "cursed poets."
However, melancholy also has a clinical correlate, that is, it is also a typified form of disease: depression melancholic, which abounds in regions of prolonged cold seasons (there are those who associate it with the absence of sunlight) and that you may need medication.
Thus, we are all prone in one way or another to nostalgia, but not all of us suffer from melancholy. Fewer still suffer from melancholic depression, capable of becoming a true trouble from Health, more than a creative state of mind, although sad.