Melancholy and The Critique of Modernity

Harvie Ferguson

The affinity between melancholy and modernity is examined through a comprehensive re-examination of the writings of Soren Kierkegaard. The whole range of Kierkegaard's work is set in the context of a social and historical theory of melancholy. From this perspective Kierkegaard emerges as the most important and the most typical, psychologist of the modern era.