"Songs from the Labyrinth" (Sting does John Dowland)

[capri0mni]

Preface for the non-classical music geeks on my f'list: John Dowland was a famous lutenist and composer from Shakespeare's day, and the first professional singer-songwriter to publish his music for mass consumption.

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Last night, my local PBS station aired an episode about Sting's making of this album, filmed mostly in his home, featuring interviews with Dowland scholars, along with his performance of some of the songs. Here is the official site for the show: Great Performances: Songs From the Labyrinth.

During the show, Sting makes the statement (that I have seen several times before, in my career as a student of literature) that the "melancholy" celebrated by Elizabethan artists is distinct from our modern understanding of clinical depression: "melancholy" is noble, and a philosophical outlook on the meaning of life; depression is just a sickness.

...After hearing the lyrics and tunes of these songs, however, I'm not so sure (especially Come, Heavy Sleep). I suspect that anyone making such an argument has had the good fortune not to know what real depression feels like.

However, I do think that there is something noble in these songs of melancholy -- a fight and striving to break out of depression's isolation, to communicate, as clearly as you can, what you are feeling. That's a fight for life, and that's noble.

Come, heavy sleep, the image of true death;
And close up these my weary weeping eyes:
Whose spring of tears doth stop my vital breath,
And tears my heart with sorrow's sigh-swoll'n cries:
Come and posess my tired thoughtworn soul,
That living dies, till thou on me be stole.

Come shadow of my end, and shape of rest,
Allied to death, child to his black-fac'd night:
Come thou and charm these rebels in my breast,
Whose waking fancies do my mind affright.
O come sweet sleep, come or I die for ever,
Come ere my last sleep comes, or come never.

Comments

[leenah.livejournal.com]

those lyrics are definitely not a 'giving in' to depression - they're a fight against it, and a fight that can be won, as opposed to the 'just cheer up, smile, be happy' idea of fighting depression.

yes, at time faking it works. but to live your life faking it, that's obscene.

however sleep does offer a respite.

i think, perhaps, it's akin to a conversation a friend was having recently - modern life seems to be a place where extroverts get the perks. you need to sell youself, and be outgoing, and slightly pushy in order to get what you want/need. i have the idea that during the time when 'melancholy' was a humour and not just a pretty word for depression, that introversion was appreciated equally with extroversion. and in that environment, melancholy could be appreciated as a way of being, rather than as an illness.

my friend says that as an introvert she has no comprehension of what it is to want company, or want to be social. it's not in her nature. she has friends, and doesn't spend her days moping - she's an introvert. she doesn't need fixing, except that modern life doesn't appreciate introversion, so she needs to do more selling of herself than she's comfortable doing.

i am an extroverted introvert. on the MB test, i score exact middle of E/I. i think i made myself more extroverted, realizing that extroversion was necessary to make contacts. and, i'm happy as i am. i do want company at times, and want to be social. but i also recharge by being alone, not by being with people.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

i have the idea that during the time when 'melancholy' was a humour and not just a pretty word for depression, that introversion was appreciated equally with extroversion. and in that environment, melancholy could be appreciated as a way of being, rather than as an illness.

Indeed. I think, frankly, that our modern view of what it means to be happy and well-adjusted would be looked at with suspicion and derision in Elizabethan England (just check that scene in Twelfth Night when Malvolio puts on bright yellow garters, and goes about grinning from ear-to-ear). When life gets depressing, then depression is the normal and healthy response. And when people around you accepted it that way, it probably made it easier to deal with.

Back then, they felt that if someone was never melancholy (or never admitted to it), it probably meant they never actually thought about anything -- at least, not anything important.

:::Looks about at our culture's obession with celebraty weddings and break-ups:::

They were probably right.

But I was just reacting to the lit-crit notion that melancholy and depression were two different things -- that when Shakespeare wrote: When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes/I all alone beweep my outcast state he was "just" following some poetic convention, and he didn't really feel that bad (even though he was dealing with the death of his son -- just because childhood death was more common, doesn't mean it was any less painful, emotionally).

At a slight tangent

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

Melancholy interpreted as one of the four humours was only understood to be harmful when it was unbalanced, which we might define as the difference between sadness and clinical depression.

I agree with you that human emotions don't appear to have changed much but our interpretations of the meanings of those emotions has demonstrably altered hugely within recorded history.

Shakespeare wrote: When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes/I all alone beweep my outcast state

I can believe that a parent socialised in a society in which infant death is common would interpret their feelings differently from a parent socialised in a society in which infant death is rare. It is, for example, more likely that the first parent will have at least second hand experience of that particular sort of grief and the variety of coping strategies comonly used in that society. Someone who believes their child died in an accident or of disease as a punishment from God/the Gods on the family, and who is judged by their society accordingly, is likely to react very differently to someone who believes the death was a chance occurence and receives indifference or even support from their community. I wouldn't argue that the degree of grief would be different but the reaction to that grief could be extremely different.

Shakespeare followed many poetic conventions. The difference between a great poem which follows poetic conventions and an average poem which follows poetic conventions is in the poet's ability to invest those conventions with an reality which readers find accessible, identifiable and sympathetic. Shakespeare was always a populist.

[lizziebelle.livejournal.com]

I have that album, and I love it. Of course, I have several friends who are into period music, so I was predisposed to liking it. :)