Spleen
Titles: Le Spleen de Paris (1869) - Charles Baudelaire
Related: mood - boredom - depression - melancholy
Le Spleen de Paris (1869), subtitled small prose poems is a collection of prose poems by Charles Baudelaire. They were inspired by Aloysius Bertrand's Gaspard de la nuit (1842). [Jul 2006]
Spleen
Etymology and cultural views
The word spleen comes from the Greek spl?n.
In French, spleen refers to a state of pensive sadness or melancholy. It has been popularized by the poet Charles-Pierre Baudelaire (1821-1867) but was already used before, in particular in the Romantic literature (18th century). The connection between spleen (the organ) and melancholy (the temperament) comes from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks. One of the humours (body fluid) was the black bile, secreted by the spleen organ and associated with melancholy. In contrast, the Talmud (tractate Berachoth 61b) refers to the spleen as the organ of laughter, possibly suggesting a link with the humoral view of the organ.
In German, the word "spleen", pronounced as in English, refers to a persisting somewhat cranky (but not quite lunatic) idea or habit of a person; however the organ is called "Milz", (cognate with Old English milte). In 19th century England women in bad humour were said to be afflicted by spleen, or the vapours of spleen. In modern English "to vent one's spleen" means to vent one's anger, e.g. by shouting, and can be applied to both males and females. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spleen#Etymology_and_cultural_views [Dec 2005]
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