Outside Paradise: Melancholy and the Follies of Modernisation

Abstract

Whereas anomie indexes a dissonance between moral and economic orders, this paper traces melancholy as an affect engendered by the forces of modernisation. The argument is that melancholy is precisely an existential response to a social condition, a ‘withdrawal’ from the scene of action in the face of an excess of reason, especially in the form of ‘rules about rules’. Distinguishing wit from reason, the paper contrasts early 17th‐century portraits—particularly those depicting an expunging of soul by the rigidities of formal gardens—with an illusion of inclusion created by natural garden innovations such as the ‘ha ha’. The paper concludes by reflecting on why more barbaric uses of the fence might be being preferred to the Concealment of Bounds in contemporary society.