From the Anglo-Saxons to Gorillaz: an analysis of melancholy and its timelessnessLeitura em 3 minutos

Melancholy is a manifestation of sorrow that is inherent to human beings, and this has made this feeling appear in poems and songs for centuries. That elegiac mood has been ubiquitous in the arts and this can be perceived when reading an Old English poem as “The Wanderer”, a 975 manuscript lament (although scholars suggest the poem may be much earlier) about a man who, “floating on the sea – dazed with sorrow and fatigue – imagines that he sees his old companions” and hopes that he finds comfort again after losing everything. On the other hand, “On Melancholy Hill”, a 2010 pop song by Gorillaz, paints the scene of a person looking at the sea and hoping to be with his lover and with a better world to live in. Both works of art can demonstrate how the melancholy is a recurring sentiment in the arts; however, this is not the only one resemblance between those pieces: both have similar themes and illuminate similar emotional landscapes.

The speakers of both “The Wanderer” and “On Melancholy Hill” describe their situations as melancholic, as can be seen in these lines: “Often the lone-dweller longs for relief/ The Almighty’s mercy, though melancholy […]” in the Anglo-Saxon poem and “Up on Melancholy Hill/ Are you here with me? […]” in the Gorillaz song. Furthermore, “dream” is another recurrent word on both works. It is used to convey the same feeling of hope: the Wanderer “dreams he clasps and that he kisses/ his liege-lord again […]” and the speaker in the song asks: “Are you here with me?/ Just looking out on the day /Of another dream”.

Specific words and thematic concerns are not the only similarities between poem and song, however – their emotional landscapes also reiterate each other. In the dream, the wanderer fantasizes about getting his old life back again, with his lord and his old companions. Disappointment is to follow, however, “the warrior, friendless, awakens again,/ sees before him the fallow waves […]”. That feeling of lacking something which cannot be reached also appears in the song: “Well you can’t get what you want/ But you can get me”. While the speaker from the 10th-century poem wants his life before war back, both characters from the 21st-century song want their life before pollution back, as it can be perceived in the lines “Up on Melancholy Hill/ There’s a plastic tree/ Are you here with me?/ Just looking out on the day/ Of another dream”, where the “plastic tree” is a metaphor to the effects of pollution in the Earth. It is also worth considering how the works of art also serve as a representation of the major struggles pertinent to each historical context.

Neither of the characters get what they wish for since no one is able to go back in time. Despite that, “The Wanderer”’s speaker and “On Melancholy Hill”’s speaker’s lover finally find happiness. In “The Wanderer” the speaker finds solace in faith (“All shall be well for him who seeks grace,/ help from our Father in heaven where a fortress stands for us all.”) and in “On Melancholy Hill” the speaker himself offers salvation (“If you can’t get what you want/ Then come with me”).

Ultimately, both artworks work with similar concepts and reach similar conclusions. Both speakers, looking at the sea, live through bad feelings and hope to be content again. Establishing a parallel with those pieces shows how melancholy has always been present in different areas of culture and, also, how melancholy can be approached in similar ways throughout the centuries.

 

REFERENCES

On Melancholy Hill. Intérprete: Gorillaz. Compositor: Damon Albarn. In: PLASTIC Beach. [S. l.]: Parlophone, 2010.faixa 10. Disponível em: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04mfKJWDSzI&pp=ygUSb24gbWVsYW5jaG9seSBoaWxs. Acesso em: 5 set. 2023.