The Renaissance mind held two starkly opposing views on melancholy. Melancholy was both a divine gift and a humoral curse, a source of superhuman insight and of bestial cravenness. How did these different beliefs develop, and more significantly, how did authors achieve a compelling depiction of each distinct type of melancholy? How did one create a wise, insightful melancholic without the suggestions of a melacholic disease, or render that disease without elevating it to a divine status? To answer these questions, I consider John Milton's "Il Penseroso" and Shakespeare's As You Like It, examining how melancholy is shaped and defined, not only by the melancholic, but by the poem- or play-world in which the melancholic must live. In my presentation, I would use video and audio clips of productions of As You Like It, to depict a variety of interpretations of Arden and of Jacques's place within Arden.
