weltschmerz
Nov. 30th, 2011 07:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordweltschmerz (VELT-shmerts) - n. world-weariness; esp., a sentimental sadness over the evils of the world.
Originally coined in 1810 by German author Jean Paul (from Welt, world + Schmerz, pain) to denote the "feeling experienced by someone who understands that physical reality can never satisfy the demands of the mind," as Wikipedia puts it. In this original sense of a sort of romantic pessimism, it is a very Romantic Era emotion, as anyone who has read Byron can attest. Borrowed in 1864 to mean something closer to the modern English sense. In modern German, the word comes closer to a mental state of oppression than an emotion.
---L.
Originally coined in 1810 by German author Jean Paul (from Welt, world + Schmerz, pain) to denote the "feeling experienced by someone who understands that physical reality can never satisfy the demands of the mind," as Wikipedia puts it. In this original sense of a sort of romantic pessimism, it is a very Romantic Era emotion, as anyone who has read Byron can attest. Borrowed in 1864 to mean something closer to the modern English sense. In modern German, the word comes closer to a mental state of oppression than an emotion.
---L.
