Throughout the Middle Ages this demon was known as Acedia, or, in English, Accidie. Monks were still his favourite victims, but he made many conquests among the laity13 also. Along with gastrimargia, fornicatio, philargyria, tristitia, cenodoxia, ira and superbia, acedia or t?dium cordis is reckoned as one of the eight principal vices14 to which man is subject. Inaccurate16 psychologists of evil are wont17 to speak of accidie as though it were plain sloth18. But sloth is only one of the numerous manifestations19 of the subtle and complicated vice15 of accidie. Chaucer’s discourse20 on it in the “Parson’s Tale” contains a very precise description of this disastrous21 vice of the spirit. “Accidie,” he tells us, “makith a man hevy, thoghtful and wrawe.” It paralyzes human will, “it forsloweth and forsluggeth” a man whenever he attempts to act. From accidie comes dread22 to begin to work any good deeds, and finally wanhope, or despair. On its way to ultimate wanhope, accidie produces a whole crop of minor23 sins, such as idleness, tardiness24, 27lachesse, coldness, undevotion and “the synne of worldly sorrow, such as is cleped tristitia, that sleth man, as seith seint Poule.” Those who have sinned by accidie find their everlasting25 home in the fifth circle of the Inferno26. They are plunged27 in the same black bog28 with the Wrathful, and their sobs29 and words come bubbling up to the surface:
Fitti nel limo dicon: “Tristi fummo
nell’ aer dolce che dal sol s’ allegra,
portando dentro accidioso fummo;
Or ci attristiam nella belletta negra.”
Quest’ inno si gorgoglian nella strozza,
Accidie did not disappear with the monasteries30 and the Middle Ages. The Renaissance31 was also subject to it. We find a copious32 description of the symptoms of acedia in Burton’s Anatomy33 of Melancholy34. The results of the midday demon’s machinations are now known as the vapours or the spleen. To the spleen amiable35 Mr. Matthew Green, of the Custom House, devoted36 those eight hundred octosyllables which are his claim to immortality37. For him it is a mere38 disease to be healed by temperate39 diet:
Of easy access to the poor;
28by laughter, reading and the company of unaffected young ladies:
Your impious pains to form the fair,
Nor lay out so much cost and art
by the avoidance of party passion, drink, Dissenters43 and missionaries44, especially missionaries: to whose undertakings45 Mr. Green always declined to subscribe46:
I laugh off spleen and keep my pence
by refraining from going to law, writing poetry and thinking about one’s future state.
The Spleen was published in the thirties of the eighteenth century. Accidie was still, if not a sin, at least a disease. But a change was at hand. “The sin of worldly sorrow, such as is cleped tristitia,” became a literary virtue48, a spiritual mode. The apostles of melancholy wound their faint horns, and the Men of Feeling wept. Then came the nineteenth century and romanticism; and with them the triumph of the meridian5 demon. Accidie in its most complicated and most deadly form, a mixture of boredom49, sorrow and despair, was now an inspiration to the 29greatest poets and novelists, and it has remained so to this day. The Romantics called this horrible phenomenon the mal du siècle. But the name made no difference; the thing was still the same. The meridian demon had good cause to be satisfied during the nineteenth century, for it was then, as Baudelaire puts it, that
Prit les proportions de l’immortalité.
It is a very curious phenomenon, this progress of accidie from the position of being a deadly sin, deserving of damnation, to the position first of a disease and finally of an essentially51 lyrical emotion, fruitful in the inspiration of much of the most characteristic modern literature. The sense of universal futility53, the feelings of boredom and despair, with the complementary desire to be “anywhere, anywhere out of the world,” or at least out of the place in which one happens at the moment to be, have been the inspiration of poetry and the novel for a century and more. It would have been inconceivable in Matthew Green’s day to have written a serious poem about ennui. By Baudelaire’s time ennui was as suitable a subject for lyric52 poetry as love; and accidie 30is still with us as an inspiration, one of the most serious and poignant54 of literary themes. What is the significance of this fact? For clearly the progress of accidie is a spiritual event of considerable importance. How is it to be explained?
It is not as though the nineteenth century invented accidie. Boredom, hopelessness and despair have always existed, and have been felt as poignantly55 in the past as we feel them now. Something has happened to make these emotions respectable and avowable; they are no longer sinful, no longer regarded as the mere symptoms of disease. That something that has happened is surely simply history since 1789. The failure of the French Revolution and the more spectacular downfall of Napoleon planted accidie in the heart of every youth of the Romantic generation—and not in France alone, but all over Europe—who believed in liberty or whose adolescence56 had been intoxicated57 by the ideas of glory and genius. Then came industrial progress with its prodigious58 multiplication59 of filth60, misery61, and ill-gotten wealth; the defilement62 of nature by modern industry was in itself enough to sadden many sensitive minds. The discovery that political enfranchisement63, so long and stubbornly fought for, was the merest futility and 31vanity so long as industrial servitude remained in force was another of the century’s horrible disillusionments.
A more subtle cause of the prevalence of boredom was the disproportionate growth of the great towns. Habituated to the feverish64 existence of these few centres of activity, men found that life outside them was intolerably insipid65. And at the same time they became so much exhausted66 by the restlessness of city life that they pined for the monotonous67 boredom of the provinces, for exotic islands, even for other worlds—any haven68 of rest. And finally, to crown this vast structure of failures and disillusionments, there came the appalling69 catastrophe70 of the War of 1914. Other epochs have witnessed disasters, have had to suffer disillusionment; but in no century have the disillusionments followed on one another’s heels with such unintermitted rapidity as in the twentieth, for the good reason that in no century has change been so rapid and so profound. The mal du siècle was an inevitable71 evil; indeed, we can claim with a certain pride that we have a right to our accidie. With us it is not a sin or a disease of the hypochondries; it is a state of mind which fate has forced upon us.
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1 demons | |
n.恶人( demon的名词复数 );恶魔;精力过人的人;邪念 | |
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2 demon | |
n.魔鬼,恶魔 | |
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3 furtively | |
adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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4 subtlety | |
n.微妙,敏锐,精巧;微妙之处,细微的区别 | |
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5 meridian | |
adj.子午线的;全盛期的 | |
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6 monks | |
n.修道士,僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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7 havoc | |
n.大破坏,浩劫,大混乱,大杂乱 | |
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8 wrought | |
v.引起;以…原料制作;运转;adj.制造的 | |
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9 stationary | |
adj.固定的,静止不动的 | |
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10 communal | |
adj.公有的,公共的,公社的,公社制的 | |
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11 meditations | |
默想( meditation的名词复数 ); 默念; 沉思; 冥想 | |
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12 con | |
n.反对的观点,反对者,反对票,肺病;vt.精读,学习,默记;adv.反对地,从反面;adj.欺诈的 | |
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13 laity | |
n.俗人;门外汉 | |
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14 vices | |
缺陷( vice的名词复数 ); 恶习; 不道德行为; 台钳 | |
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15 vice | |
n.坏事;恶习;[pl.]台钳,老虎钳;adj.副的 | |
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16 inaccurate | |
adj.错误的,不正确的,不准确的 | |
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17 wont | |
adj.习惯于;v.习惯;n.习惯 | |
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18 sloth | |
n.[动]树懒;懒惰,懒散 | |
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19 manifestations | |
n.表示,显示(manifestation的复数形式) | |
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20 discourse | |
n.论文,演说;谈话;话语;vi.讲述,著述 | |
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21 disastrous | |
adj.灾难性的,造成灾害的;极坏的,很糟的 | |
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22 dread | |
vt.担忧,忧虑;惧怕,不敢;n.担忧,畏惧 | |
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23 minor | |
adj.较小(少)的,较次要的;n.辅修学科;vi.辅修 | |
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24 tardiness | |
n.缓慢;迟延;拖拉 | |
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25 everlasting | |
adj.永恒的,持久的,无止境的 | |
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26 inferno | |
n.火海;地狱般的场所 | |
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27 plunged | |
v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 );暴跌;骤降;突降 | |
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28 bog | |
n.沼泽;室...陷入泥淖 | |
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29 sobs | |
啜泣(声),呜咽(声)( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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30 monasteries | |
修道院( monastery的名词复数 ) | |
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31 renaissance | |
n.复活,复兴,文艺复兴 | |
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32 copious | |
adj.丰富的,大量的 | |
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33 anatomy | |
n.解剖学,解剖;功能,结构,组织 | |
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34 melancholy | |
n.忧郁,愁思;adj.令人感伤(沮丧)的,忧郁的 | |
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35 amiable | |
adj.和蔼可亲的,友善的,亲切的 | |
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36 devoted | |
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的 | |
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37 immortality | |
n.不死,不朽 | |
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38 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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39 temperate | |
adj.温和的,温带的,自我克制的,不过分的 | |
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40 gruel | |
n.稀饭,粥 | |
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41 guardian | |
n.监护人;守卫者,保护者 | |
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42 virgin | |
n.处女,未婚女子;adj.未经使用的;未经开发的 | |
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43 dissenters | |
n.持异议者,持不同意见者( dissenter的名词复数 ) | |
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44 missionaries | |
n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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45 undertakings | |
企业( undertaking的名词复数 ); 保证; 殡仪业; 任务 | |
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46 subscribe | |
vi.(to)订阅,订购;同意;vt.捐助,赞助 | |
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47 innocence | |
n.无罪;天真;无害 | |
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48 virtue | |
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力 | |
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49 boredom | |
n.厌烦,厌倦,乏味,无聊 | |
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50 ennui | |
n.怠倦,无聊 | |
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51 essentially | |
adv.本质上,实质上,基本上 | |
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52 lyric | |
n.抒情诗,歌词;adj.抒情的 | |
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53 futility | |
n.无用 | |
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54 poignant | |
adj.令人痛苦的,辛酸的,惨痛的 | |
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55 poignantly | |
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56 adolescence | |
n.青春期,青少年 | |
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57 intoxicated | |
喝醉的,极其兴奋的 | |
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58 prodigious | |
adj.惊人的,奇妙的;异常的;巨大的;庞大的 | |
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59 multiplication | |
n.增加,增多,倍增;增殖,繁殖;乘法 | |
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60 filth | |
n.肮脏,污物,污秽;淫猥 | |
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61 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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62 defilement | |
n.弄脏,污辱,污秽 | |
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63 enfranchisement | |
选举权 | |
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64 feverish | |
adj.发烧的,狂热的,兴奋的 | |
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65 insipid | |
adj.无味的,枯燥乏味的,单调的 | |
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66 exhausted | |
adj.极其疲惫的,精疲力尽的 | |
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67 monotonous | |
adj.单调的,一成不变的,使人厌倦的 | |
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68 haven | |
n.安全的地方,避难所,庇护所 | |
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69 appalling | |
adj.骇人听闻的,令人震惊的,可怕的 | |
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70 catastrophe | |
n.大灾难,大祸 | |
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71 inevitable | |
adj.不可避免的,必然发生的 | |
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