INDULGING IN NOSTALGIA
5min Read
It’s raining outside, and the textbooks are almost menacing in the dim light. It’s a normal, predictable autumn day, and all I can feel is nostalgia—nostalgia for my family, my home, for another time.
What is nostalgia?
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition,” while H. Wadsworth Longfellow described it as:
“A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.”
Hoffman referred to it as “a form of depression both for a society and an individual.”
This sentiment of yearning has been described in various ways over time. However, the term was only coined in 1688 by the physician Johannes Hofer to describe the physical and psychological symptoms observed among Swiss mercenaries (from the Greek nostos = homecoming, and algia = pain). Later, nostalgia was labeled as a neurological disease.
Historically, nostalgia was conceptualized as a pathological maladaptation to present reality. However, such definitions do not quite encompass our modern understanding of nostalgia.
So, how did we go from an illness to a sentiment?
One thing to note is that nostalgia was initially considered a longing for a place. In the 20th century, clinicians regarded nostalgia as a form of mourning or depression, often equating it with homesickness. Later, it became associated with time—a desire to return to an idealized version of the past.
By the beginning of the 21st century, the two literatures separated. Homesickness was used to describe psychological maladjustment accompanying a person’s transition away from the home environment. Nostalgia, on the other hand, was rehabilitated as a prevalent, mostly positive, and functional emotion that can refer to any significant aspect of one’s past.
Quoting Romeo and Juliet: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Nostalgia is a universal sentiment that transcends time and space. Perhaps we, too, feel like Ulysses in the Odyssey —wandering far from home, yearning for a past that has long gone—even though he had no proper name for the feeling in his chest.
Nostalgia is strange, ambiguous even.
It is like a small fire we clutch to feel warmth. Its light makes us happy, its heat content. Yet, as it slowly fades, all that remains are bitter ashes.
Often, when I hear people talk about nostalgia, I realize how powerful it is as a coping mechanism—a palliative for an uncertain and sometimes scary future.
This is especially true in today’s social, economic, and political landscape. Clinging to nostalgia seems to have become a collective need, particularly evident in the media we consume.
Think of the number of prequels, spin-offs, remakes, and live-action adaptations of beloved movies or TV series from our childhood and teenage years that have been produced in the last four years.
According to Dr. Matthew Jones, a Film Studies lecturer at De Montfort University in Leicester and a specialist in 20th-century British cinema and audiences: “The interesting thing about remakes isn’t really that they exist or are significant in number, but rather that there are more of them at certain moments in history. And we’re certainly in one of those moments now.”
He further explains:
“We’ve seen many cycles over the last 100 years or so when these three types of films (remakes, sequels, and adaptations) have all come to prominence in very large numbers simultaneously: at the start of the last decade, in the late 90s and early 2000s. Those dates are actually really telling since they indicate that Hollywood turns to remakes, sequels, and adaptations at times of major economic upheaval—so, after the dot-com crash and the economic fallout of 9/11, after the 2008 financial crisis, and now in the midst of the economic devastation wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.”
Another example might be the resurgence of the Y2K aesthetic. While it’s common for fashion styles to have cyclical lives, with some elements making a comeback as trends, there’s more behind the renaissance of 2000s fashion. We don’t miss the gaudy pairings of clothes but rather the spirit of those years—the naivety and a rose-tinted vision of that (relatively recent) period.
Yet, despite our awareness of the problematic aspects of the past (for example, Britney Spears recently denounced the horrible ways in which she was mistreated by colleagues and the music industry in her memoir “The Woman in Me”), we long for the way we used to imagine our future back then.
Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
In this regard, I’d like to quote some extracts from Nicola Borgognano’s interview for Vogue, where the designer, who took the reins of the house Blumarine in 2019, explains the inspiration for his Spring 2023 collection:
“I feel very close to that period because I grew up in those years, but I wanted to relive it with a modern sensibility.”
“I wanted to show a collection that touches on happiness, sexiness, and freedom—something that breaks the rules without being vulgar.”
“It was the right moment to talk about it because people need happiness and carefree moments in their lives more than ever right now.”
“At a time like this, we’re all seeking joy where we can find it.”
Perhaps looking back is necessary to keep dreaming about the future that’s about to come, and nostalgia is just a nice guest, a friend we’ve met long ago and that we’ll gladly embrace (but that shouldn’t overstay its welcome).
SOURCES:
Nostalgia Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster
https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167213499187
https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12272
https://doi.org/10.1177/18344909221091649
Y2K Fashion 101: How 2023 Got the Millennium Bug All Over Again | Vogue