Definition of "Weltschmerz"

And in this respect [Ludwig] Uhland presents a marked and useful contrast to the lackadaisical, sentimental, Weltschmerz school, the poets of which trade on their own pretended misery, and, cunningly enough, suggest that their poems must be touching and true in proportion as the authors set themselves forth as peculiarly skilled in bitterness of heart and badness of life.

1864 July, “Art. II. 1. Gedichte von Ludwig Uhland. 4th Edition, with Preface by Dr. Holland. […] [book review]”, in John Taylor Coleridge, editor, The Quarterly Review, volume 116, number 231, London: John Murray, […], page 53

It speaks well for the general healthiness of the English nation that we have no words corresponding to ‘Weltschmerz’ or ‘Ennui’. The ordinary Englishman experiences neither of these things. […] Weltschmerz is a species of disease, a sort of spiritual measles—or to give a more technical diagnosis, it is the revolt of a young soul against the stone and iron of existence. […] ‘Ennui’ only attacks people either of hopeless incapacity or incurable laziness. Weltschmerz on the other hand is a positive, restless, state, a state of protest against the nature of things.Treated as a foreign word.]

, pages 118 and 119

The artificial woe of the ancient armorist, whose days were a perpetual honeyed despair and his nights one long lachrymose vigil, is an extinct literary tradition; but a new, a different, and, alas! a more real sadness has taken its place—the modern world-sadness, the Weltschmerz, which infects all we do and are, not excepting our love-making— […]

1892, William Watson, “Preface”, in William Watson, editor, Lyric Love: An Anthology, London, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., page xiii

Here we have it at once, blended though it may be with the new elements of purging humour and all-embracing Weltschmerz, in [William] Shakespeare's Hamlet.

1938 April, W. S. Heckscher, “Was This the Face…?”, in Journal of the Warburg Institute, volume I, number 4, London: Warburg Institute, page 297

[Henry] Koerner's painting did have the heaviness, the harsh humor and the all-pervading weltschmerz which characterized German expressionism in the 1920s.

1947 April 28, “Art: Berlin’s Best”, in Henry R[obinson] Luce, editor, Time‎, New York, N.Y.: Time Inc., archived from the original on 3 February 2011

A man-to-man touch then on his buttoned epaulet. A middle-aged smile full of Weltschmerz.

1973, Thomas Pynchon, “Part 3: In the Zone”, in Gravity’s Rainbow, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, page 348

The country was fat with peacetime prosperity, but lots of people were afflicted with a postwar funk called weltschmerz. They were depressed by what they'd seen of the "civilized" world. Soon whole bunches of people in their 20s and 30s moved to ski towns, checking out of the mainstream altogether. Their goal was no more lofty than having the freedom to spend day after endless day in a peaceful bubble, close to nature and on snow-covered slopes. Here was the weltschmerz antidote—and the birth of the parallel universe.

2001 December, Susan Reifer, “Skiing is Good: Carry the Solitude and Peace of the Mountains with You”, in Rick Kahl, editor, Skiing, volume 54, number 4, Boulder, Colo.: Time4 Media, page 64, columns 2–3

Execution, the band's second record, burns with intense weltschmerz, its existential crises cloaked in buoyant instrumental hooks and shimmery arrangements.

2002 October, Maya Singer, “Rilo Kiley: The Execution of All Things: Saddle Creek”, in CMJ New Music Monthly, number 106, New York, N.Y.: The CMJ Network, page 46