I am looking for a word to describe a person who gets metaphisically transcendental very easily.
That is, getting in a very deep mood quite fast, even though the situation is not that serious, like:
A: I think we should have dinner now.
B: Yes, life is too short to wait.
A: Yes, B, but don't be that X, no need to be that transcendental :)
Is there a word for this? I was thinking in "transcendental" but I wonder if some other adjective may fit better.
This is an excerpt from Shakespeare's As You Like It.
DUKE SENIOR Come, shall we go and kill us venison? And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools, Being native burghers of this desert city, Should in their own confines with forked heads Have their round haunches gored.
FIRST LORD Indeed, my lord, The melancholy Jaques grieves at that, And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you. Today my Lord of Amiens and myself Did steal behind him as he lay along Under an oak whose antique root peeps out Upon the brook that brawls along this wood: To the which place a poor sequest'red stag, That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt, Did come to languish, and indeed, my lord, The wretched animal heaved forth such groans That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat Almost to bursting, and the big round tears Coursed one another down his innocent nose In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool, Much marked of the melancholy Jaques, Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook, Augmenting it with tears.
DUKE SENIOR But what said Jaques? Did he not moralize this spectacle?
FIRST LORD O, yes, into a thousand similes. First, for his weeping into the needless stream; 'Poor deer,' quoth he, 'thou makest a testament As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more To that which had too much:' then, being there alone, Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends, ''Tis right:' quoth he; 'thus misery doth part The flux of company.' Anon a careless herd, Full of the pasture, jumps along by him And never stays to greet him; 'Ay' quoth Jaques, 'Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens; 'Tis just the fashion: wherefore do you look Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?' Thus most invectively he pierceth through The body of the country, city, court, Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we Are mere usurpers, tyrants and what's worse, To fright the animals and to kill them up In their assign'd and native dwelling-place.
Jaques(the person being referred to in the conversation between Duke Senior and the First Lord) is the kind of person that gets "in a very deep mood quite fast, even though the situation is not that serious". People call him melancholic for this reason.
Melancholic:
a : depression of spirits, dejection
b : a pensive mood
If the situation is not very serious but the person takes it seriously, you can simply call him pensive.
Pensive:
quietly sad or thoughtful
Source: M-W
