Existentialism can be traced to a mood found across millennia of troubled thinkers

Evidence

It is sometimes said that existentialism is more of a mood than a philosophy, and that it can be traced back to anguished novelists of the nineteenth century, and beyond that to Blaise Pascal, who was terrified by the silence of infinite spaces, and beyond that to the soul-searching St. Augustine, and beyond that to the Old Testament’s weary Ecclesiastes and to Job, the man who dared to question the game God was playing with him and was intimidated into submission. To anyone, in short, who has ever felt disgruntled, rebellious, or alienated about anything. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 7

Categorization

• DEFINE: Frames the broadest possible sense of existentialism as a mood rather than a doctrine.
• XREF: connects to: Post-war existentialism thrived on the excitement of a shattered world — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 529; Existentialism’s appeal rested on a world of sin, love, and politics. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 900; Alienated identity developed over millennia, intensifying at the Enlightenment. — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 289 (+1 more)