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Sigmund Freud takes up this question in a 1919 essay “The Uncanny,” and his thoughts on the subject are still useful 100 years later. In this lesson, I want to sketch out his definition of this special kind of fear and then show you how you might apply it to your own readings of literature.
Uncanny describes that which unsettles us, such as disquieting observations, or mysterious situations and circumstances. Strip the word of its common negating prefix, though, and you’re left with canny, a word that shares semantic territory with clever and prudent.
Literature is uncanny. What does this mean? To try to define the uncanny is immediately to encounter one of its decisive paradoxes, namely that it has to do with a troubling of definitions, with a fundamental disturbance of what we think and feel.
-- "Uncanny," p. 195: Freud's definition = uncanny as the class of frightening things that leads us back to what is known and familiar.-- Freud's aim: to demonstrate psychoanalytically why this is the case.
Literature is uncanny. What does this mean? To try to define the uncanny is immediately to encounter one of its decisive paradoxes, namely that it has to do with a troubling of definitions, with a fundamental disturbance of what we think and feel. The uncanny has to do with a sense of strangeness, mystery or eeriness.
Literary Context in the Bible. The same literary rules need to be brought into studying the Bible. The Bible contains several different types of literary genres, and employs many literary devices, such as euphemisms, allusion, imagery, and foreshadowing.
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Nov 1, 2023 · As exhibited by Twin Peaks, the uncanny can be described as the feeling we experience when a certain event, person, or place is strangely familiar, or when the familiar is made strange; this eerie feeling may unsettle or frighten us.