Search results
The literature of the uncanny offers an excellent area in which to look at the appropriateness of psychoanalytic theory to the study of literature. An apparently supernatural event - in literature or life - may simply result from a psychological disorder in the perceiver. The uncanny also has a special literary status, because studies of the psy-
The “Uncanny”1. (1919) SIGMUND FREUD. It is only rarely that a psychoanalyst feels impelled to in-vestigate the subject of aesthetics even when aesthetics is understood to mean not merely the theory of beauty, but the theory of the qualities of feeling.
- 388KB
- 21
The ‘Uncanny’. It is only rarely that a psycho-analyst feels impelled to investigate the subject of aesthetics, even when aesthetics is understood to mean not merely the theory of beauty but the theory of the qualities of feeling.
- 252KB
- 41
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," 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.
Uncanny': the heimlich which turns so unnervingly into its opposite, and already contains that opposite within its too-familiar self is, by definition, intimate, friendly and comfortable, tame and belonging
People also ask
What is the uncanny in literature?
What does uncanny mean?
What does uncanny mean in Freud's essay?
What does the uncanny symbolize?
It invites relevant contributions across a wide range of intellectual disciplines on issues and writers belonging to or engaging the work of deconstructive thinking (such as Derrida, Heidegger, Blanchot, Levinas, Irigaray, and others).