The uncanny, Freud, 20.7.20
The uncanny
‘It undoubtedly belongs to all that is terrible—to all that arouses dread and creeping horror’….. ‘it tends to coincide with whatever excites dread.’ (p 1)
‘As good as nothing is to be found upon this subject in elaborate treatises on aesthetics, which in general prefer to concern themselves with what is beautiful, attractive and sublime, that is with feelings of a positive nature, with the circumstances and the objects that call them forth, rather than with the opposite feelings of unpleasantness and repulsion.’
‘the “uncanny” is that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar.’(p1)
‘The German word ‘unheimlich’ is obviously the opposite of heimlich, heimisch, meaning “familiar,” “native,” “belonging to the home”; and we are tempted to conclude that what is “uncanny” is frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar.’ P2
‘(Jentsch) ascribes the essential factor in the production of the feeling of uncanniness to intellectual uncertainty; so that the uncanny would always be that in which one does not know where one is, as it were.’p2
‘many languages are without a word for this particular variety of what is fearful.’ P2
In the German dictionary: ‘Unheimlich’ is the name for everything that ought to have remained . . . hidden and secret and has become visible,” Schelling. P4
‘among its different shades of meaning the word heimlich exhibits one which is identical with its opposite, unheimlich. What is heimlich thus comes to be unheimlich.’ P4
‘the word heimlich is not unambiguous, but belongs to two sets of ideas, which without being contradictory are yet very different: on the one hand, it means that which is familiar and congenial, and on the other, that which is concealed and kept out of sight.’ P4
‘According to (Schelling) everything is uncanny that ought to have remained hidden and secret, and yet comes to light.’(p4)
‘Heimlich in a different sense, as withdrawn from knowledge, unconscious: . . . Heimlich also has the meaning of that which is obscure, inaccessible to knowledge. . ‘ (p4).
‘Thus heimlich is a word the meaning of which develops towards an ambivalence, until it finally coincides with its opposite, unheimlich. Unheimlich is in some way or other a sub-species of heimlich.’ (p4)
‘Jentsch has taken as a very good instance “doubts whether an apparently animate being is really alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object might not be in fact animate”; and he refers in this connection to the impression made by wax-work figures, artificial dolls and automatons. He adds to this class the uncanny effect of epileptic seizures and the manifestations of insanity, because these excite in the spectator the feeling that automatic, mechanical processes are at work, concealed beneath the ordinary appearance of animation.’ (p5)
Freud, S. (1919) The Uncanny Available at https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf (Accessed: 20 July 2020)
Jentsch, E. “Zur Psychologie des Unheimlichen.”
‘It undoubtedly belongs to all that is terrible—to all that arouses dread and creeping horror’….. ‘it tends to coincide with whatever excites dread.’ (p 1)
‘As good as nothing is to be found upon this subject in elaborate treatises on aesthetics, which in general prefer to concern themselves with what is beautiful, attractive and sublime, that is with feelings of a positive nature, with the circumstances and the objects that call them forth, rather than with the opposite feelings of unpleasantness and repulsion.’
‘the “uncanny” is that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar.’(p1)
‘The German word ‘unheimlich’ is obviously the opposite of heimlich, heimisch, meaning “familiar,” “native,” “belonging to the home”; and we are tempted to conclude that what is “uncanny” is frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar.’ P2
‘(Jentsch) ascribes the essential factor in the production of the feeling of uncanniness to intellectual uncertainty; so that the uncanny would always be that in which one does not know where one is, as it were.’p2
‘many languages are without a word for this particular variety of what is fearful.’ P2
In the German dictionary: ‘Unheimlich’ is the name for everything that ought to have remained . . . hidden and secret and has become visible,” Schelling. P4
‘among its different shades of meaning the word heimlich exhibits one which is identical with its opposite, unheimlich. What is heimlich thus comes to be unheimlich.’ P4
‘the word heimlich is not unambiguous, but belongs to two sets of ideas, which without being contradictory are yet very different: on the one hand, it means that which is familiar and congenial, and on the other, that which is concealed and kept out of sight.’ P4
‘According to (Schelling) everything is uncanny that ought to have remained hidden and secret, and yet comes to light.’(p4)
‘Heimlich in a different sense, as withdrawn from knowledge, unconscious: . . . Heimlich also has the meaning of that which is obscure, inaccessible to knowledge. . ‘ (p4).
‘Thus heimlich is a word the meaning of which develops towards an ambivalence, until it finally coincides with its opposite, unheimlich. Unheimlich is in some way or other a sub-species of heimlich.’ (p4)
‘Jentsch has taken as a very good instance “doubts whether an apparently animate being is really alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object might not be in fact animate”; and he refers in this connection to the impression made by wax-work figures, artificial dolls and automatons. He adds to this class the uncanny effect of epileptic seizures and the manifestations of insanity, because these excite in the spectator the feeling that automatic, mechanical processes are at work, concealed beneath the ordinary appearance of animation.’ (p5)
Freud, S. (1919) The Uncanny Available at https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf (Accessed: 20 July 2020)
Jentsch, E. “Zur Psychologie des Unheimlichen.”
