The attraction for the uncanny

From the "pleasing kind of horror" to "beyond the pleasure principle"

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_tropelias/tropelias.2020344301

Keywords:

uncanny, sublime, extraordinary, Addison, Freud, pleasure principle

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to trace a way through the main philosophical and literary attempts, with their drifts of a more psychological nature, to understand and to analyze the attraction towards the uncanny. The point of departure is the Enlightenment with the paradigmatic «pleasing kind of horror» of Joseph Addison, and the itinerary ends with the text which we can consider foundational for the theory of the uncanny: the essay under the same title written by Sigmund Freud in 1919, intimately related to his contemporary analysis of the principles of pleasure, reality, and the death drive. Some of the antecedents and subsequent derivations to these two key moments for the understanding of the attraction of the human being towards the uncanny will also be taken in to account.

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Published

2020-07-17

Issue

Section

Dossier

How to Cite

Alba Rios, T. (2020). The attraction for the uncanny: From the "pleasing kind of horror" to "beyond the pleasure principle". Tropelías: Review of Literary Theory and Comparative Literature, 34, 8-31. https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_tropelias/tropelias.2020344301