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- Title
What is the Uncanny?
- Authors
Windsor, Mark
- Abstract
I propose a definition of the uncanny: an anxious uncertainty about what is real caused by an apparent impossibility. First, I outline the relevance of the uncanny to art and aesthetics. Second, I disambiguate theoretical uses of 'uncanny' and establish the sense of the term that I am interested in—namely, an emotional state (a kind of anxiety) directed towards particular objects in the world which are characteristically eerie, creepy, and weird. Third, I look at Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher' as a means of drawing out the conditions that I claim are essential to uncanny experiences, and then elaborate the terms of my proposed definition. Finally, I show how the definition accounts for two paradigmatic kinds of uncanny phenomena: cases of 'uncanny resemblances', which include twins, doppelgangers, and very lifelike representations of the human body; and unlikely coincidences of events.
- Subjects
IMPOSSIBILITY of performance; ANXIETY; ROYLE, Nicholas; FREUD, Sigmund, 1856-1939; POE, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849; SURREALIST artists; TWILIGHT Zone, The (TV program); LOST Highway (Film)
- Publication
British Journal of Aesthetics, 2019, Vol 59, Issue 1, p51
- ISSN
0007-0904
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/aesthj/ayy028