The Uncanny

Grimm’s Dictionary, or the Deutsches Worterbuch (DWB) is the largest compendium of the German language in existence. It encompasses modern High German since 1450, and it is one of the sources that Freud cites in when he is establishing the definition of the unheimlich that will support his arguments in the later phases of the essay. 

Freud makes reference to the following quote from playwright Karl Gutzkow during the discussion of the semantics of heimlich. The phrase comes from the novel Die Ritter vom Geist (1851), and is proceeded by a brief example of the heimlich, which Freud does not quote but alludes to.

Freud refers to Hauff’s fairytale about the severed hand several times during in his essay, “The Uncanny.” The fairytale in question was published under the title “The Severed Hand” in 1869. It is widely considered a classic of German literature, and much of Freud’s original readership would have been familiar with the story.

Freud calls Hoffmann the “unrivalled master of the uncanny in literature” (141). Hoffmann’s story “The Sandman” is the primary literary example used by Freud to illustrate his ideas about the uncanny. The example of Hoffmann’s Sandman was first drawn by Ernst Jentsch in his essay, “On the Psychology of the Uncanny” (1906). 

Though Freud is more often credited with having popularized the concept of the uncanny, the term was coined by Ernst Jensch in 1906. In his essay, “On the Psychology of the Uncanny,” Jensch defines the uncanny as “intellectual uncertainty,” and associates the uncanny with a sense of disorientation. He also argues that the uncanny is particularly applicable to literature, where it is used to hold a reader’s interest. Freud also uses Jensch’s original citation of Hoffmann as an example of a writer who employs the uncanny. However, Freud disagrees with Jensch’s assertion that the doll in Hoffman’s story is the central uncanny feature of the story.

Mach’s Analyse der Em findungen (1900) records an experience of being surprised by one’s own image. In association with Otto Rank’s work on doubles, Freud takes this to mean that the uncanny element in doubling has to do with the recognition of one’s own image. 

Freud develops his discussion of the uncanny in Hoffmann’s Elixire des Teufels (Devil’s Elixir) with reference to Otto Rank’s notion of the “double.” Summarizing Rank’s concept, Freud writes in the same chapter, “The ‘double’ was originally an insurance against destruction to the ego” (142).

German idealist philosopher Schelling takes up the subject of the uncanny in his “Philosophie der Mythologie,” published in 1835. The essay argues that the western poetic tradition, descended from Homer, is premised on a repression of the uncanny. Freud refers to Schelling’s conception of the unconscious at several different moments. He summarizes Schelling’s definition of the uncanny as “something which ought to have been kept concealed but which has nevertheless come to light” (132).