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The Female Thermometer: Eighteenth-Century Culture and the Invention of the Uncanny by Terry Castle
ladyeremite's review against another edition
4.0
I read Castle's essay on The Mysteries of Udolpho (Chapter 8) in college and it has stayed with me - haunted me even! - for the past two decades. The central points of the 11 essays that comprise this work are that the rationalization process of the 18th century and its "death of magic" was inextricably tied up with a new sense of the uncanniness of the identity and the imagination itself. Although my preference is for the last four essay pieces dealing directly with "spectralization," the whole volume is a gem.
abbie_ohara's review against another edition
4.0
Collection of varied essays that center on gothic literary conventions and how they reflect the ontologies of horror through history: how do we interpret the spectral? How has one generation to the next inverted these suppositions? Most interesting of all, the essay on Radcliffe's Udolpho, pinpoints Freud's uncanny as a representation of modern Enlightenment as the inspiration of modern horror conventions. Through the suppression of the supernatural, we have created a horrific reality where our spectral imaginings must then be synonymous with the rational and real. Udolpho seems to blur the lines between death and life: dead characters are evoked on our living memories of them. Once this line has been crossed, who is to say that the living then cannot be dead as well? Compelling and thought-provoking!
...
Freud’s theory of the uncanny can serve as a historical allegory for the 18th century. Enlightenment theory is the uncanny representation of man. The suppression, the control and domination has, in itself, become something distorted and horrific in its incarnation. "Once again, because the infantile wish has been distorted by repression, we now react with horror and uneasiness at the thought of a doll moving like a human being,” (12).
“That this supernaturalization of the mind should occur precisely when the traditional supernatural realm was elsewhere being explained away should not surprise us. According to the Freudian principle, what the mind rejects in one form may return to haunt it in another. A predictable inversion has taken place in The Mysteries of Udolpho: what once was real (the supernatural) has become unreal; what once was unreal (the imagery of the mind) has become real. In the very process of reversal, however, the two realms are confused; the archaic language of the supernatural contaminates the new language of mental experience. Ghosts and spectres retain their ambiguous grip on the human imagination; they simply migrate into the space of the mind.” (135)
...
Freud’s theory of the uncanny can serve as a historical allegory for the 18th century. Enlightenment theory is the uncanny representation of man. The suppression, the control and domination has, in itself, become something distorted and horrific in its incarnation. "Once again, because the infantile wish has been distorted by repression, we now react with horror and uneasiness at the thought of a doll moving like a human being,” (12).
“That this supernaturalization of the mind should occur precisely when the traditional supernatural realm was elsewhere being explained away should not surprise us. According to the Freudian principle, what the mind rejects in one form may return to haunt it in another. A predictable inversion has taken place in The Mysteries of Udolpho: what once was real (the supernatural) has become unreal; what once was unreal (the imagery of the mind) has become real. In the very process of reversal, however, the two realms are confused; the archaic language of the supernatural contaminates the new language of mental experience. Ghosts and spectres retain their ambiguous grip on the human imagination; they simply migrate into the space of the mind.” (135)
abbiecoh's review against another edition
4.0
Collection of varied essays that center on gothic literary conventions and how they reflect the ontologies of horror through history: how do we interpret the spectral? How has one generation to the next inverted these suppositions? Most interesting of all, the essay on Radcliffe's Udolpho, pinpoints Freud's uncanny as a representation of modern Enlightenment as the inspiration of modern horror conventions. Through the suppression of the supernatural, we have created a horrific reality where our spectral imaginings must then be synonymous with the rational and real. Udolpho seems to blur the lines between death and life: dead characters are evoked on our living memories of them. Once this line has been crossed, who is to say that the living then cannot be dead as well? Compelling and thought-provoking!
...
Freud’s theory of the uncanny can serve as a historical allegory for the 18th century. Enlightenment theory is the uncanny representation of man. The suppression, the control and domination has, in itself, become something distorted and horrific in its incarnation. "Once again, because the infantile wish has been distorted by repression, we now react with horror and uneasiness at the thought of a doll moving like a human being,” (12).
“That this supernaturalization of the mind should occur precisely when the traditional supernatural realm was elsewhere being explained away should not surprise us. According to the Freudian principle, what the mind rejects in one form may return to haunt it in another. A predictable inversion has taken place in The Mysteries of Udolpho: what once was real (the supernatural) has become unreal; what once was unreal (the imagery of the mind) has become real. In the very process of reversal, however, the two realms are confused; the archaic language of the supernatural contaminates the new language of mental experience. Ghosts and spectres retain their ambiguous grip on the human imagination; they simply migrate into the space of the mind.” (135)
...
Freud’s theory of the uncanny can serve as a historical allegory for the 18th century. Enlightenment theory is the uncanny representation of man. The suppression, the control and domination has, in itself, become something distorted and horrific in its incarnation. "Once again, because the infantile wish has been distorted by repression, we now react with horror and uneasiness at the thought of a doll moving like a human being,” (12).
“That this supernaturalization of the mind should occur precisely when the traditional supernatural realm was elsewhere being explained away should not surprise us. According to the Freudian principle, what the mind rejects in one form may return to haunt it in another. A predictable inversion has taken place in The Mysteries of Udolpho: what once was real (the supernatural) has become unreal; what once was unreal (the imagery of the mind) has become real. In the very process of reversal, however, the two realms are confused; the archaic language of the supernatural contaminates the new language of mental experience. Ghosts and spectres retain their ambiguous grip on the human imagination; they simply migrate into the space of the mind.” (135)
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