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A review by akemi_666
On the Supernatural in Poetry by Ann Radcliffe
2.0
the perceptible passes (horror)
the invisible endures (terror)
an interesting historical document
but pretty basic if you're familiar with theories of sublimity, horror, and trauma
radcliffe states
in other words, that which is left to the imagination can be contemplated, while that which is presented to the senses (in its fullness) destroys our 'higher' faculties (affectively overwhelming us)
of course, written in the 1800s, radcliffe does not consider how trauma, a horrific experience from the past, can persist and develop into terror as ptsd, the repeated intrusion of a foreign memory from an outside that is in fact one's own dissociated psyche
it is not so easy to partition terror and horror from one another, and that which is terrifying (obscure and distant) can annihilate one's self (when it becomes immediate and intrudes)
the outside does not always stay outside, nor perhaps was ever outside . . .
terror is all too distant (and lonely), and horror is all too near (and violating): where is our third term in this dialectical exchange? the posthuman beyond the human and the abhuman? the abject which, in prefiguring thought, escapes thought? is that not a horror that endures without resolution? the persistence (terror) of the failure (horror) to become a self?
the inverted pentagram of sublimity (✿◕‿-)~★
the invisible endures (terror)
an interesting historical document
but pretty basic if you're familiar with theories of sublimity, horror, and trauma
radcliffe states
Terror and horror are so far opposite, that the first expands the soul, and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life; the other contracts, freezes, and nearly annihilates them.
in other words, that which is left to the imagination can be contemplated, while that which is presented to the senses (in its fullness) destroys our 'higher' faculties (affectively overwhelming us)
of course, written in the 1800s, radcliffe does not consider how trauma, a horrific experience from the past, can persist and develop into terror as ptsd, the repeated intrusion of a foreign memory from an outside that is in fact one's own dissociated psyche
it is not so easy to partition terror and horror from one another, and that which is terrifying (obscure and distant) can annihilate one's self (when it becomes immediate and intrudes)
the outside does not always stay outside, nor perhaps was ever outside . . .
terror is all too distant (and lonely), and horror is all too near (and violating): where is our third term in this dialectical exchange? the posthuman beyond the human and the abhuman? the abject which, in prefiguring thought, escapes thought? is that not a horror that endures without resolution? the persistence (terror) of the failure (horror) to become a self?
the inverted pentagram of sublimity (✿◕‿-)~★