Unpacking Freud’s Concept of “The Uncanny”

Unpacking Freud’s Concept of “The Uncanny”

Although Sigmund Freud is known as the progenitor of psychoanalysis, The Uncanny, one of his most famous essays, is just as important in the world of literary criticism as in that of psychology. It also had a seismic impact across the arts. Throughout, Freud probes the possible meanings of that much-used, but not always fully understood, term: the uncanny. Is it to do with horror? Is it to do with the dead coming to life? Is it to do with the un…