Studies of the uncanny: the repetition factor

Abstract

Freud’s essay The Uncanny (Das Unheimliche) offers many indications for the comprehension of an aesthetics of the uncanny which deserve to be explored. Nonetheless, a concept traverses it from beginning to end: the return – which enables its reading under the light of Beyond the pleasure principle, written along the same span of time. Emphasis is given to the uncanny in the sense of repetition of the different – a paradox in terms, like the strangely familiar uncanny. In order to test the validity of an aesthetic reading under this perspective, follows an analysis of the brief short story “A terceira margem do rio” (“The third margin of the river”), by Guimarães Rosa.