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  • Essay / Indian Aesthetic Interventions on the Freudian “Strangeness”: A Survey

    The science of psychology has been far more successful on the negative side than on the positive side… It has revealed to us much about the defects of man, his illness, his sins, but little about his potentialities, his virtues, his achievable aspirations or his psychological health. (Maslow 354)Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay While Abraham Maslow criticizes the science of psychology because it tends to emphasize the pejorative sides of the human psyche; Long before that, Sigmund Freud intended to travel the unchartered path of the psyche in order to explore the strangeness and mystery associated with it.1 As a doctor, Freud could deal with the various psychological aberrations at his disposal. disposition and gradually developed an interest in the enigmatic functioning of the psyche. In 1919, Freud published his groundbreaking essay – “The Uncanny” which reveals Freud’s view of the problematic dimensions of “the uncanny”. The idea of ​​“the uncanny” seemed to Freud so striking and surprising that he tended to make the enigmatic workings of the unconscious mind seem strange. While Keats, in “Ode to Psyche,” releases his aesthetic urges to be the “priest” of his mind and a fane “in an unexplored region of my mind” (Keats qtd. in Weekes 63); At the beginning of "The Uncanny", Freud emphasizes the compatibility between psychoanalysis and aesthetics by making this revealing and significant observation: "It is rare for the psychoanalyst to feel impelled to engage in aesthetic investigations, even when aesthetics is not limited to the theory of aesthetics. beauty, but described as relating to the qualities of our feeling” (Freud 123). This observation can be interpreted in two ways: either a psychoanalyst may have an inhibition to resort to aesthetics, or he is obliged to take it into account, because the notion of "strangeness" can be better explored and explained from a interdisciplinary point of view. The second interpretation seems plausible to me insofar as “uncanny” is imbued with aesthetic suggestions. This article therefore aims to delve deeper into Freudian “uncanny” to understand why this problematic term has continued to provide aesthetic pleasure to connoisseurs by resorting to Indian aesthetic perspectives. What is “strangeness”? Where does the “strangeness” lie? How does it function as a link between psychoanalysis and aesthetics? Simply put, the notion of "strangeness" seems both puzzling and intriguing, as it can neither be grasped in rational terms nor left outside of our critical conjectures and apprehensions with respect to these two paradigms. . Some people assume that it "belongs to the realm of the frightening, of that which evokes fear and dread" and others consider it to be an amalgam of dread, fear, mystery, strangeness, dread. strangeness, discomfort, to name a few. Etymologically, the word uncanny evokes a feeling of strangeness and is considered a working English translation of its German origin "Unheimlich". As this German expression is difficult to translate into English, it gives rise to a number of possible connotations, thus leaving common men in utter confusion as to its actual meaning. Sometimes we tend to locate the “uncanny” in liminal space simply because a feeling of “uncanny” is triggered when the subtle gap between reality and fantasy becomes blurred. A feeling of “eeriness” can be generated by any gruesome and macabre site. Sometimes it is assumed that the idea of ​​"strangeness” remains inert in unknown things. When familiarity regarding a known object dissolves into thin air, the unknown arises as a result, and then brings "strangeness" to understanding. In a word, it is an elusive concept and therefore its experience can hardly be recounted in words. “Uncanny” can arguably be considered a channel, as it fell between paradigms and, therefore, it encourages connoisseurs to approach it from an interdisciplinary perspective. Freud conceptually divides the human mind into three different strata: unconscious, preconscious and conscious2. While the id produces instinctive impulses, the superego imposes certain restrictions on them and it is the ego that establishes a balance between them. What is remarkable is that according to Freud, the unconscious sometimes seems unfathomable and therefore quite unknown. He maintains that the workings of the unconscious mind give him a strange feeling and so he must conceive of entering the strange realm of the human mind by pursuing a dream. The enigmatic nature of the unconscious ignites in it a feeling of "strangeness" and forces it to arrive at the point where unconsciousness tinged with fear generates a feeling of strangeness, even if it reminded us that "everything what is new and unknown is not frightening…” (Freud 125). Since the publication of this essay, psychoanalysts around the world have attempted to decipher the true nature of “the uncanny.” Here, we can reasonably ask why psychoanalysts around the world still find it interesting to explore this question in depth? Jentsch thinks that "intellectual uncertainty" could be the reason which explains the awakening of a feeling of strangeness in the minds of the knowers while Freud opposes this and implicitly maintains that the enigmatic nature of the "strangeness » puts its meaning in an incessant postponement, so to speak, which explains why; connoisseurs from all over the world find it a constant source of aesthetic pleasure and indulge in it time and again. Bharatamuni in his Natyasastra defined eight zones along with their corresponding permanent feelings. Bharata believes that the harmonious union between determinants, consequences and transient feelings serves to produce rasa, thereby leading the knowers to its realization. The Terrible Rasa is one of the eight races. The permanent feeling that results is “horror”. When “horror” mixes with other transient feelings such as worry, fear, wonder, to name a few, it results in a terrible rasa. He argues that every aesthetic exploration ends with the understanding of one of the eight races. It may be important to note that an object of fear may well provide aesthetic pleasure to connoisseurs since aesthetics is not limited solely to the vicinity of Beauty. Much later than Bharata, the eminent rhetorician Anandavardhana, in his astonishing work Dhvanyaloka, suggests that the rasadhvani understanding at the end of an aesthetic exploration gives immaculate aesthetic pleasure4. In other words, connoisseurs undertake aesthetic journeys to arrive at and during “suggestion”; they demand and extract aesthetic pleasure. When the suggestion function kicks in, cognoscenti slowly but surely slide into the world of pure aesthetic pleasure through their constant search for aesthetic implications. Since familiarity and unfamiliarity are complementary, Anandavardhana insists that knowers rely on the familiar understanding of something at the moment by asking them to evaluate its denotative and connotative meanings. It ultimately encourages them to continue moving toward the suggested meaning of something untilthat it is understood in an understandable manner. Kuntaka, in his Vakroktijibitam, argues that “vakrokti” is the distinctive telltale feature of an aesthetically charged word, which explains the aesthetic pleasure in which connoisseurs indulge while pursuing it. In other words, “vakrokti” is the aesthetic force that attracts the knowers towards the “signified”. The idea is that if the meaning of something had been expressed in obvious terms, it would not have been as enjoyable and rewarding for what vakrokti is. Thus, the oblique meaning of something inspires connoisseurs to undertake aesthetic journeys until the suggested meaning is grasped. Kuntaka therefore holds this view that understanding “vakrokti” is at the heart of all aesthetic exploration. Human emotional responses across the world hardly differ and this prompts me to think about making forays into problematic and aesthetic, i.e. “strange,” construction using Indian expression. aesthetic perspectives. Denis Dutton in “Aesthetic Universals” brings to the fore: “In the twentieth century, research into the existence of universal aesthetic values ​​came primarily from psychology…” (Dutton cited in Gaut 206). Dutton emphasizes that empirical psychology requires the perceptive capacity of the psychoanalyst, who must also be endowed with aesthetic power. In the field of psychoanalytic research, aesthetic prowess is required for critical inquiry and intervention. Freud, too, had argued long ago that “…Yet from time to time he finds himself having to be interested in a particular area of ​​aesthetics…” (Freud 123). Freud implies that the familiar and the unfamiliar cannot be separated. , aesthetic pursuits culminate in the unfathomable depths of the unknown, thus triggering a feeling of strangeness in the minds of connoisseurs. By resorting to the theory of Rasa, we can correctly argue that Freudian strangeness is imbued with terrible rasa. A place of horror composed of determinants, consequences and transient feelings stirs up fear – the corresponding permanent feeling of horror and ultimately leads the connoisseurs to revel in a terrible rasa. For example, when we experience something “strange” on stage while watching a show, we are immediately seized with fear and gradually experience a terrible rasa due to the union of the trio – determining, consequent feelings and transient. Following Anandavardhana can explore the problematic facets of “strangeness”. It denotes an unpleasant or strange feeling. Apparently, those in the know are quite accustomed to this feeling and have a certain familiarity with it. But the word strangeness cannot be properly understood in terms of strangeness, because it does not always have the exact meaning in a given context. So this raises the need for the connotative meaning to come into play. In specific contexts, "strange" sometimes refers to something horrible and arouses fear in us. Once again, this will not be enough for those in the know who wish to get to the bottom of the “strangeness,” because the suggestion of it is for the moment deferred. Here, one might reasonably ask: does something frightening always equate to a feeling of “strangeness”? This question can be answered by direct reference to Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle's apt observation in An Introduction to Literature, Criticism, and Theory: "The uncanny is not just a matter of being strange or frightening, but it concerns more specifically a disruption of the familiar… As an adjective, “familiar” means “well-known or intimate… but as a noun it carries the most disturbing implications…” (34) for those in the know. The infiltration..