Editing Defamiliarization (section)

=== The Uncanny ===

The influence of Russian Formalism on twentieth-century art and culture is largely due to the literary technique of defamiliarization or 'making strange', and has also been linked to Freud's notion of the [[uncanny]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Royle|first=Nicholas|title=The Uncanny|location=New York|publisher=Routledge|date=2003}}</ref>  In ''Das Unheimliche'' ("The Uncanny"),<ref name=freud>{{cite book|last=Freud|first=Sigmund|title=The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud|volume=XVII|editor-first=James|editor-last=Strachey|location=London|publisher=Hogarth Press|date=1955}}</ref> Freud states that "the uncanny is that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar," however, this is not a fear of the unknown, but more of a feeling about something being both strange and familiar.{{r|freud|p=220}}  The connection between ''ostranenie'' and the uncanny can be seen where Freud muses on the technique of literary uncanniness: "It is true that the writer creates a kind of uncertainty in us in the beginning by not letting us know, no doubt purposely, whether he is taking us into the real world or into a purely fantastic one of his own creation."{{r|freud|p=230}}  When "the writer pretends to move in the world of common reality," they can situate supernatural events, such as the animation of inanimate objects, in the quotidian, day-to-day reality of the modern world, defamiliarizing the reader and provoking an uncanny feeling.{{r|freud|p=250}}