Horror and terror - Wikipedia Horror and terror From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Standard literary and psychological concept applied especially to Gothic literature and film Figure 20 from Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). Caption reads "FIG. 20.—Terror, from a photograph by Dr. Duchenne." Figure 21 from Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Caption reads "FIG. 21.—Horror and Agony, copied from a photograph by Dr. Duchenne." Part of a series on Emotions Acceptance Affection Amusement Anger Angst Anguish Annoyance Anticipation Anxiety Apathy Arousal Awe Boredom Confidence Contempt Contentment Courage Curiosity Depression Desire Disappointment Disgust Distrust Doubt Ecstasy Embarrassment Empathy Enthusiasm Envy Euphoria Faith Fear Frustration Gratification Gratitude Greed Grief Guilt Happiness Hatred Hope Horror Hostility Humiliation Interest Jealousy Joy Kindness Loneliness Love Lust Nostalgia Outrage Panic Passion Pity Pleasure Pride Rage Regret Rejection Remorse Resentment Sadness Self-pity Shame Shock Shyness Social connection Sorrow Suffering Surprise Trust Wonder Worry v t e The distinction between horror and terror is a standard literary and psychological concept applied especially to Gothic and horror fiction.[1] Terror is usually described as the feeling of dread and anticipation that precedes the horrifying experience. By contrast, horror is the feeling of revulsion that usually follows a frightening sight, sound, or otherwise experience. Horror has also been defined by Noel Carroll as a combination of terror and revulsion.[2] Contents 1 Literary Gothic 2 Horror fiction 3 Psychoanalytic views 4 Horror, helplessness and trauma 5 See also 6 References 7 Bibliography Literary Gothic[edit] The distinction between terror and horror was first characterized by the Gothic writer Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823), horror being more related to being shocked or scared (being horrified) at an awful realization or a deeply unpleasant occurrence, while terror is more related to being anxious or fearful.[3] Radcliffe considered that terror is characterized by "obscurity" or indeterminacy in its treatment of potentially horrible events, something which leads to the sublime. She says in the essay that it "expands the soul and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life". Horror, in contrast, "freezes and nearly annihilates them" with its unambiguous displays of atrocity. She goes on: "I apprehend that neither Shakespeare nor Milton by their fictions, nor Mr Burke by his reasoning, anywhere looked to positive horror as a source of the sublime, though they all agree that terror is a very high one; and where lies the great difference between horror and terror, but in uncertainty and obscurity, that accompany the first, respecting the dreader evil."[4] According to Devendra Varma in The Gothic Flame (1966): The difference between Terror and Horror is the difference between awful apprehension and sickening realization: between the smell of death and stumbling against a corpse. Horror fiction[edit] Horror is also a genre of film and fiction that relies on horrifying images or situations to tell stories and prompt reactions or jump scares to put their audiences on edge. In these films the moment of horrifying revelation is usually preceded by a terrifying build up, often using the medium of scary music.[5] In his non-fiction book Danse Macabre, Stephen King stressed how horror tales normally chart the outbreak of madness/the terrible within an everyday setting.[6] He also elaborated on the twin themes of terror and horror, adding a third element which he referred to as "revulsion". He describes terror as "the finest element" of the three, and the one he strives hardest to maintain in his own writing. Citing many examples, he defines "terror" as the suspenseful moment in horror before the actual monster is revealed. "Horror," King writes, is that moment at which one sees the creature/aberration that causes the terror or suspense, a "shock value". King finally compares "revulsion" with the gag-reflex, a bottom-level, cheap gimmick which he admits he often resorts to in his own fiction if necessary, confessing: I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud.[7] Psychoanalytic views[edit] Freud likened the experience of horror to that of the uncanny.[8] In his wake, Georges Bataille saw horror as akin to ecstasy in its transcendence of the everyday;[9] as opening a way to go beyond rational social consciousness.[10] Julia Kristeva in turn considered horror as evoking experience of the primitive, the infantile, and the demoniacal aspects of unmediated femininity.[11] Horror, helplessness and trauma[edit] The paradox of pleasure experienced through horror films/books can be explained partly as stemming from relief from real-life horror in the experience of horror in play, partly as a safe way to return in adult life to the paralysing feelings of infantile helplessness.[12] Helplessness is also a factor in the overwhelming experience of real horror in psychological trauma.[13] Playing at re-experiencing the trauma may be a helpful way of overcoming it.[14] See also[edit] Wikiquote has quotations related to: Horror Wikiquote has quotations related to: Terror Fantastic art Fear Medusa's Head Monster literature Nightmare Surrealism References[edit] ^ Radcliffe 1826; Varma 1966; Crawford 1986: 101-3; Bruhm 1994: 37; Wright 2007: 35-56. ^ M Hills, The Pleasures of Horror' (2005) p. 17 ^ Varma 1966. ^ Radcliffe: 1826. ^ Wisker 2005. ^ S King, Danse Macabre (London 1994) p. 443 and p. 308 ^ "A quote by Stephen King". www.goodreads.com. ^ S Freud, The “Uncanny” Imago V 1919 p. 27 ^ E Roudinesco, Jacques Lacan' (Cambridge 1999) p. 122 and p. 131 ^ W Paulett, G S Bataille (2015) p. 67 and p. 101 ^ J Kristeva, Powers of Horror (New York 1981) p. 63-5 ^ R Solomon, In Defence of Sentimentality (200) p. 108-113 ^ D Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (London 1996) p. 203-4 ^ O Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (London 1946) p. 542-3 Bibliography[edit] Steven Bruhm (1994) Gothic Bodies: The Politics of Pain in Romantic Fiction. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Gary Crawford (1986) "Criticism" in J. Sullivan (ed) The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural. Ann Radcliffe (1826) "On the Supernatural in Poetry" in The New Monthly Magazine 7, 1826, pp 145–52. Devendra Varma (1966) The Gothic Flame. New York: Russell and Russell. Gina Wisker (2005) Horror Fiction: An Introduction. New York: Continuum. Angela Wright (2007) Gothic Fiction. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Julian Hanich (2010) Cinematic Emotion in Horror Films and Thrillers. The Aesthetic Paradox of Pleasurable Fear. New York: Routledge. Noël Carroll (1990) The Philosophy of Horror: Or, Paradoxes of the Heart. New York: Routledge. v t e Emotions (list) Emotions Acceptance Adoration Aesthetic emotions Affection Agitation Agony Amusement Anger Angst Anguish Annoyance Anticipation Anxiety Apathy Arousal Attraction Awe Boredom Calmness Compassion Confidence Contempt Contentment Courage Cruelty Curiosity Defeat Depression Desire Despair Disappointment Disgust Distrust Ecstasy Embarrassment Vicarious Empathy Enthrallment Enthusiasm Envy Euphoria Excitement Fear Flow (psychology) Frustration Gratification Gratitude Greed Grief Guilt Happiness Hatred Hiraeth Homesickness Hope Horror Hostility Humiliation Hygge Hysteria Indulgence Infatuation Insecurity Inspiration Interest Irritation Isolation Jealousy Joy Kindness Loneliness Longing Love Limerence Lust Mono no aware Neglect Nostalgia Outrage Panic Passion Pity Self-pity Pleasure Pride Grandiosity Hubris Insult Vanity Rage Regret Social connection Rejection Remorse Resentment Sadness Melancholy Saudade Schadenfreude Sehnsucht Self-confidence Sentimentality Shame Shock Shyness Sorrow Spite Stress Suffering Surprise Sympathy Tenseness Trust Wonder Worry World views Cynicism Defeatism Nihilism Optimism Pessimism Reclusion Weltschmerz Related Affect consciousness in education measures in psychology Affective computing forecasting neuroscience science spectrum Affectivity positive negative Appeal to emotion Emotion and art and memory and music and sex classification evolution expressed functional accounts group homeostatic perception recognition in conversation in animals regulation interpersonal work Emotional aperture bias blackmail competence conflict contagion detachment dysregulation eating exhaustion expression intelligence and bullying intimacy isolation lability labor lateralization literacy prosody reasoning responsivity security selection symbiosis well-being Emotionality bounded Emotions and culture in decision-making in the workplace in virtual communication history moral self-conscious social social sharing sociology Feeling Gender and emotional expression Group affective tone Interactions between the emotional and executive brain systems Meta-emotion Pathognomy Pathos Social emotional development Stoic passions Theory affect appraisal discrete emotion somatic marker constructed emotion Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Horror_and_terror&oldid=983898025" Categories: Fear Literary concepts Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description matches Wikidata Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Languages العربية Български Deutsch Español 한국어 Հայերեն Italiano עברית Lietuvių Magyar Русский Српски / srpski Suomi Svenska Українська Edit links This page was last edited on 16 October 2020, at 22:25 (UTC). 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