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{{short description|Standard literary and psychological concept applied especially to Gothic literature and film}}
[[File:Sir Charles Bell, Essays on Expression Wellcome L0021920.jpg|thumb|
{{Emotion}}
The distinction between '''horror''' and '''terror''' is a standard literary and psychological concept applied especially to [[Gothic fiction|Gothic]] and [[horror fiction]].<ref>Radcliffe 1826; Varma 1966; Crawford 1986: 101-3; Bruhm 1994: 37; Wright 2007: 35-56.</ref> ''
▲[[File:Sir Charles Bell, Essays on Expression Wellcome L0021920.jpg|thumb|250x250px|Drawing by [[Sir Charles Bell]] of a terrified man from ''Essays on Expression''.]]
▲The distinction between '''horror and terror''' is a standard literary and psychological concept applied especially to [[Gothic fiction|Gothic]] and [[horror fiction]].<ref>Radcliffe 1826; Varma 1966; Crawford 1986: 101-3; Bruhm 1994: 37; Wright 2007: 35-56.</ref> ''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.
==Literary Gothic==
The distinction between terror and horror was first characterized by the [[Gothic fiction|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.<ref>Varma 1966.</ref> Radcliffe considered that terror is characterized by "obscurity" or indeterminacy in its treatment of potentially horrible events, something which leads to the [[Sublime (philosophy)|sublime]]. She says in
▲The distinction between terror and horror was first characterized by the [[Gothic fiction|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.<ref>Varma 1966.</ref> Radcliffe considered that terror is characterized by "obscurity" or indeterminacy in its treatment of potentially horrible events, something which leads to the [[Sublime (philosophy)|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 [[John Milton|Milton]] by their fictions, nor [[Edmund Burke|Mr Burke]] by [[A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful|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."<ref>Radcliffe: 1826.</ref>
...Beautiful|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."<ref>Radcliffe: 1826.</ref>
According to [[Devendra Varma]] in ''The Gothic Flame'' (1966):
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==Psychoanalytic views==
[[Freud]] likened the experience of horror to that of the [[uncanny]].<ref>S Freud, The “Uncanny” ''Imago'' V 1919 p. 27</ref>
In his wake, [[Georges Bataille]] saw horror as akin to [[ecstasy (philosophy)|ecstasy]] in its transcendence of the everyday;<ref>E Roudinesco, ''Jacques Lacan'' (Cambridge 1999) p. 122 and p. 131</ref> as opening a way to [[Limit-experience|go beyond]] rational social consciousness.<ref>W Paulett, ''G S Bataille'' (2015) p. 67 and p. 101</ref> [[Julia Kristeva]] in turn considered horror as evoking experience of the primitive, the infantile, and the demoniacal aspects of unmediated femininity.<ref>J Kristeva, ''Powers of Horror'' (New York 1981) p. 63-5</ref>
==Horror, helplessness and trauma==
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.<ref>R Solomon, ''In Defence of Sentimentality'' (
Helplessness is also a factor in the overwhelming experience of real horror in [[psychological trauma]].<ref>D Goleman, ''Emotional Intelligence'' (London 1996) p. 203-4</ref> Playing at re-experiencing the trauma may be a helpful way of overcoming it.<ref>O Fenichel, ''The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis'' (London 1946) p. 542-3</ref>
== See also ==
{{Wikiquote|Horror}}▼
{{Wikiquote|Terror}}▼
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* [[Fantastic art]]
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== Bibliography ==
▲{{Wikiquote|Horror}}
▲{{Wikiquote|Terror}}
*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''.
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*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.
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[[Category:Fear]]
[[Category:Literary concepts]]
[[Category:Conceptual distinctions]]
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