The distinction between horror and terror is a standard literary and psychological concept applied especially to Gothic and

horror fiction Horror is a genre of speculative fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten, or scare an audience. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defin ...

. ''Horror'' is the feeling of revulsion that usually follows a frightening sight, sound, or otherwise experience. By contrast, ''terror'' is usually described as the feeling of dread and anticipation that ''precedes'' the horrifying experience. Noël Carroll also defined terror as a combination of horror and revulsion.

Literary Gothic

The distinction between terror and horror was first characterized by the Gothic writer

Ann Radcliffe Ann Radcliffe (née Ward; 9 July 1764 – 7 February 1823) was an English novelist who pioneered the Gothic fiction, Gothic novel, and a minor poet. Her fourth and most popular novel, ''The Mysteries of Udolpho'', was published in 1794. She i ...

(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. 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 an essay published posthumously in 1826, 'On the Supernatural in Poetry', that terror "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 William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

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." 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

Horror is also a genre of

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

and

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...

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. In his non-fiction book ''

Danse Macabre The ''Danse Macabre'' (; ), also called the Dance of Death, is an artistic genre of allegory from the Late Middle Ages on the universality of death. The ''Danse Macabre'' consists of the dead, or a personification of death, summoning represen ...

'',

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author. Dubbed the "King of Horror", he is widely known for his horror novels and has also explored other genres, among them Thriller (genre), suspense, crime fiction, crime, scienc ...

stressed how horror tales normally chart the outbreak of madness/the terrible within an everyday setting. 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.

Psychoanalytic views

Freud likened the experience of horror to that of the

uncanny The uncanny is the psychological experience of an event or thing that is unsettling in a way that feels oddly familiar, rather than simply mysterious. This phenomenon is used to describe incidents where a familiar entity is encountered in a frig ...

. In his wake,

Georges Bataille Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille (; ; 10 September 1897 – 8 July 1962) was a French philosopher and intellectual working in philosophy, literature, sociology, anthropology, and history of art. His writing, which included essays, novels, ...

saw horror as akin to ecstasy in its transcendence of the everyday; as opening a way to go beyond rational social consciousness.

Julia Kristeva Julia Kristeva (; ; born Yuliya Stoyanova Krasteva, ; on 24 June 1941) is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, semiotician, psychoanalyst, feminist, and novelist who has lived in France since the mid-1960s. She has taught at Colum ...

in turn considered horror as evoking experience of the primitive, the infantile, and the demoniacal aspects of unmediated femininity.

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. Helplessness is also a factor in the overwhelming experience of real horror in

psychological trauma Psychological trauma (also known as mental trauma, psychiatric trauma, emotional damage, or psychotrauma) is an emotional response caused by severe distressing events, such as Major trauma, bodily injury, Sexual assault, sexual violence, or ot ...

. Playing at re-experiencing the trauma may be a helpful way of overcoming it.O Fenichel, ''The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis'' (London 1946) p. 542-3

References

Bibliography

*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''. *

(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:

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