ABSTRACT
Freud offered one of the most valuable contributions to the psychology of art with his study of the uncanny. The author summarizes his ideas, and then applies them to the analysis of some aspects of the life and work of the Count of Lautreamont. According to Freud, animism is characterized by the inclusion of human spirits in the world; by a narcissistic overestimation of one’s own psychic processes, and by all the creations whereby the unrestricted narcissism of this developmental stage defends itself against the undeniable force of reality. Every research into the life of the Count of Lautreamont has been hindered by external factors deriving from the poet’s standing within his family, as well as by internal factors related to the researcher. Francois Ducasse, Lautreamont’s father, died in Montevideo in 1890. He never talked about his son with anyone in his circle; they all believed Lautreamont had died during the 1870s war.
