Homeward Bound: Uncanny Deliverance in the Poetry of Charles Simic

Abstract

Applying contemporary criticism to close readings of Charles Simic’s poetry, it is evident that, as a sorcerer doing alchemy behind the scenes (Weigl 2), he has a bag of tricks that he continues to delve into as part of his poetic process. However, through the lens of Sigmund Freud’s The Uncanny, or “that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known and old and long familiar,” it is possible to better engage with Simic’s darkly universal discourse (Weigl 2). This thesis argues that, under such a lens, a close reading of Simic’s poetics as well as example samples of his signature early and mid-career poems, especially those that indicate his uncanny preoccupation with uncertainty and doubleness, and then later poems reveal that this poet, tiring of uncanny places haunted by doubleness and uncertainty, conjures up those where the familiar, congenial, and certain hold sway. Setting his sights on home, he yearns for deliverance, if not a transcendence, which, in the parlance of Tatar’s essay Freud's “The Uncanny” can “exorcise the real ghosts of the marvelous tale” (Tatar 182).