An aesthetic classification of the supernatural in literature as an element of something out of this world

Abstract

Aim. This article aims to discuss the classification of the supernatural – its origins and specific features, and the way it manifests itself in individual literary texts.

Concepts discussed. The analysis is based on selected literary texts which contain categories of horror, macabre, and surrealism, as well as local theories.

Results and conclusions. How the supernatural has been used in literature differs from author to author. The American writer Edgar Allan Poe combined it with horror and the macabre to evoke strong emotions in the reader. By employing the supernatural, Nona Fernández constructed a peculiar mixture of two genres – reportage and novel, where she creates a supernatural reality to convey the horror of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile. The authors of the essays collected in the volume Nieswojość show how incredible Lower Silesia is. In the book his region emerges as a place full of contradictions, in which what is old and German is mixed with what is new and Polish.

Cognitive value. The article presents a broad view of classification of the supernatural. Its various faces and unobvious connections with other theories have been shown.