Gusejnov Aleksej Sergeevich – 1st year master student at program «Russian literature in a global context» at the Samara branch of the Moscow City Pedagogical University
The article contains an analysis of the poetics of the terrible in the work of Thomas Ligotti, based on the material of the story Nifescurial. It is proved that the writer’s image of the terrible, strange is multilayered, directly related to optical and visual characteristics. The character’s experience of transcendental horror is expressed through a special narrative structure, a detailed description helps to overcome fear. The features of Ligotti’s artistic logic are revealed: a nightmare from the “literary” becomes commonplace, but at the same time reveals its existential essence. Ligotti transforms the traditional narrative technique of horror and depicts “horror under the mask of the mundane”.
Тhomas Ligotti; horror; description of the terrible; visual in fiction, mystical; “weird fiction”