In ordinary life, the familiarity of things, by its very nature, does not come to our notice. Only when we are surprised, when things are not as we expected, do we become aware of our expectations explicitly. Such awareness modifies everydayness. Because of this modification, as the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein has written, ‘‘unfamiliarity is much more of an experience than familiarity.’’ The unfamiliar negates a previously intact state of things; unfamiliarity is felt in surprise (Wittgenstein 1965, 127). The surprising modification needed brings the everyday to notice arises with modern aesthetic and poetic treatment. Aesthetic ‘‘defamiliarization,’’ as Shklovsky describes it,...
“The Quotidian and Literary-Phenomenological Departures from Everydayness.” The Ecstatic Quotidian: Phenomenological Sightings in Modern Art and Literature, by Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei, Penn State University Press, 2007, pp. 13–40. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/j.ctt7v4z1.5. Accessed 27 Feb. 2021.
