Eldritch Horrors: the Modernist Liminality of H.P. Lovecraft\u27s Weird Fiction

In the early part of the twentieth century, the Modernist literary movement was moving into what was arguably its peak, and authors we would now unquestioningly consider part of the Western literary canon were creating some of their greatest works. Coinciding with the more mainstream Modernist movement, there emerged a unique sub- genre of fiction on the pages of magazines with titles like Weird Tales and Astounding Stories. While modernist writers; including Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, William Faulkner, and T.S. Elliot – among others – were achieving acclaim for their works; in the small corner of unique weird fiction there was one eccentric, bookish writer who rose above his own peers: Howard Phillips Lovecraft. I would argue that within the works of Lovecraft there are glimpses of modernism. Lovecraft was aware of and wrote with an understanding of the concerns of the more mainstream literature of the Modernists, and he situated his narratives and stories within a modernist framework that reflected this. Most importantly, it is the way in which Lovecraft used science and religion, and blended myth with material culture, that Lovecraft most reflects modernist leanings. It’s important to make the distinction that he is not part and parcel a Modernist, but he was influenced by, interacted with, and showed modernist tendencies. There is a subtlety to the argument being made here in that Lovecraft was not Joyce, he was not Elliot, he was most definitely not Hemingway, and his fiction was by no means what we would consider traditionally modernist. In 2005 he received inclusion in the Library of America series and, although this isn’t an indicator or guarantee of inclusion in a large canon, the argument that he in no way had a discourse, awareness, or did not contribute to what would be more properly termed `Modernist’ warrants consideration when properly situating Lovecraft within early-twentieth century literature. In the ways in which he subverted and changed what previously constituted horror fiction, Lovecraft holds a liminal place in the Modernist perspective

Finding Humanity in H.P. Lovecraft : Enlightenment Humanity in The Shadow over Innsmouth and At the Mountains of Madness

Tutkielmassa analysoin ihmiskäsitystä ja sen rakentumista H.P. Lovecraftin (1890-1937) pienoisromaaneissa The Shadow over Innsmouth (1936) ja At the Mountains of Madness (1936). Analyysissä tutkin tekstien ihmishahmoja, erityisesti kertojia, sekä myös teksteissä esiintyviä hirviöitä ja ihmiskäsityksen rakentumista hirviöiden kautta. Tutkin tekstien ihmiskäsitystä posthumanistisesta ja postkolonialistisesta tutkimuksesta nostetun valistushumanismin ihmiskäsityksen kautta. Hyödynnän tutkimuksessani myös hirviötutkimuksen löydöksiä, joiden mukaan hirviöt toimivat kirjallisuudessa ja kulttuurissa ihmisen ja ei-ihmisen kategorioiden välisen rajanvedon välineinä. Väitän, että molemmat tekstit sekä rakentavat valistushumanistisen ihmiskäsityksen ihannoiman rationaalisen ihmishahmon että samanaikaisesti dekonstruoivat tätä ihmiskäsitystä. Lisäksi esitän, että molempien tekstien ihmiskäsitys näyttäytyy hierarkkisena ja joitakin ihmisryhmiä ulossulkevana, joskin hieman eri tavoin. The Shadow over Innsmouthissa hybridisten hirviöiden kautta rakentuva ihmiskäsitys asettaa valkoisuuden ihmisyyden normiksi ja sulkee rodullistetut ihmiset ihmisen kategorian ulkopuolelle. At the Mountains of Madnessissa taas painottuu luentani mukaan valistushumanistisen ihmiskäsityksen ihmiskeskeinen hierarkkisuus: rationaalinen valistusihminen asetetaan maailman keskipisteeksi, ja teksti pitää oikeutettuna, että valistusihminen dominoi ja hyväksikäyttää kaikkia muita elämänmuotoja

La sombra sobre Galicia: las obsesiones de H. P. Lovecraft resurgen en la adaptación cinematográfica de Dagon (2001).

With the cinematic adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s tale The Shadow Over Innsmouth (1931) under the title of Dagon (Stuart Gordon, 2001), many ideological issues which have haunted scholarly appreciation of his literary work have been brought out under a new light. The setting of the film in the Galician coast of Spain, from which many immigrants crossed the ocean towards America, provides a further reading to the hardly concealed xenophobia underlying this and many other tales. Hybridity, linguistic plurality, sexual taboo and other controversial features are updated far more explicitly on screen, proving that Lovecraft’s extremist perspective is not a thing of the past. Al adaptar al cine el relato de H.P. Lovecraft La sombra sobre Innsmouth (1931) con el título de Dagon (2001), Stuart Gordon genera nuevas posibilidades de interpretación del texto original al transferir la acción a España, concretamente al pueblo ficticio de Imboca (obvia derivación del original inglés) en la costa gallega. Una decisión puramente comercial activa diversas cargas semánticas subyacentes tradicionalmente adscritas a la obra del autor y vinculadas a su firme rechazo a la emigración hacia Estados Unidos. Estereotipos nacionales, hibridación, xenofobia y otros aspectos controvertidos vinculados a la localización de la película confirman que el extremismo político de Lovecraft sobrevive al cambio de siglo

Existential Reactions to Modernity: An Analysis of Lovecraft\u27s Nihilistic Cosmicism & Dostoevsky\u27s Christian Existentialism

Literary representations of existentialism demonstrate the movement’s efficacy as a tool for ideological and personal exploration, particularly as it pertains to issues of identity-formation, the Other, and rising concerns about modernized life. Despite their differences in genre, location, and time period, both H.P. Lovecraft and Fyodor Dostoevsky in their fiction greatly emphasize facets of existentialism as a response to their cultural concerns about modernity. They highlight complex relationships between socio-political concerns, philosophy, and literature in their different uses of existentialist themes. This study places both Dostoevsky’s Christian existentialism and Lovecraft’s nihilistic cosmicism within the existing spectrum of existential thought. The first chapter considers three of Lovecraft’s novellas from The Cthulhu Mythos to argue that Lovecraft’s deep concerns about Otherness demonstrate the overlap between his nihilistic cosmicism, and the notion of existential anxiety as described by Heidegger. The second chapter explores the Christian existentialism in Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground as the intersection of an ascetic Christian tradition, and the Russian philosophical concept of sobornost—which emphasizes ideas similar to Kierkegaard’s views. The final chapter places both authors and their individual concerns about modernity in conversation with one another, to highlight the fluidity of the philosophical movement as a response to modernity

American Fears: H.P. Lovecraft and The Paranoid Style

Why is H.P. Lovecraft still relevant? That is the one the questions put forward by this thesis. Lovecraft is known for his creation of Lovecraftian horror, also known as cosmic horror. However, his bigoted view on race and class muddies this legacy. What this thesis seeks to explore is how Lovecraft’s work demonstrates the fears and anxieties central to the America psyche. The paranoid style can be found in American discourse throughout history but it can also be found in the works of Lovecraft himself. Lovecraft was a prejudiced and paranoid man, and his prejudices and paranoia are a major part of his works. The fear that Lovecraft felt and wrote, is the same fear that continues to guide and shape America itself. This work explores four of Lovecraft’s work “The Call of Cthulhu,” “The Dunwich Horror,” “The Shadow Over Innsmouth;” as well as a lesser-known poem by Lovecraft “Providence 2000 A.D.

(In)Human Anatomies: Constructions of Whiteness and Otherness in the Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft

In the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft - one of the most significant horror writers of the twentieth century, and an acknowledged white supremacist - racialized configurations Otherness are used to construct and inspire horror. At the same time, these racist and racializing narratives function to destabilize the privileged category whiteness, transgressing its boundaries, revealing its vulnerabilities, and disrupting its coherent self-construction

“A Hidden Race of Monstrous Beings”: Richard Wright’s Revision of H.P. Lovecraft’s Ecological Horror

This paper argues that Richard Wright’s stories “Down by the Riverside” and “Silt” revise the ecological horror depicted in H.P. Lovecraft’s stories such as “The Shadow over Innsmouth” and “The Whisperer in Darkness”. The paper first examines how pulp fiction shaped discourse around the 1927 Mississippi River flood, then considers ecological themes in Lovecraft’s work, before turning to Wright, an avid reader of pulp magazines. Both authors employ the aesthetics of pulp horror to represent how a “civilized” notion of humanity, and specifically of whiteness, depended on the stability of a nature/civilization binary that the 1927 floods had revealed to be far more tenuous than previously assumed