Hello and welcome to this short talk on an American writer, Howard Phillippe, Lovecraft
or H.P. Lovecraft, as he's more commonly known. My name is Stewart Lee. I'm a member of the
English faculty at the University of Oxford. And this podcast forms part of our series
on fantasy literature. I want to use Lovecraft
to tackle three questions. First, what should we include under
the category of fantasy? Secondly, the accepted place of fantasy in the academy.
By that, I mean universities and literary courses and so on. And finally,
critiquing fantasy, the concept of good, bad books.
But first of all, a bit of biographical information. H.P. Lovecraft was born in 1890
and died in 1937. His relatively short life was spent mainly in Rhode
Island and Providence area of New England. Although during his unsuccessful marriage,
he also spent time in some of the seedy areas of New York City. His childhood
was isolated with an overly protective mother and to an extent was quite lonely.
His father was committed to asylum when Lovecraft was only three and his mother also eventually
later died in one when Lovecraft was a young man. It's worth noting also that
his prosperity declined throughout his life, as did his health. So whilst he was brought up
in relative comfort, the family finances worsened with the death of his grandfather. So Lovecraft's
life has an overall sense of disappointment and struggle.
Lovecraft once said that there were three parts to him, a love of the strange and fantastic, which we
should come back to, a love of the ancient, a permanent and a love of scientific logic.
He was fascinated in geography, notably that of Antarctica, astronomy
and geology, and even began a scientific gazette at the age of nine,
albeit only a single sheet of paper. In terms of the ancient impermanent,
we can perhaps include his desire for stability and ancestry. He saw himself
very much as being of Anglo-Saxon stock in New England and was quite clearly an Anglophile.
He would occasionally sign off his letters with God Save the Queen. And he was mortified by the United
States reluctance to join Britain immediately at the outbreak of World War One.
So to the first question, what is fantasy literature, or in particular, why would we
include H.P. Lovecraft in this genre? Let us consider
who Lovecraft himself noted is having influence on him. We could
easily draw up a list of writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Thomas Bullfinch, Edward Ball were Litten, Algernon Blackwood, M.R.
James and Arthur Machen. Indeed, makins story. The Great God Pan
is cited directly in Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror from 1928.
Now, here, we could say that these writers are mainly in the area of supernatural or ghost stories.
But as has already been mentioned in other talks, there's clearly an intertwining between fantasy
and the Gothic and the supernatural. If we start to consider other
influences that Lovecraft himself noted, we can perhaps see that we're moving back towards fantasy
a bit more. Lovecraft was of a generation that read and absorbed Grimm's fairy
tales and more interestingly, the translation of the Arabian Nights, which may indeed
have seeded one of his more famous character inventions. The Arab al has read.
We know that Lovecraft also read Conan Doyle's The Lost World translations
of Ovid, and most importantly, he was greatly influenced by Lord Done Sanie, the fantasy writer
who he even went to see lecture and cites directly in his story, The Nameless City from 1921.
All of this moves us back towards fantasy in a way, maybe from the supernatural.
Some of the writers mentioned also blur the boundaries between fantasy and the supernatural,
such as Make Makin or Poe, particularly with the latter, where some of his stories are in
this dreamlike world and never, never land. Outside
of reading other things which may have influenced Lovecraft are illustrations
by the artist Gustav Daury. These accompanied additions of Paradise Lost
and Coleridge reaches Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which Lovecraft saw as a boy.
But it's true to say that when you start to read Lovecraft short stories, you are immediately taken into
a world of tombs, crypts, derelict mansions, all the tropes
of the gothic or supernatural. And it would be hard to describe a story like the terrible old
man written in 1920 as anything but a horror story where two crooks fall foul
of the sinister. Oh, man. It's also important to note that
for most writers of the 20th century, or certainly the early part of the 20th century, they never really
use the term fantasy. C.S. Lewis or Tolkan may have considered
themselves writing romances, for example. Lovecraft is is no
is not different at all. He, in turn, didn't use the word fantasy, but he'd like to think of himself
as writing what we might call weird fiction. If you wish
to take this a bit further, you really need to engage with three of Lovecraft's essays.
1921 in defence of Dagon, a collection of essays in response to criticism
of his own stories. 1925 to 27 and and later revised in 1933
to 34. His essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature, which is a historic analysis
of what he termed weird fiction. In this, he states for modern masters as makin
done he, Blackwood and M.R. James. And 1933, his notes on
writing weird fiction, which emerge from what we call his commonplace books, which was a set of notes
and plots on classic weird fiction and various tropes and motives.
To Lovecraft, weird fiction was where nothing in the story actually contradicted natural law,
even if things did not exist in reality, but instead supplemented it in ways not
imagined as yet as he said he wanted to write stories at a level beyond the galling
limitations of time and space and natural law, which forever in prisoners frustrate
our curiosity about the infinite cosmic spaces beyond the radius of our site and analysis,
a quote taken from his notes on writing weird fiction. Roger Luckhurst,
in his introduction to the world's classic series of Lovecraft stories, sees this almost
as liminal fantasy, something that borders between reality and supernatural.
The writer of weird fiction is the poet of Twilight Visions and Childhood Memories.
So whilst Lovecraft may write of New England or the slums of New York as if they are real,
underlying them are these sinister horrors which point to something older and far more darker.
Most importantly, there are two clear reasons why we might wish to consider Lovecraft
as a writer of fantasy literature. First, within his short
stories is what Luckhurst termed a dense matrix of cross references. They link
back and forth to give but a few examples. The terrible Oh Man, which I've already mentioned,
is then alluded to in a tale written six years later. The Strange High House in the Mist.
Characters such as Randolph Carter appear in multiple stories, such as the statement of Randolph Carter
from 1920, the Silver Key from 1926, The Dream Quest of the Unknown Cadet
from 1927. Fictitious places often based on real settings,
play host to multiple stories such as the MISCA Tonic University, Arcam,
Kingsport and so on. And most importantly, over time, we start to see
the emergence of an underpinning mythology. If you wish to
understand Lovecraft's mythology in his own words, you should really read
the call of Carthew Lou. And at the mountains of Madness to longer stories.
In summary, the mythology paints an epic picture of a race of elder ones or old ones
who colonise the earth in prehistory, building great but horrendous cities.
These elder ones now permeate the modern day world either through dreams
or somethings, or occasionally they just enter into the real world
for various traps, infections. Captured in ancient.
An entirely fictitious book such as the Necronomicon by the Abdul Al has read
character and repeated phrases like That is not dead, which can eternal lie. And
with strange aeons, even death may die. We encounter creatures and gods such
as Nyarlathotep, first appearing in a short story of that name, 1920.
As Athos and Carthew Lou, all are seen as powerful and malevolent.
And the underpinning message of Lovecraft's mythology is one of complete hopelessness and despair
as as human protagonists are merely warding off the inevitable and constantly becoming aware of
the complete insignificance of man in the cosmic order. This mythology
so well established that after Lovecraft's death, other writers picked it up, such
as August 30th. Another influence on Lovecraft, which
we must include, which moves me to the second point about the place of fantasy in academic
and publishing, is what we call the dime novels of pulp magazines, which Lovecraft
read and contribute to, too. To me, this points to a wider issue. I believe
in the acceptance of fantasy, certainly in the early part of the 20th century where standard
publishers and the academy. This dissin found it
and did not wish to engage with it. So writers such as Lovecraft. The only route for them
was to go through publications such as the Dime novel, pulp magazines.
Dime novels appeared in 1860 and usually about 130 pages long, and the subject
matter was basically throw away adventures. Lovecraft read a lot of these, especially stories
he's described as weird fiction and also pulp magazines like All Star magazine
and Munsie magazines. This led him to becoming heavily involved in what we call
amateur journalism. Where would be writers would contribute short pieces from money to journals.
You'd get a few dollars for a couple of thousand words, not enough to live on. But it did get your
writing career started and he began publishing in the pulp magazines United Amateur and Vagrant.
Most famously was his long relationship with the most important of these weird tales, which first
appeared in 1923 and ran for 31 years, as well as writing
in these magazines, of course. Lovecraft also read many stories of similar ilk.
Before I move to a discussion of Lovecraft style, just a quick note to say that Lovecraft also
wrote poetry. In fact, he produced about 300 poems, all of which mimicked
various styles. Joshi, a writer I will mention at the end, categorised
these into occasional poetry, patriotic poetry, eighteenth century,
poor verse or rubbish. But he also notes there was an emergence of
weird verse in 1917. So a poem like Fungai from Younger's,
which comes in several parts, tells a typical Lovecraftian tale inverse, where there's the discovery
of a rare book which includes tales of Nyarlathotep as a thought. And
so on, Lovecraft himself recognised, though, that he was no poet. There was a weakness
there, as he said, take the form away and nothing remains. I have no
poetic ability. Finally, let us now turn our attention
to Lovecraft's style. There are some excellent stories,
it has to be said, such as the caller Carthew Lou in 1926, the done which horror 1928
at the Mountains of Madness, 1931, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, 1931 as well.
And there are some very Dun's Saini in tales, almost mythic tales, which take us into these kind of
dreamlike worlds which sometimes defy criticism. For example, the doom that came to sign
Earth in 1919. The Tree 1920, the Cats of Alver 1920
the white ship calcifies 1920. The Quest of Iran on 1921.
The Other Gods 1921. And The Dream Quest. The Unknown Catus 1927.
But it has to be said that much of Lovecraft's other work is very formulaic.
Now, this can be explained in part for the fact that he was writing mainly for the pulp magazines.
The readers knew what they wanted on Lovecraft had to deliver. That
is look at a standard Lovecraftian plot. Usually take
place in a remote setting, often in New England, a wooded, hollow and isolated
location, a cemetery, or if he wants to venture venture further from New England, it might be
in the Congo jungle. The bulk land of a castle in Ireland, Xome priory in England,
derelict houses and so on. The stories are often written in the first person
of the 47 tales published between 1927 and 1927, 30
are in the first person. Usually narrated by someone who is witness something horrible
happening to someone else. Again, examples like the statement of Randolph Carter
or from beyond from 1920 or hipness from 1922.
The protagonists at some point will go mad or nearly mad. This is often due to
their inability to come to terms with what they are seeing, the horror, the scale in terms
of space and time or the unimportance of human beings.
There will often be a double time shift. The protagonist will read or be
taken back to the 18th or 17th century and then often even further back to
the Preedy history of the mythos. Dreams are used
very frequently. They will reveal the ancient cities that often defy geometry.
They'll be accompanied by where lyric melody, chords, vibrations and harmonic ecstasy's,
such as in Beyond the Wall of Sleep, the temple, the moon bog the festival.
Finally, there is his style. What is being described as a. ism.
Edmund Wilson, the famous critic from the 1950s, notably said the only real horror of
most of these fictions is the horror of bad taste and bad art. This is perhaps
going too far, but one can certainly see repetitions and weaknesses
in Lovecraft style. Everything, for example, is eldritch, stygian gibbous.
For example, here are some of the quotes from some of his stories on the screen.
And he will say it's almost like an on a reluctance to describe what the protagonist
is seeing, uncouth thow sounds I could never hear again and survive
visions so extravagant I cannot even relate them. To convey any idea of these
monstrosities is impossible. The frightful visit and vividness, the inconceivable,
indescribable and unmentionable monstrosity. I can't even hint what it was like for
it was a compound of all that is unclean, uncanny, unwelcome, abnormal and detestable horrors
beyond horrors. The thing cannot be described. There is no language for such
a busines of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions
of all macho force and cosmic order. Lovecraft was,
of course, aware of this, and he parodied parodies it to a degree in a story called
The Unnameable, when the protagonist, a writer, is criticised by his friend, to quote,
he added, My constant talk about unnameable, an unmentionable things was a very pure device,
quite in keeping with my lowly standing as an author. I was too fond of ending my stories with
sights or sounds, which paralysed my heroes faculties and left them without courage, words or associations
to tell what they experienced. What is less
amusing, though, is the clear racism and class snobbery that runs through Lovecraft's
writings. Beginning with a poem published in 1912, the title of
which I cannot repeat, there was his belief that we could see that he was sorry,
that he could see a decline in civilisation and values. He
read Spangler's The Decline of the West and grants the passing of the Great Race.
To give some examples, which we can repeat, he often depicts
lowly peasants or people coming in immigrants to the United States
in very negative terms. For example,
here are some quotes gave, not the least impression of Caucasian blood, simple animals they wore.
Gently descending down the evolutionary scale, the skulls denoted nothing short of utter
idiocy. Cretinism, a primitive semi ape them. And so on
and so forth. Perhaps the most telling, quote, the two ton is the summit
of evolution, which sends a chill through us when remember all the various theories
and political ideologies that ran riot in Europe in the 1920s.
And, of course, the 1930s. So there we are.
Hey, H.P. Lovecraft, a writer who evokes much criticism but much
adulation across many readers of fantasy literature, and I'd like to just
leave you here with a few books that you might wish to pursue. If you want to explore
Lovecraft further.