By H.P. Lovecraft Edited by S.T. Joshi Dust Jacket Text This fifth and final volume of Lovecraft’s Collected Essays mines a rich vein of his philosophical writings. A lifelong student of metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and other branches of philosophy, Lovecraft early declared himself a forthright materialist and atheist H. P. Lovecraft was born in in Providence, Rhode Island, where he lived most of his life. He wrote many essays and poems early in his career, but gradually focused on the writing of horror stories, after the advent in of the pulp magazine Author: H.P. Lovecraft May 07, · HP Lovecraft - The Essays of HP Lovecraft "The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind." H.P. Lovecraft $ Publisher Description There are rather few masters of horror writing out of the many who write blogger.comry: Free
Collected Essays, Volume 1: Amateur Journalism
Howard Phillips Lovecraft was one of the greatest horror writers in history of the literature and his works inspired many authors, many books and many movies. Just to name a few, author of many successful psychological horror books, Stephen King, has included H. Just as H. Lovecraft inspired many authors, he himself had been inspired by many before him, Lord Dunsany, Arthur Machen, Clark Ashton Smith and most noticeably Edgar Allan Poe. Edgar Allan Poe, Baltimorean who had fair success with his stories and poems and became a well-known person although his works have been criticized fairly often, hp lovecraft essays. Lovecraft was clearly influenced by Poe and perhaps sought in him some figure of a teacher in his works. The story contains two differing parts, one written by Poe and the other by Pym himself, as the story hp lovecraft essays. Of course, the whole novel is a work of Poe, hp lovecraft essays, written after a publisher convinced him to write a novel rather than a short story that he was used to because American readers wanted a full, longer story with one developed plotline.
It says the story of Arthur Gordon Pym who by a series of strange coincidences and decisions ends up at sea, on a boat with his friend and many other sailors. After a second mutiny their number is reduced to four and they continue to live on a ship which was damaged during hp lovecraft essays storm. They are slowly running out of supplies and are eventually driven to cannibalism as they draw straws and devour one of them. After that they are at last hp lovecraft essays by another ship, the captain of which takes them aboard. The ship hp lovecraft essays through a sea and stops by on a series of islands located somewhere east from the South America. The captain eventually decides to sail where no other human has ever sailed and that is to some of the unknown coasts of Antarctica.
While the ship has passed some of the icebergs and they are clearly in the polar region they encounter a densely-forested group hp lovecraft essays islands with black-skinned people native to this area, hp lovecraft essays. The natives are dangerously looking and armed with clubs overall, they seem friendly. The crew with the captain, Peters, and Pym follows them and the captain seems to make a few arrangements with the chief of the natives. After a week, they are readying to leave and all are invited to a celebratory feast by the natives. All but a handful of men left on a ship hp lovecraft essays for a feast and are eventually led through a narrow gorge in which Pym and Peters observe a cavern in which they are safe from a disaster shortly following.
The natives prepared a trap and buried the gorge with all the sailors under tons of earth and stone. Pym and Peters are alive but trapped in a cavern. They are starving for few days but ultimately find a way out of the cavern. The ship with the few sailors was destroyed by the natives but Pym and Peters still try to get to the shore. They are, however ambushed by a small group of natives hp lovecraft essays they beat and take one as a captive. Pym and Peters steal a canoe from the native and manage to hp lovecraft essays away to the south, hp lovecraft essays. The captive native, Nu-Nu is, as Pym discovers, afraid of anything white and with every mile southern he grows more and more impatient.
Eventually everything in their surroundings begins to change, water turns white, huge white birds fly close and a huge cataract looms in their direction, hp lovecraft essays. Nu-Nu dies of fright. Finally, as their ship approaches the cataract a huge white figure rises up and the story ends. The story is unfinished and Poe ends it with an explanation that Pym died a few years back and the last chapters are therefore lost, hp lovecraft essays. It seems strange that Lovecraft hp lovecraft essays inspiration in this story in particular because while this was the only novel and the longest piece of fiction that Poe had ever written it was also one of his least successful. It was bashed by critics for its constant hp lovecraft essays in the tone, its gruesome details and mostly its lack of ending and conclusion.
This novella is one of the longest pieces of fiction that H. Lovecraft had ever written and one of the most intriguing and lore-expanding in his Cthulhu Mythos. His works were always somehow connected, with all the stories obviously happening in the same universe. This idea is confirmed by many minor characters and some major ones appearing in more than one book, the city of Arkham and other fictional cities and villages appearing and corresponding with one another and most noticeably the various damned religious cults, beliefs, books containing forbidden knowledge all referring to the Old Ones, races of mysterious beings that came from hp lovecraft essays to the Earth long before the dawn of humanity. William Dyer, a geologist that was present at this expedition is telling this story and probably publicly presenting it with all the evidence to stop an oncoming Starkweather expedition to Antarctica that is going to follow the footprints of the horrendous Miskatonic expedition.
The retrospective story begins with introducing the expedition crew comprised of various experts in their fields such as biology, geology, technical engineering and students serving as assistants and crew. One half of this crew eventually go chasing a lead, one of their professors of biology found in the dirt they were examining and fly off approximately miles to the north-west from their original camp to investigate this further, hp lovecraft essays. The professor of biology, Lake, stays in contact with the rest of the expedition via a wireless communication and informs them of the 14 specimens of pre-historic life forms, hp lovecraft essays, significantly older than any known evolved being which they found in an underground cavern, 6 of them damaged and 8 of them preserved almost perfectly.
Lake shares also various information regarding other matters of interest such as discovery of a wide set of mountains, hp lovecraft essays, some even approximately feet high, which would mean that they are higher than Himalayas. The beings he found predates even the oldest known life on Earth and do not share a similarity with any known animal or plant. The next day Dyer and one of the students, Danforth fly an airplane across the mountains. They discover a preserved old stone city, hp lovecraft essays, half-frozen and they land just at the boundary of this ancient. Dyer and Danforth starts to explore the city, finding a wide set of mural carvings and sculptures describing the history of the city and the beings Lake discovered. Dyer and Danforth progresses through the city discovering that this old race, hp lovecraft essays, the Elder Ones, created primitive life on Earth and were eventually forced under the ground into an underwater sea by a sheer cold.
Two explorers, however continue because of their assumption that in one of the honeycomb-shaped buildings is an entrance to the underground sea and during this journey they stumble upon the evidence that the Hp lovecraft essays Things have returned to this city dragging with them sledges with the missing student and a dog which bodies they eventually find cut up in a strange matter, almost as if the Elder Things were studying them. They eventually find hp lovecraft essays entrance that seems to be leading to the subterranean sea where they find four of the remaining Elder Things slaughtered presumably by a Shoggoth, a creature hp lovecraft essays species that the Elder Things created a long time ago to provide physical strength and help them with building their cities.
Shoggoths however later gained independence as Dyer uncovered from the mural carvings. The Shoggoth notices them and starts chasing them through the caves. Dyer and Danforth ultimately escape the caves and the city and shaken by this horrendous hp lovecraft essays fly back over the mountains, however Danforth takes one last look from the plane towards the horizon and the far away mountains, even higher than the ones Miskatonic expedition came across as the mural carvings of the Elder race have stated. He sees a mirage of a cyclopean city of which even the Elder Things were afraid of as was hp lovecraft essays from the carvings and this one look drives Danforth insane for the course of a few months.
However, the most obvious source of inspiration is Edgar Allan Poe. Another obvious influence hp lovecraft essays Poe are the white deformed animals featured in both stories, hp lovecraft essays. Lovecraft These forms of animal deformations lead us to one of the biggest similarities of these two stories and that is quite visibly the inspiration by the Hollow-Earth theory, hp lovecraft essays. The Hollow Earth theory was a scientific theory popular in the 18th and 19th century that stated that Earth had an underground sea with entrances at the both poles.
This theory was proven to be false, in the meantime however many authors took an inspiration from this theory namely Edgar Allan Poe or Jules Verne. The theory also stated that aurora borealis was a product of escaping fumes from inside of the Earth and that inside of this hollow planet is another species of men waiting to be discovered. And the hue of the skin of the figure was of the perfect whiteness of the snow. The paleness and eyelessness of these underground creatures are common in the nature in the case of a species living in complete darkness, often in underground caves.
Why was Lovecraft inspired by such a bizarre and not exactly well received work of fiction? While we often cast aside shock value as a cheap method of producing a volatile reaction from readers and filmgoers, hp lovecraft essays, the fact remains that decay, disfigurement, hp lovecraft essays, and other elements of the grotesque are capable of establishing a theme and perhaps even aiding in the progression of a narrative when used appropriately. One could even argue the necessity of transgressive imagery to create potent allegorical figures within a given work, hp lovecraft essays. In film this is commonly portrayed within a subgenre called body horror.
Despite the exploitative style of some movies such as Hp lovecraft essays Holocaust or Hostel, others like The Fly articulate dense morality through bodily malformation. To provide a little context, the narrator had been examining the house for some time and there is nary a mention of any previous attempt to rid the place of the fungi. We often associate fungi with all things pestilent and parasitic. Another way of looking at it would be to imagine hp lovecraft essays house as a metaphor for society and the fungi as the innate ugliness that society is left to deal with on a daily basis. Some might read it as simply a cloud of mold spores in a stereotypically dusty cellar, though the fact that Lovecraft opts to linger on this particular scene might imply a different meaning, hp lovecraft essays.
Our narrator has started digging a hole in the cellar in hopes of finding the source of some wretched smell emanating from it. This scenery is captivating as it is effectively nauseating, further elucidating themes of decay within the narrative while also perhaps serving as a precursor to the contemporary body horror subgenre. Again Lovecraft presents readers with perpetually squelchy visions designed explicitly to induce cringing and squirming. In sharp contrast to the pulpy nature of many other works of fiction, H. Lovecraft articulately weaves elements of the unknown and unearthly into a simultaneously stomach-churning and thought-provoking narrative.
Films that make you confront aspects of your own life that are difficult to face. Perhaps the same could be said equally in regards to horror literature as there is often far more to be found than a series of sinister shocks and creepy crawlies. This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful. Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings. If you disable this cookie, hp lovecraft essays, we will not be able to save your preferences.
This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again. Selected Stories of HP Lovecraft Lovecraft Another obvious influence of Poe are the white deformed animals featured in both stories. Works citedKing, Stephen. New York: Scribner, Lovecraft, H. Supernatural Horror in Literature. Athol: Recluse Press, hp lovecraft essays, The complete fiction. Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner. New York: Hippocampus Press, Plunkett, Edward. George Allen and Sons, Poe, Edgar Allan. Edgar Allan Poe: complete tales and poems. New York: Fall River Press, Read more. Selections from the Essays of Montaigne. Self Reliance and Other Essays.
Dealing With Lovecraft's Racism
, time: 21:53Collected Essays, Volume 5: Philosophy; Autobiography & Miscellany
May 07, · Howard Phillips Lovecraft (), commonly known as H. P. Lovecraft, was an American author known for his works of horror fiction (many of which have been adapted into movies). Having died in obscure poverty, he achieved posthumous fame for his books and stories. Today, he is best known for his take on The Call of Cthulhu H.P. Lovecraft has now received world renown as an author of supernatural fiction; but during his lifetime he wrote far more essays than stories. This edition gathers Lovecraft’s complete nonfictional output for the first time, arranged in broad thematic groupings. In this volume, Lovecraft’s prolific writings on amateur journalism are collected Aug 23, · lovecraft was always fascinated with the unknown and he himself stated in his long essay that “the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” (h. p. lovecraft, supernatural horror in literature) in the times of writing “at the mountains of madness” a significant part of
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