5 ms·

H.P. Lovecraft's Philosophy of Horror (2014)

53 points by networked 11y ago

pmoriarty 11y ago
It's interesting to witness Lovecraft's work rise from being considered obscure, poorly written schlock to mainstream greatness. Much the same happened with Philip K Dick. It took many decades, but their work is now part of the canon. It always makes me wonder what other great, underappreciated writers are out there right now, who we might not learn about for another fifty years.
- npongratz 11y ago
  I'm no literary or intellectual property expert, but I have attributed Lovecraft's rise with the fact[0] that the Cthulhu mythos is a) entertaining and well-written, and b) effectively exists in the public domain, and c) is one of the last unique narratives that legally exist in the public domain, allowing anyone to legally help grow the corpus. In other words, writers don't have to pay licenses or royalties for use of the universe, and their stories can enjoy the benefit of being framed by the previously-written canon without being pigeonholed. I would think this can help grease the wordsmith's skids. [0] I don't know if any of this is true or factual, I'm very open to corrections and other interpretations!
  - armenarmen 11y ago
    A good point, antipope actually covered it awhile back. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/06/they-took-our-myths.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/06/they-too...
    - npongratz 11y ago
      Ah! Thank you very much! I almost certainly internalized the sentiments of this essay when it was posted, and unintentionally forgot the source. I really appreciate the link!
- chad_c 11y ago
  Lovecraft's influence is clearly visible in one of the year's most critically acclaimed video games -- Bloodborne[1]. [1] http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/bloodborne http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/bloodborne
cstross 11y ago
Article focuses too much on Cthulhu, not enough on Lovecraft's other interests -- his early and enduring fascination with poetics (he seems to have been a bit of a 19th century hipster, permanently disgruntled about being born a century too late to be Edgar Allen Poe) and with astronomy (during his lifetime the scale of the cosmos expanded shockingly with the use of photographic plates for astronomical observations, the development of spectrophotometry, and the discovery of other galaxies and then the red shift and the Hubble constant) -- indeed, the universe increased during his life in both volume, contents, and age by about the same extent that Moore's Law has impacted computing performance over the past 40 years. Still a hugely influential writer in SF/horror, despite his highly regrettable (read: bigoted) and misanthropic outlook. I attribute his enduring relevance to his fiction providing the opposite of a science fictional sense of wonder: he brought a sense of cosmic dread at our insignificance in the face of an uncaring universe front and center, and in the post-nuclear age this resonates loudly.
- TillE 11y ago
  > permanently disgruntled about being born a century too late In fact Lovecraft wrote a whole short story, "A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson", mocking himself about this.
- waterlesscloud 11y ago
  He expanded the phrase "intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic" to a whole body of work!
- digi_owl 11y ago
  Should have guessed that the guy that turned ol' squidface into a WMD would make a comment on this, except i keep forgetting you're active on this site.
javajosh 11y ago
Lovecraft is as anthropocentric as any author because he is writing for a human audience, and his characters are all human. His concern was less about an unrelenting materialism and more about the human reaction to unrelenting materialism. Otherwise he would have written essays about it rather than stories. Interesting read, though. I had no idea Lovecraft wasn't well-known in his time. Certainly he'd have been pleased, I think, to have known of his future fame.

53 points by networked 11y ago

It's interesting to witness Lovecraft's work rise from being considered obscure, poorly written schlock to mainstream greatness. Much the same happened with Philip K Dick. It took many decades, but their work is now part of the canon. It always makes me wonder what other great, underappreciated writers are out there right now, who we might not learn about for another fifty years.

npongratz 11y ago
I'm no literary or intellectual property expert, but I have attributed Lovecraft's rise with the fact[0] that the Cthulhu mythos is a) entertaining and well-written, and b) effectively exists in the public domain, and c) is one of the last unique narratives that legally exist in the public domain, allowing anyone to legally help grow the corpus. In other words, writers don't have to pay licenses or royalties for use of the universe, and their stories can enjoy the benefit of being framed by the previously-written canon without being pigeonholed. I would think this can help grease the wordsmith's skids. [0] I don't know if any of this is true or factual, I'm very open to corrections and other interpretations!
- armenarmen 11y ago
  A good point, antipope actually covered it awhile back. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/06/they-took-our-myths.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/06/they-too...
  - npongratz 11y ago
    Ah! Thank you very much! I almost certainly internalized the sentiments of this essay when it was posted, and unintentionally forgot the source. I really appreciate the link!
chad_c 11y ago
Lovecraft's influence is clearly visible in one of the year's most critically acclaimed video games -- Bloodborne[1]. [1] http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/bloodborne http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/bloodborne

cstross 11y ago

Article focuses too much on Cthulhu, not enough on Lovecraft's other interests -- his early and enduring fascination with poetics (he seems to have been a bit of a 19th century hipster, permanently disgruntled about being born a century too late to be Edgar Allen Poe) and with astronomy (during his lifetime the scale of the cosmos expanded shockingly with the use of photographic plates for astronomical observations, the development of spectrophotometry, and the discovery of other galaxies and then the red shift and the Hubble constant) -- indeed, the universe increased during his life in both volume, contents, and age by about the same extent that Moore's Law has impacted computing performance over the past 40 years. Still a hugely influential writer in SF/horror, despite his highly regrettable (read: bigoted) and misanthropic outlook. I attribute his enduring relevance to his fiction providing the opposite of a science fictional sense of wonder: he brought a sense of cosmic dread at our insignificance in the face of an uncaring universe front and center, and in the post-nuclear age this resonates loudly.

TillE 11y ago
> permanently disgruntled about being born a century too late In fact Lovecraft wrote a whole short story, "A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson", mocking himself about this.
waterlesscloud 11y ago
He expanded the phrase "intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic" to a whole body of work!
digi_owl 11y ago
Should have guessed that the guy that turned ol' squidface into a WMD would make a comment on this, except i keep forgetting you're active on this site.

javajosh 11y ago

Lovecraft is as anthropocentric as any author because he is writing for a human audience, and his characters are all human. His concern was less about an unrelenting materialism and more about the human reaction to unrelenting materialism. Otherwise he would have written essays about it rather than stories. Interesting read, though. I had no idea Lovecraft wasn't well-known in his time. Certainly he'd have been pleased, I think, to have known of his future fame.