Love Crafting Lovecraft

I think it is really interesting to think about the ideas of the mind of H.P. Lovecraft. We have brought up the point several times about the struggles in the family with mental disorders that in turn took his mother’s and father’s lives. Many of Lovecraft’s stories battle with questions of the mind and the unknown. I think this is something that Lovecraft needed to write for the sake of himself. With a fear of the unknown, people are always left wondering, while in the case hereditary problems, people are also left wondering. Lovecraft plays with this fear of the unknown because what we do not know scares us the most. Creatures from another dimension fascinated Lovecraft because they were unknown and unexplainable. This made it frightening for his readers because they had not come across something of this sort before. So I want to pose the question and hope that people respond. What is truly frightening about Lovecraft’s work?

Aaron Hunt

I really enjoyed “The Rats in the Walls”!  And great points, Aaron!

I thought it was a great short story, and couldn’t better reflect Lovecraft.  Lovecraft had a deep fascination with the classics, especially the Greeks and Romans, and this shines through.  This could be seen by his dry and extensive description of the classic Gothic architecture of the priory.  This setting, as well as the rituals of sacrifice that took place there reflects Lovecraft’s fascination of religion, though he himself was an atheist.  Putting precise Roman characters on the altar, as well as making various Roman literature references, such as “Cattulus” or the feast of Trimalchio in the Roman novel “The Satyricon”, had to have been unavoidable for Lovecraft.

His use of the word “Stygian” really jumps out at me.  If I could describe Lovecraft’s works in one word, it would be this.  According to Merriam-Webster it could mean a.) Relating to the magical river Styx (Greek) or b.) Extremely dark or foreboding.  Lovecraft’s prose tends to be heavy in both elements, particularly the foreboding.  Lovecraft was fascinated by the primal emotion of fear.

Another thing that can be seen in “The Rats in the Walls” is the excessive amount of lists.  The actions, the descriptions and the histories keep being written in lists.  Some people can be turned off by the frequency of these.  I think they contribute to the rhythmic feel to Lovecraft’s writing.  He spent so long on poetry, and focused so much on the metric structure of the classics, that even when he was finally convinced to make the switch to prose, he wrote with beats and played with commas for rhythm.

If the naming of his cat as Nigger-man doesn’t display racism enough, Lovecraft’s poem “On the Creation of Niggers” certainly does.

I do think the unanswered questions at the end are a great choice.  The reader is left questioning the validity of the entire story, because from the very beginning it is written in past tense—the narrator has already been committed to an asylum before he begins.  Was this all in the head of the narrator?  Or had he been driven mad by the actual events and the presence of death around him?  I think it’s also important to note that Lovecraft’s parent’s both had mental health problems and had been committed to Butler Hospital until they died.  Lovecraft may have had his own speculations on what it was to be crazy.

C.S.P.

I’ll go ahead and answer my own question on this one before people respond. I happen to think that it was not a question of whether or not he wanted to publish his stuff, but more of a lack of self-confidence in his own writings. I would love to believe that Lovecraft never wanted to publish his work for a monetary profit; however, one has to be reasonable in thinking that he did want some sort of payment for what he had to offer. Therefore, looking back through all his quotes about his own writing, and others’ criticisms in this time period, it makes the most amount of sense that he was nervous about publishing his works to a broader market. Only after he saw that Mr. Eddy’s story was published, did he really throw his pieces of fiction into the mainstream market. I have to ask myself why? My answer here is that I believe that Lovecraft (who read Mr. Eddy’s story and gave him many pointers (Eddy, 15-16)) must have known that he had a greater talent than his friend and colleague. He saw the style of writing by Mr. Eddy first hand, and when he knew that “The Loved Dead” was going to be published in Weird Tales, he had finally convinced himself that he had the abilities to write for a broader audience.

What makes me a little skeptical about my own response is the fact that he was already urged 9 years before by another colleague to go into the field of fiction and leave the poetry world behind (Macauley, 2). Why had it taken him 9 years (1915-1924) to finally write for a large pioneer in the field of “weird” fiction? I truly believe that he had so many insecurities about his writings, and felt like he could not abandon the field of poetry as an art form. Also, I believe this could have been a nervousness around the field of the “new” and modern ideas. He saw what was happening with literature and knew his style was nothing like this, so he possibly could have thought that his stuff would never be published to a great degree (which it really never was until now). I have to think it was because of his insecurities as a writer that he waited so long to get his work into the mainstream, rather than his love of writing for writing’s sake. Yes, he loved writing, but I’m sure that he wanted more than to hoard his stories to himself. All I can say is that I am glad we have them today.

Aaron Hunt

I want to add one more piece to this conversation about Lovecraft’s fiction. Throughout reading Mrs. Eddy’s section in Rhode Island on Lovecraft, there were many instances that showed the uncertainties that Lovecraft had in his writing. It also showed the beginning of his journeys into the realm of mainstream fiction in 1924 (Eddy, 15-16). Mrs. Eddy expresses her comments to Lovecraft about publishing his work in a larger setting (Eddy, 15). She also goes on to say that her husband was looking to publish his newest short story entitled, “The Beloved Dead” (which later turned into “The Loved Dead”) and Lovecraft both edited the story for Mr. Eddy as well as told him that it was good enough to be published (Eddy, 15-16). In her memories of Lovecraft, Mrs. Eddy writes, “When we approached the subject of submitting his work to the editor of Weird Tales, he [Lovecraft] smiled cryptically. True, he’d allowed his good friend Julius to publish ‘The Lurking Fear,’—he’d sort of ‘gotten a kick’ (the slang is my own) out of the freakish illustrations an artist had given its characters; but as for trying to market his wares with a modern magazine to which so many writers of various types of ‘weird’ fiction contributed, he was disinterested. He told us frankly that he’d never thought seriously of ‘commercializing’ his work—the artistic side of the writing had appealed to him all his life, but the idea of selling his writings appalled him—he shrugged non-committally, folded his manuscripts methodically, and returned them to the well worn leather brief-case” (Eddy, 16). However, after much urging of Mr. Eddy to publish his story, it seems that Lovecraft decided to try his luck in the same magazine, for in the same year, 1924, Lovecraft published his first story in Weird Tales (Eddy, 16). Mrs. Eddy says they were “accepted immediately” (Eddy, 16).

Another instance of his insecurities is also given by Mrs. Eddy (Eddy, 15). Lovecraft is quoted as saying, “I’m afraid you overestimate the value of my work because you, yourselves, enjoy reading my trash—I assure you there’s nothing phenomenal about my stories; most of them are the result of a vivid imagination; that’s all” (Eddy, 15).

Are you guys buying this? Do you think that Lovecraft had a problem with publishing his materials, or was he still so insecure about his writings? Most of his stuff was rarely published in the large market until Derleth (whose letters we observed) published much of his stuff later on. Was it insulting to Lovecraft that Derleth did this? What do you guys think about the statements by Mrs. Eddy?

Aaron Hunt

Aimee, you bring up a lot of good points about the story. The cats could be some sort of metaphor for evil, but I believe that it was his love of cats that forced him to write about them. According to a friend of Lovecraft, Mrs. Eddy, in Rhode Island on Lovecraft, Lovecraft had a deep love for cats and many times cats would approach him whenever he would be around them (Eddy, 19). I find this to be interesting, knowing Lovecraft’s personality and demeanor. As is the case with this story, Lovecraft actually had a cat named “Nigger-Man” which both shows part of his blatant racism as well as writing what he knows (Eddy, 19).

You also brought up the point about the deep indulgence into the ancient mythologies. I too found them a little overwhelming; however, I think that they actually did belong. They go on later to explain some of the architecture in the “grotto” as having some of these qualities of the ancient mythologies. Also, I believe that Lovecraft himself could not possibly resist. He had a deep curiosity for ancient mythologies, and even in one case did a bunch of research for a friend who was planning on writing a story set in ancient Roman times (Leiber et al.). He had many deep curiosities which I can only wager found their way into a majority of his stories. Yes the inclusion of all the technicalities was bogging down the rest; however, I do think they needed to belong for H.P. Lovecraft.

I personally think that Lovecraft did very well with this story, since it was one of his first major publications. It captured my interest and left me with many questions at the end (and these were good questions, not puzzling questions that made me hate the story). And to the British comment, yes definitely. He loved using the old English spellings of words. That was part of his style.

Aaron Hunt

Rats in the Walls

Wow, I still don’t even really know what to say after reading that.  But like you Aaron, I found the beginning rather slow and dull.  Lovecraft spent so much time describing the castle and his lineage that I thought it was overdone.  However like you, the “counterfeited candles” stood out to me as well!! It is definitely evidence of Lovecraft’s rejection to modernity.  What really intrigued me about the story was actually the nature of the cats.  Were they just acting that way because they are cats or was it because of some daemonic presence within the rats that made them act so violently? (not sure if that is the right word). Also, another thing I noticed is that Lovecraft heavily relies on giving us lots of background information that I do not necessarily think we need.  What did you guys think about the whole Roman, Saxon, Cybele, etc., back story with the altars? Did you enjoy reading about it or did you think it was overdone and Lovecraft could have stopped at just ancient Roman altars?

I am not sure what else to say about this story, but I also noticed that he spelled connection as “connexion” I know that he considered himself a British Sympathizer, do you think that could have contributed to him using the English spelling of words instead of the stand American spelling?

Aimee Jones

Wow I read The Rats in the Walls and I loved it! At first it was a little slow getting into the meat of the story; however, after the introductory logistics, it actually turned out to be quite the compelling story. As with some of the other stories I have read, this had a proper ending for Lovecraft tale: An ending that reeks of unanswered questions and the unknown. Now, I will say that there are definitely people out there that would not be satisfied with this type of ending. They would want the answer to the question, “did the narrator eat his friend?” I for one, love that we do not know. Its more of a mystery. In reading this story, I found myself looking for presence of modern ideas to go along with our theme of modernity that we have focused so heavily on in class. One phrase did it for me, and I laughed out loud when I read it. “Seeing that Nigger-Man was with me, I shut the heavy Gothic door and retired by the light of the electric bulbs which so cleverly counterfeited candles […]” (H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction, 246; Loucks, www.hplovecraft.com). This presence of “electric bulbs” seemed so foreign to the narrator, that one could only assume the idea was somewhat new to Lovecraft. The fact that he said “counterfeited candles” shows his rejection of this modern technology. Absolutely fabulous! There were a lot of other parts to the story that showed his curiosities and love of the classical mythologies, which shows him going against the realm of modernity. Overall, I enjoyed the story, and I see why other people would have latched on to the story as well in 1924. One of the biggest things about Lovecraft is that he hated modernity, while at the same time wrote about “new” things. His ideas were cleverly new and exciting to the general population who had the pleasure to pick up a cop of Weird Tales. Its almost as if there is a war going on inside himself over his new ideas (space, otherworldly beings) while still trying to stick to the old methods of writing. So what did you all think about the story?

Aaron Hunt

Day 4: Lovecraft’s Transition into Fiction and his Hesitations

Today we are going to discuss his transition into the field of fiction, which many had urged him to do so that he wasn’t solely focusing on poetry. However, he had his doubts about the realm of fiction. I want to know why. Today we are also going to be discussing The Rats in the Walls if you have gotten the chance to read it. It was on of the first stories to be broadcast to a larger audience in Weird Tales in 1924 (H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction, 240). This was a big year for Lovecraft, and I will go on to discuss why later on. What did we think about the story, and why might he have had hesitations about it? Do you notice any elements that may have carried over from his poetry? Click on the story title to take you to the electronic copy of the story.

Aaron Hunt

Day 3 Wrap Up

If you have more to say about Modernity and Lovecraft, don’t hesitate to post about it, but I decided we need to get into the last part of our discussion as well. So it seems like the consensus was something that Lovecraft has some points about the ideas of Modernity; however, some of the stuff we do not agree with and cannot accept. I think that is the way most people are. We are going to take what we like and leave the rest, much like a salad bar. But then again, doesn’t that go against modernity? Just a thought!

Aaron Hunt

I want to open up my post with a quote that I found on the front of the syllabus that Matt provided for the class in the beginning. It says, “Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.” -Ezra Pound. Now as we all have learned from class, Pound was one of the pioneers of this new modernist movement talking about how literature needed to stick within the time constraints in which an individual resided; however, for me it seems like Lovecraft did a little of both.

Jake, I really liked the comment that you had where you placed Lovecraft in both Romantic and Postmodern literature. You said he was “both before his time and after it.” To add to this I would like to pose the question, doesn’t this make perfect sense for this man? Upon reading about his biographical history, it is so hard to overlook how unsuccessful and unknown he really was in his own time. People did not have the interest in his material and many had no idea who he was. However, I believe that there is now a resurgence in his material. People like us are beginning to read his material in a postmodern setting, much like if he had written in the Romantic time period, I would hypothesize that he would have had an impact on them as well. I guess what I am trying to say is that it only makes sense that he was somewhat on the outside of his own time period, because looking at his writing style and public’s interests, they are all outside of the world of modernity.

I actually happen to agree with Lovecraft on a lot of the material that he wrote about in his essay “Heritage or Modernism” (Marginalia, 61-73). I do not think that we can simply give up on things that we have come to know in favor of always creating something “new.” I believe this could be a challenging road for artists. In my opinion, I think there is always some sort of influence from what we have seen in the past. Take for instance my thoughts on my own writing: I have never been much of a reader in the past, but have always loved writing. For the longest time I had this idea engraved into my mind that the more stuff I read, the more it would influence me and I would gravitate toward these ideas for my own writing. I did not want what I read to define my own writing. However, it has sort of happened in this way. The things that we have read and seen throughout history absorb us into thinking about what sort of ideas and styles we feel most comfortable with, while at the same time becoming a part of us. In the case of Lovecraft, I think that he was truly afraid that some of the older styles that he had come to love were being threatened by this new movement. So yes I do agree with Lovecraft in the sense that I do not believe that we can truly forget about all the things we have read or learned in the past. He says it perfectly when talking about the table and chairs. I don’t want to figure out a completely brand new way of assembling a table, but I want to take what I already know and make something different or better.

One other tidbit that I found very interesting in my research was a huge critic of Lovecraft in the 1920’s and 1930’s. His name was Edmund Wilson and he was both a critic of writing as well as a man who liked to send out letters. In Lovecraft: A Symposium, the men that are discussing Lovecraft at a Los Angeles convention mentioned that Edmund Wilson was a critic of Lovecraft as well as criticizing the people who followed and developed the Cthulu Mythos after Lovecraft’s untimely death (Leiber et al., 14). Edmund Wilson called these people “a bunch of cultists” (Leiber et al., 14). After doing a bit of basic research on who Edmund Wilson truly was, I found the people he liked as well as the people that he hated. The list seemed to heavily favor the Modernists such as Joyce, Wallace Stevens, and Eliot, while at the other end of the spectrum included Lovecraft and Tolkien. I found this to be extremely typical. I believe that Wilson was wrapped up in this new Modern movement, and those who opposed it threatened it. In the case of Lovecraft and Tolkien; however, I feel like they can also be put into the category of Modernism. I think that they both did a lot to further advance their respective genres (Horror/Sci-Fi/Fantasy). Tolkien created a perfectly constructed world while Lovecraft dabbled in the ideas of space and outsiders coming to Earth. This was so new in a time where space was becoming more and more exciting to people. I don’t believe that fiction saw a better pioneer of a space/ questioning what’s out there genre until Arthur C. Clarke. However, I digress.

Later on in that conversation, one of the men also said the following, “I think he [Lovecraft] knew probably as much about Marcel Proust and a few other contemporary writers as Wilson did-although he didn’t reveal it in his weird fiction” (Leiber et al., 15). So what do you all think? Do you believe that Lovecraft would have read more contemporary stuff and just refused to acknowledge it? Or did he just plain refuse it?

Aaron Hunt

Aaron, I do think Lovecraft’s home life lead to themes in his writing.  The similarities in dark childhood may be why Lovecraft was so attracted to Poe’s writing.  He connected to that darkness.  Things didn’t ever really look up for either of them.  The authors both lived poor, grief-stricken lives.  They suffered early parental loss.  Neither gained the appreciation they deserved until after they were dead.  I could see how this would kill self-identity and confidence in talent.  It only makes sense that they use pseudonyms (Jacob mentioned earlier that Lovecraft’s poetry took heat) and their respective literatures reflect the darkness of their experiences.

Aimee, I do agree with you when you say “people find interests outside of their backgrounds because it is new and exciting and FOREIGN to them.”  It’s exoticism.  People really do tend to find charm in what’s foreign to them.

Lovecraft was definitely overgeneralizing according to his own views.  However, it is my belief that what’s strongest, is the familiar.  Our loves blossom from our experiences.  I believe this is why it is common advice in the English Department to write what you know.  It’s sincere.  It’s closest to home.  While it is not true that one cannot appreciate the new and feel excitement in the novelty, I feel they appreciate more the traditions they were raised in.

I also think that this is why Lovecraft disliked modernism so much.  Not just because it was a change that ignores “the modes of expression dictated in other ages by the other modes of life, and exists only to fulfill an utilitarian function” (though he certainly does bring up a good point) but because he was so heavily rooted in classical form.  He spent hours upon hours studying the classics, such as Roman poetry.  He read British romanticism and identified himself as British (though he was born in Rhode Island).  His mother referred to him as “the poet” when he was into these traditions.  These styles were what he was raised in.  They became his tradition.

So when modernism began around 1914, he would have been twenty-four and already raised after neoclassicism and romanticism had been the big literary movements.  In this sense, his reasoning for his extreme distaste in modernism seems comical, as he appreciated Romantic writers—a movement that was new not too long before his time and opened up the doors for wider expression.  This is why I disagree with Lovecraft’s harsh views of the emerging genre.  Modernism, like Romanticism allowed for wider expression.  Language is limited.  Poetry is limited.  But poetry of specific structure and meter and form, like Lovecraft’s sonnets, is even more limited.

Though, as I stated earlier, I agree with him that the known is better than the new.  And the artistic past is better than modernism.  These ideas are more out of my taste; I do not believe that the artistic past is lost with the emergence of the new, and modernism is not a bad thing but a bearer of new and wider ways to express.

C.S.P. 

I’m a bit late to this party, but you touched on a great point, Aaron, about H.P. sticking to his preferred form. It gets a little complex, but the gist is that a quality work is not created solely by the authorial genius. It is instead created in the expanse between reader and writer. In this sense, the reader could be considered just as important as the writer. Yet there are problems with this. On one hand, we have people like Lovecraft, the other, sparkling vampires. Moral of the story - there’s never a parsimonious answer. Read what you can, look for complexity, evaluate, and remain open-minded. Also, be weary of capitalistic exploits - young women are goldmines - a long known marketing fact.

But I digress. C.S.P., you bring up a great point, but I’m still inclined to look deeper geared toward psychology. There has yet to be a person capable of doing something for just the sake of doing it. Poe, as you mentioned, also had a troubled life. None would argue against that, surely. Both men had trouble forming lasting identities thanks to life stressors. Lovecraft’s father suffered from syphilis, for which tertiary symptoms take the form of mental and behavioral abnormality, and later died not long after the turn into the 19 hundreds. It seems more than likely the pseudonyms, while alluring on their own, hint at the greater symptom of insecurity given the extent to which they were used.

And I would agree with the nomdeplume homage to Poe.

Advancing in the discussion, this passage from Marginalia, as well as the first quote Aimee brings, up is quite a great contradiction within H.P.’s overarching ideology. It’s a bit tough to hammer out, but his thoughts about the familiar ring nearly one to one to Shklovsky’s defamiliarization coined in 1917. This puts both men working in great temporal proximity. Basically defined, defamilarization is a literary technique of displaying a familiar object in an unfamiliar or strange fashion giving us a new perspective. This is one of the most important tools of none other than postmodernist writers. In this respect, Lovecraft can be considered both Romantic and Postmodern! What delightful irony. Lovecraft was before his time and after it.

I almost wholly agree with H.P.’s idea of inheritance. Removed slightly, it is the environment which guides our interests, both past and present, both environment and interest. Trying to rebut this, is it possible to take interest in something you’re not aware of, to know something unknown? Environment does not imply immediate surroundings. In Lovecraft’s time, there was no internet, no instant access to other cultures. In his time, to foster this interest, one would need a catalyst and then make the necessary cognitive connections to form a full interest resulting in behavioral activation taking the form of increased exposure and consumption - to call this “choice” is a bit too limited. But, in other words, the more you select the things around you and expose yourself to them, the more you like them. Who knew - H.P. was a secret psychologist. Furthermore, this is not limited to physical objects. Ideas work in this very same fashion guiding our behavior and openness to previously unknown things both concrete and abstract. My Freudy senses are tingling. And in this, the subjective well-being also has an affect, as it is also part of one’s environment. I, and modern psychology, would have to disagree with Aimee about Lovecraft’s “ignorance.” While it is possible and natural for one to crave self-expansion, the history of the human species does not agree on the average this would arise spontaneously on its own. While this does not imply determinism in any of its sophmoric, hindsight forms, it simply is more likely for outside forces as the lynchpin in a person developing an interest or thirst for knowledge. It is then after this thirst is generated one imbibes fervently, but the person is still needed to gather these experiences into one single body. In other words, it’s a person by situation interaction, and trying to say it’s just the external situation or the specific person is far too limited in scope. More so still, this also explains why people prefer to limit their surroundings. To keep it simple, if they learn new things are scary or what negatively will you, the result will follow the same pattern. This best sums the majority of human endeavor over the last several thousand years perhaps coming toward an end in the recent century or so. All of this is something H.P. struggled with. I can’t recall the section, but H.P. feared, or at least was skeptical of, a scientific world. His writing is a great indicator of this. This is yet another thing leading me view Lovecraft as an unaware postmodernist. All his sentiments were echoed in later decades. Eventually, the “is” modernism staked so tirelessly fell because there is always multiple angles to view something and there is no single answer we are likely to find in anything.

Jacob Schnormeier

Marginalia

First off, I would like to say that I got a real hoot out of reading this essay.  I do not know why, but I found it rather amusing to read Lovecraft’s rants about why he detests modernism.  The first couple of pages of his essay are what really intrigued me the most.  Lovecraft argues that “an new form or conception is, in our emotions, almost absolutely meaningless to us unless it can be associated with the chance background behind our individual lives- the background of usages, typical objects, habitual feelings, accustomed sights, ostensible goals, and quasi-instinctive criteria” (Marginalia, 161). People cannot have new interests that spark their curiosity unless those interests come from their background.  In a sense he is saying that our upbringing is where our interests lie. 

In another passage he continues his argument by saying that American’s cannot appreciate Chinese music because “they have not inherited the ideas and customs  nor shared experiences of the Chinese people (Marginalia, 162).  All I can say is that I completely disagree with Lovecraft’s argument.  My background and upbringing has in no way molded my interests.  I have interests in things that in no way is related to my background. For example Chinese Music! “If we have no personal associations with a set of sounds, they will remain merely a set of sounds…”(Marginalia, 162). This section made me scoff at Lovecraft’s ignorance.  I am not Chinese, but I have always had an interest in China (my family has not) I have come to love music and everything I have learned about China from my research and unobtainable thirst for wanting to know everything I can.  I have even become a Chinese Minor because of my fascination of the Culture and it’s language.  He says that Americans cannot appreciate Chinese music because we have not inherited their ideas and customs; I disagree.  I think that people find interests outside of their backgrounds because it is new and exciting and FOREIGN to them.  

It can be seen that I obviously do not agree with Lovecraft on some of his ideas, but when he talks about Modernism in Literature, I cannot help but agree with him somewhat. This might be because I too am more fond of the traditional form of poetry.  But I do not agree with him saying that modernistic theories at that point in time were serious threats to the artistic life of the western world.  Something new is always going to pop up in literature whether it is a new form or something completely different that people do not like.  He mentions T.S Eliot’s “The Waste Land” and it is clear that he was not a fan of it. Eliot’s poem was one of the first of the modernism movement in the early 20th century because he completely changed poetry.  He uses multiple voices, multiple languages and free verse in the poem which was unheard of at the time.  Eliot’s use of many voices is a great example.  Instead of the regular one voice, he uses multiple voices creating monologues, dialogues, or has more than two characters speaking with each other.   Also, the structure of the poem is very disjointed which is something that Lovecraft would detest.  Lovecraft loves using form that has set rules like the sonnet, which has 14 lines, a set rhyme scheme and a syllable count per line.  Eliot disregards all of this by having different amounts of lines per stanza and he uses free verse meaning there is no rhyme and he certainly does not have set amount of syllables, giving Lovecraft a perfect reason to hate modernism. 

Enough with my long rant, what did everyone else think about the essay and Lovecraft’s view on Modernism?

Aimee Jones