THE DEEP ONES: "Supernatural Horror in Literature" by H.P. Lovecraft

"Supernatural Horror in Literature" by H.P. Lovecraft

Discussion begins April 25th

First published in The Recluse (1927)



ONLINE VERSIONS

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Supernatural_Horror_in_Literature (has hyperlinks to the Wikipedia arcticles for most of the authors and works discussed in SHiL)

http://www.donaldcorrell.com/road/hpl/superhor.html (not just the entire text of SHiL, but they have links to the full texts of almost every work mentioned in the essay, in addition to links to author pages where you can finds links to the texts of works by that author cited in SHiL, in addition to links to texts of works by the author not mentioned in the essay)

Thanks to Art for the links and the helpful notes.

PRINT VERSIONS

Supernatural Horror in Literature
The World's Greatest Horror Stories
The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature
Dagon and Other Macabre Tales

MISCELLANY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural_Horror_in_Literature
http://www.tabula-rasa.info/DarkAges/Timeline1.html
http://www.tabula-rasa.info/DarkAges/Timeline2.html

I'll be reading this out of H.P. Lovecraft: The Fiction (a bit of a misnomer considering it also contains SHiL; I guess Barnes & Noble thought that H. P. Lovecraft: The Fiction and Supernatural Horror in Literature was something of a mouthful).

I've got it in Dagon and Other Macabre Tales.

>1 gwendetenebre:

The World's Greatest Horror Stories

This appears to be in the "let's take a bunch of HPL's favorite weird/horror tales and put them together in one volume" subset of horror fiction anthologies which seems to have developed into its own small industry over the course of the last 10 or 15 years.

>4 artturnerjr:

Yeah, and since so many of those stories are public domain, it's relatively easy to put together a collection. It just comes down to who's involved and which publisher, as witness the just-published The Ghost of Fear.

I'm not complaining about the trend, incidentally - I'd much rather see another volume of HPL's favorite horror stories out there than a volume of, say, Stephenie Meyer's, y'know? :D

I appear to have chosen an interesting edition to read. In his "Note on the Texts," Joshi cops to having corrected various quotations of other authors and errors of fact made by HPL. And the text itself is a synthesis of the various editions published during Lovecraft's lifetime, since no AMS survives, and the revision process was "complicated and not yet entirely elucidated" (xi).

>7 paradoxosalpha:

I wonder how the text in that edition compares to the one in The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature?

I know, from recently reading Lovecraft's Letters to James F. Morton, he did not read the full version of Melmoth the Wanderer before writing this essay. I'll have to give a look through the 1927 letters I have to come across any other mention of famous horror or weird stories he was not able to get a copy of before writing Supernatural Horror in Literature.

I haven't seen Joshi's annotated version, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if he didn't note any other instances of this.

>1 gwendetenebre:

http://www.tabula-rasa.info/

Cool site! How'd you find it?

>10 artturnerjr:

Stumbled upon it. I was Googling about looking for a kind of more updated "history of horror" to parallel SHiL and found this list. Fairly intriguing for this kind of thing, isn't it?

It's interesting that HPL dishes out fairly severe criticism for
most other horror writers, including most of the classics,
and praises Clark Ashton Smith unreservedly. His praise seems more than friendship. I sense real admiration from
HPL towards Smith's writing. High praise indeed.

>11 gwendetenebre:

Fairly intriguing for this kind of thing, isn't it?

Yes indeed. Looks like hours of fun. 8)

In the intro for SHiL in H.P. Lovecraft: The Fiction (mentioned above), Joshi writes that The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature is "the first textually sound" edition of SHiL. The question that remains is what exactly S.T. considers "textually sound"; perhaps I'll e-mail him and see (this will no doubt eliciting an angry response of "Can't you pesky Weird Tradition kids just leave me alone?!?" :D )

>13 artturnerjr:

There is a part 3 also, which I didn't include here because it doesn't concern the SHiL authors at all. Damn! I'm ready to start this discussion now - gotta hold back! :)

>12 tros:

Oh yeah. The first correspondence between HPL and CAS was a fan letter the former wrote to the latter. People always assume that CAS was the acolyte and HPL was the leader; if anything, the reverse was true.

SHiL sounds like HPL is nominating CAS for the great horror writer of the 20th c. I'd second that!

>9 RandyStafford:

Joshi states in the intro to The Ghost of Fear that "Because of his extreme poverty - and, perhaps more significantly, because some now classic works of weird fiction had become very difficult to access by the early twentieth century - Lovecraft was forced to rely on public libraries or the generosity of friends in order to sample the weird literature of the previous century and a half. Even when he began writing "Supernatural Horror in Literature" in November 1925 he had not read many of the standard classics. In fact, he never read the whole of Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) instead having to rely on two anthologies that presented extracts from that novel."

"Supernatural Horror in Literature" is a pure pleasure to read. The chapter on Poe is so perceptive that even in its brevity, it's one of the best pieces I've ever read on the author, period:

These bizarre conceptions, so awkward in unskillful hands, become under Poe's spell living and convincing terrors to haunt our nights; and all because the author understood so perfectly the very mechanics and physiology of fear and strangeness -- the essential details to emphasise, the precise incongruities and conceits to select as preliminaries or concomitants to horror, the exact incidents and allusions to throw out innocently in advance as symbols or prefigurings of each major step toward the hideous dénouement to come, the nice adjustments of cumulative force and the unerring accuracy in linkage of parts which make for faultless unity throughout and thunderous effectiveness at the climactic moment, the delicate nuances of scenic and landscape value to select in establishing and sustaining the desired mood and vitalising the desired illusion -- principles of this kind, and dozens of obscurer ones too elusive to be described or even fully comprehended by any ordinary commentator.

> 18

And yet Smith doesn't make the "short list" at the end -- being left out of the company of Machen, Dunsany, James, and Blackwood.

>21 paradoxosalpha:

Good point, and another example of why SHiL is so damned good. HPL is entirely level-headed and doesn't let favoritism come into play.

At both the outset and the conclusion, HPL declares that the audience for supernatural horror is inevitably a narrow minority of sensitive minds. I wonder what he would make of the broad appeal of horror cinema?

I was intrigued by his constant placement of scare quotes around the term "occultism." Was this word (less than a century old at the time) just too newfangled for Grandpa? His derision of occultist jargon in supernatural horror is well-founded, but he dismisses the fiction written by occultists too lightly, I think. HPL seems unaware that even Machen (and moreso Yeats) had been schooled in modern occultism.

>23 paradoxosalpha:

Which "occultists" do you think he dismisses? I imagine that any such dissing would naturally be hinged on his hardcore-science approach. Of course, horror fanzines, such as they were, were really in their infancy (if not prenatal stage) during HPL's time, and he also couldn't exactly Google "Arthur Machen". Any biographical information on the authors he discusses must have come from biographies (a couple on Poe, certainly, but Blackwood or Machen?) or the introductions to works by the authors. How could he have known, in other words?

I wonder what he would make of the broad appeal of horror cinema?

I think that now, just as back in HPL's day, he would have derided horror cinema in general, regardless of its popularity, while maintaining that there is a hidden stream of aesthetically appealing cosmic horror fiction available for the sensitive minority who know their Machen from their Koontz (hey - that's us!). In other words, the sheer plethora of horror "stuff" out there can only be successfully navigated by the enlightened, sensitive minds of a specially educated minority (but not an elite, since anyone can join).

I like how HPL resolves this kind of occult vs. science/wheat from the chaff issue.

Startling mutations, however, are not to be looked for in either direction. In any case an approximate balance of tendencies will continue to exist; and while we may justly expect a further subtilisation of technique, we have no reason to think that the general position of the spectral in literature will be altered. It is a narrow though essential branch of human expression, and will chiefly appeal as always to a limited audience with keen special sensibilities. Whatever universal masterpiece of tomorrow may be wrought from phantasm or terror will owe its acceptance rather to a supreme workmanship than to a sympathetic theme. Yet who shall declare the dark theme a positive handicap? Radiant with beauty, the Cup of the Ptolemies was carven of onyx.

Have there been any "startling mutations" since SHiL? Also, those last two sentences are gorgeous.

>24 gwendetenebre: Which "occultists" do you think he dismisses?

He dismisses the fiction written by "occultists" (let's do keep using his quote marks!) categorically, so that would be all of them. If he hadn't read any of their writing, so much the worse for his passing judgment on them.

As it happens, most "occultists" of any significance have tried their hands at supernatural horror, with varying results. H.P. Blavatsky wrote quite a few short stories in the genre, though I've only read "The Ensouled Violin." Aleister Crowley's weird fiction is wide-ranging. The Symbolists, to whom HPL gives props, were largely involved in the occultism of their sphere. As I already mentioned, Yeats and Machen were both traditional "occultists" (to use one of HPL's phrases of disapprobation), although not professional ones (his other).

And this relationship between weird fiction and "occultism" has always been a two-way street. Bulwer-Lytton's Zanoni and Balzac's Seraphita were cornerstone texts for 19th-century "occultists." In an even more poignant "What would he think of today's ...?" question, I note that there are now entire schools of practical "occultism" that ground themselves in HPL's own fiction! How dismayed (?) would he have been to find people sincerely practicing rituals of out paperback Necronomicons!

> not an elite, since anyone can join

I think what he's describing is an elite, for which not everyone is fitted. I don't see any trace of your egalitarian sentiment in the essay.

>25 paradoxosalpha:

Ah, those "occultists"! ;) I thought you had Crowley in mind, at least. Did HPL have any opinion on him that we can find? I think if he had known about the mass-market Necronomicon books and the late 20th century evolution of a magickally-enhanced Lovecraft, his rage would have been... cosmic in proportion!

I don't see any trace of your egalitarian sentiment in the essay.

I wasn't referring to HPL's essay (which may well have been describing an elite back when it was written, as you say), just the likes of this very discussion group in contemporary times, where esoteric knowledge or "sensitivity" isn't a prerequisite (but it helps).

> 26 Did HPL have any opinion on him that we can find?

Yes: "What a queer duck!"

See our prior discussion of a postcard to CAS in which HPL mentions Crowley as the model for one of Wakefield's characters. HPL and Crowley both lived in New York at the same time, although most certainly ignorant of each other then. Still, it creates grist for fictional mills like The Arcanum (see my review).

>27 paradoxosalpha:

Ah, the postcard! Thanks for reminding me!

>21 paradoxosalpha:+
His derision of occultist jargon in supernatural horror is well-founded, but he dismisses the fiction written by occultists too lightly, I think. HPL seems unaware that even Machen (and moreso Yeats) had been schooled in modern occultism.

Blackwood too, no? He was a member of the Golden Dawn (along with Machen) and HPL showers praise on him. So I too am confused by Lovecraft's dismissal.

Then again there is this exchange from Blackwood's "Psychical Invasion":

"And what is it makes you think I could be of use in this particular case?" asked Dr John Silence, looking across somewhat sceptically at the Swedish lady in the chair facing him.

"Your sympathetic heart and your knowledge of occultism--"

"Oh please that dreadful word!" he interrupted, holding up a finger with a gesture of impatience.

So there does seem to be something about the word that raises hackles at the time.

>20 gwendetenebre:

"Supernatural Horror in Literature" is a pure pleasure to read.

Agreed. I was pretty amazed at how quickly my re-read went. Clearly a classic in its field - even Edmund Wilson, no HPL fan, found much to admire about it. One thing I most definitely dislike about the essay is the abundance of spoilers, which I find particularly annoying in this context. Let's consider this for a moment, shall we? One would think that one of the primary purposes of an essay like SHiL would be to promote some of the great works of horror literature and to entice his readers to read them, right? Okay, so can someone explain to me why HPL repeatedly does the following?

"This is a great piece of work. Actually, it's one of the best ever written in this genre. In fact, it's so great I am now going to tell you the entire plot of the story, thereby ruining any pleasure you might have gotten from actually reading the thing."

It's extremely aggravating to see one of my favorite authors transformed into the kid behind you in the movie theater who keeps loudly giving away plot points to his girlfriend as the film progresses. :/

>29 lucien:

I'm not to certain that HPL knew very much about the biographical background of some of the newer writers he mentions in the "Weird Tradition" and "Modern Masters" sections, unless he was acquainted them via correspondence. Neither Blackwood nor Machen would fall into this category, although CAS would. Unless Blackwood's Golden Dawn activities somehow made it into the world press, the only way HPL could have known would have been to surmise it somehow from the fiction itself.

>30 artturnerjr:

I think that in SHiL, HPL deliberately concentrates on the literature thematically and stylistically, spoilers be damned. He doesn't give away the endings all the time, however, but enough so that you do make a good point.

HPL actually complains about Blackwood's occasional recourse to occultist jargon. Again, while I will defend occultists as an authorial class against blanket condemnation, I agree with Grandpa that occultist jargon tends to mar weird fiction.

LT member Moomin_Mama has started a list of all the works discussed in Supernatural Horror in Literature here:

http://www.librarything.com/list/886/all/Lovecrafts-Supernatural-Horror-in-Liter...

There's also a thread to discuss the list here:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/160099

SHiL gets its own podcast!

http://www.supernaturalhorrorinliterature.com/