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The Cosmic Connection: From Gothic to Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1945, p. 17) regarded 'the horror-tale [to be] as old as
human thought and speech themselves'. Yet in the early twentieth century, Lovecraft
developed a new literary form known as cosmic horror. Nevertheless, Lovecraft
employed many of the conventions of gothic horror, a literary form that was popular
in the late Victorian era. To analyse the extent that cosmic horror borrows from the
conventions of gothic horror, this essay compares Lovecrafts cosmic horror works
with Bram Stokers (1914) The Squaw and Edgar Allan Poes (1845) The Black Cat.
The essay argues that Lovecraft not only borrowed heavily from the conventions of
gothic horror, but that cosmic horror may be considered a subgenre of gothic horror.
In his Notes on Writing Weird Fiction, Lovecraft (1933, p. 1) stated that:
One of my strongest and most persistent wishes [was] to achieve,
momentarily, the illusion of some strange suspension or violation of the
galling limitations of time, space, and natural law.
The idea that humankind is insignificant in the greater scheme of things is a
distinctive feature of Lovecrafts work and it is also the main difference between
cosmic horror and gothic horror. Lovecrafts writings were evidently influenced by
many gothic horror authors, including Edgar Allan Poe (J oshi, 2001, pp. 24). Whereas
Halberstam (1995, p. 2) suggests that gothic [horror]... may be loosely defined as the
rhetorical style and narrative structure designed to produce fear and desire within the
reader, Miville (2009) attracted much criticism by attempting to redefine gothic
horror and cosmicism (otherwise known as cosmic horror) by claiming they are
'intertwined'. However, determining the extent that the genres are intertwined requires
an appropriate understanding of the relevant conventions.
According to Williams (1995, pp. 12-14), simply selecting a few conventions of 'the
Gothic tradition' and applying these in an analysis of another piece of literature may
limit or even ignore the various interpretations of what it means to be 'Gothic'.
Nonetheless, it is difficult to define 'the Gothic tradition' as the concept remains
elusive. Indeed, Stewart (cited in Williams, 1995, p. 14) stated that it cannot be
accurately defined, 'but I know it when I see it'. However, a comparison enables one
to see the conventions more clearly. For example, one of Lovecrafts (1921) earlier
narratives, The Music of Eric Zann, incorporates many of the literary conventions
present in Bram Stokers (1914) gothic horror, The Squaw.
In comparison, there are only two differences in the use of gothic conventions. First,
the use of the supernatural is employed in Lovecrafts text as the illimitable
blackness of space and the music played by the character of Eric Zann. Stoker,
however, demonstrates an exaggeration of reality in the personified actions of a
grieving cat. Second, both exhibit a common desire for the unknown through
curiosity. Although both narratives clearly demonstrate fear, the type of fear that is
conveyed to the reader is very different. The fear created in The Squaw is one of
horror, but it is fear for the life of a character in the story. While the fear created in
The Music of Eric Zann is also one of horror, it is not fear for the life of a character,
but of cosmicism: it is a fear of the incomprehensible and the unknown.
Similarly, Edgar Allan Poes (1945) The Black Cat exemplifies a psychological
disintegration of the protagonist which creates an opportunity to integrate the
supernatural into a believable gothic narrative. Poe directly questions the
protagonists mentality at the beginning of the story in an attempt to rationalise the
supernatural event around which the plot is focused. The supernatural element of the
narrative creates the horror, which is paralleled in much Lovecraftian horror. For
example, in Lovecrafts (1917) short story Dagon, the protagonist is driven to insanity
because of a supernatural force and misuse of narcotics, which is similar to the events
of Poes The Black Cat: both protagonists are driven to insanity because of a
combination of the supernatural element and drug abuse.
However, because the reader is able to question the mentality of the protagonist in
both stories, fear cannot be produced from the supernatural element. Therefore, the
element of fear arises from within the reader, by forcing them to question their own
integrity, for instance by asking oneself how would I react in a similar situation? As
the key literary conventions of these two narratives are the same, Halberstams (1995,
p. 2) definition of gothic horror applies to both. Further, Geary (1992, p. i) suggests
that differences from one writer to the next could profitably be understood as a series
of experiments in an effort to integrate the supernatural into a believable narrative
setting. Lovecraft appears to have used this approach by integrating the conventions
of gothic horror into his cosmic horror while incorporating gothics audience response
technique.
Although Lovecraft was known to have admired Edgar Allen Poes writing, he also
shared a kinship with Hawthorne and Melville in establishing the tradition that
gazed into New Englands soul and found only blackness within (Ringel, 1994, pp.
45). Nevertheless, the relationship between Lovecraft and writers of gothic fiction in
the late twentieth century is still differentiated by the key convention of cosmic
horror: the fear created by humankinds insignificance. This convention is clearly not
part of the gothic horror tradition, yet cosmic horror displays all of the conventions of
gothic horror. Logically, cosmic horror not only borrows heavily from the
conventions of gothic horror, but it may be regarded as a sub-genre, or at the very
least, an extension, of gothic horror in the tradition of Bram Stoker and Edgar Allan
Poe.


References

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