H. P. Lovecraft's Concept of Horror

Copyright 218 by Gary L. Pullman

In The AnnotatedH. P. Lovecraft, editor Leslie S. Klinger presents H. P. Lovecraft's account of his concept of the modern horror story. In such fiction, Lovecraft believed that neither a story's characters nor its plot (the two elements identified by Aristotle as being the most important components of drama and, by extension, narrative fiction) was the most significant or defining attribute of this type of fiction. Instead, supernatural (or, we might add today, paranormal) “phenomena are more important in conveying what is to be conveyed,” which is the thrill of “some violation or transcending of fixed cosmic law” by which readers enjoy “an imaginative escape from palling reality." 

Mundane life, he implies, has the effect of dulling the senses, but a story's presentation of supernatural phenomena awaken them, seeming to heighten reality and to give presence to a world wherein ordinary existence is so taken for granted as to be virtually unnoticed. Therefore, “phenomena rather than persons are the logical “heroes” of weird fiction.

If the description of such phenomena are necessary to horror stories, so are “original” horrors, Lovecraft argues, as “the use of common myths and legends [are] a weakening influence.” (Pointing at “Morella” or “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe might disagree, suggesting that it is the novel approach one adopts in using such materials that gives one's work originality.)

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Although Lovecraft's fiction was not initially well received by writers and critics, more recent authors, if not critics, have welcomed his work. According to Stephen King, Lovecraft's writings have influenced such diverse authors as Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch, William Hope Hodgson, Fritz Leiber, Jr., Harlan Ellison, Jonathan Kellerman, Peter Straub, Charles Willeford, Poppy Z. Brite, James Chumley, John D. MacDonald, Michael Chabon, Ramsey Campbell, Joyce Carol Oates, Kingsley Amis, Neil Gaiman, Flannery O'Connor, and Tennessee Williams—and “this is just where the list starts, mind you,” King claims.