Blogpost 5: Cosmic Horror: The Ultimate Horror

Here is a quote that came from a book entitled "Supernatural Horror in Literature" written by H.P Lovecraft himself in the site I found "www.hplovecraft.com".

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”

The work of Lovecraft display different ideas about the supernatural entity and universal elements. It basically tells the readers that imagination is a definite requirement to comprehend his spectral art. Even though his works are sophisticated, with the right attitude and optimism, you can absorb every rich detail and unexpected horror from it. I myself have tried viewing his literary works. It was very difficult to understand at first but just like what Lovecraft said, a bit of optimism and imagination would do to uplift the reader, then all my struggles were gone.

Here is another idea from the same article:

"The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from everyday life. 

 Like what I mentioned, it takes a certain level of comprehention to fully perceive his "out of the world" ideas. Through his clever works, he can pierce and distort the mind of the audience to inject a necronomical phenomena. It is natural for us to fear the unknown yet it is "unknown". Why? Because we have this added curiosity and tendency to produce evil, disturbing emotions and thoughts, maybe because of our evil nature. Kids will always be afraid of the dark, men will always panic upon what the future has mysteriously stored for them.

To tell you a bit about Lovecraft, his full name is Howard Philip Lovecraft. Based on an article entitled "Things We Were Not Meant To Now" by Mack Knopf I found at "www.strangehorizons.com".

According to the article, Lovecraft died in poverty at the age of 47. His works were no longer in print. Scorned by most magazines, he sold almost exclusively to Weird Tales. Only one story of his, "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," was published in book form in his lifetime, and it was a miserable failure, riddled with publisher's errors. Of the four hundred copies printed, only two hundred were actually bound; if you had a copy of the book now, it would be quite the collector's piece. By 1937, he had written no known original fiction in a year, supporting himself on ghostwriting and textbook work. His last words were "I am providence."

Though he died poor and all, He was recognized as one of the most diverse writers of all time. Nowadays, we remember him as the greatest creator of "Cosmic Horror" also known as Lovecraftian horror, which will be the main focus of this post. Let's expand on it.
I found this in the same book entitled "Supernatural Horror in Literature" by H.P Lovecraft in the site "Yankee Classic" and it will be the most precise definition of what cosmic horror is.

This type of fear-literature must not be confounded with a type externally similar but psychologically widely different; the literature of mere physical fear and the mundanely gruesome.

To elaborate, cosmic horror is a weird fiction that combines supernatural, eccentric, primitive, cultural, and erotic concepts with a bit of quantum physics and unholy dimensions. An aesthetic wonderland for a writer like me. "Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large." -- just as Lovecraft said. It brings us a horizon of horror, indeed. It takes aways every comfort and replaces it with madness and terror. The unnatural is much more significant than humans itself. In this vein, how did he portray man? His characters fall into two major types, the ignorant masses and the knowing few. This is elitist, but Love- craft's overall view of man is as a miniscule, pathetic failure. The difference between the ignorant and the knowing is not one which can save the latter. His characters are almost always male too. This reveals something about his psychology – he was extremely antisexual. If one views man as essentially a failure, one won't have too high a view of human pleasure. But Lovecraft goes further than this. He eliminated it from his universe, both in his life and in his art. Such a profound break with pleasure indicates how deep his tragic view of man was. Knowledge, in his world, means despair and doom.

 

So how would we know if a story is cosmic horror? I collected some data from an article entitled "Lovecraft: Nobody Expects Anything Of A Letter" by Brian Clark in the site "Schmeldritch".

According to the article, a Cosmic Horror Story doesn't just scare you with big, ugly monsters it can depress you with the fatal implication of being powerless before such vast, unknown and fundamentally alien entities. It sometimes lies near the cynical Despair Event Horizon. If you aren't sure if a work is a Cosmic Horror Story or not, ask yourself these questions:

• Is the antagonist evil or uncaring on a cosmic scale? We're talking a Big Bad who is capable of destroying humanity, planet Earth, the universe, or all three and doing so with very little or no preparation and/or intent, and with about as much effort as it takes to swat a mosquito that's landed on your arm.

• Is the attitude of the antagonist towards humanity disregard, simple pragmatism, or incidental hatred? (A godlike antagonist that actively hates humanity and its works is more in line with Rage Against the Heavens or God Is Evil.) Does the antagonist have a worldview and motivations that doesn't really seem to take humanity into account? Are the motivations of the antagonist difficult to explain using human terms?

• Are the antagonist or its minions so alien in appearance or mentality that simply being near them or seeing them is sufficient to drive a human to madness?

• Are the antagonist or its minions indescribable -- literally? Lines like "I cannot find the words to describe the vile thing I saw..." are a hallmark of Cosmic Horror Stories.

• Is the tone of the work deeply pessimistic about the possibility of the antagonist being defeated completely? If it isn't, the work is more likely to be Lovecraft Lite. 

So this are the primary requirements of a cosmic horror. Nevertheless, cosmic horror continues to influence every horror writer and director today especially to their audience. Who knows? You might encounter something unnatural these days, beware.