Poe and the American Short Story

Fisher, Benjamin Franklin

doi:10.1002/9781444319910.ch2

Cited by 2 publications

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“…Criticism of the Gothic, and before that romance, genres tended to center upon ‘failure as representations of human life and manners and their lack of moral instruction’ (45) rather than, specifically, the quality of prose although the criticism which Lovecraft enjoyed was not out of place for the genre. Even Poe, in his time, was regarded as low‐fiction, Fisher contends that “many readers presumed that Poe had no originality, and therefore that his fiction was never first rate” (22).…”

Section: Lovecraft’s Prosementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lovecraft, of course, was not the first or the only Gothic author to draw upon scientific discovery as a source of horror. Poe’s works, Fisher contends, referenced evolution in their ‘stories in which human‐animal characteristics are delightfully ambivalent’ (23) and in both Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) and Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein (1823), horror springs from the laboratory. A closer literary ancestor to Lovecraft, Brown, too, drew upon, Punter contends, ‘superstition and its scientific counterparts’ (185).…”

Section: ‘Cosmic Indifferentism’ Madness and Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Re‐visioning Romantic‐Era Gothicism: An Introduction to Key Works and Themes in the Study of H.P. Lovecraft

Smith

2011

Literature Compass

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Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an author, letter writer and poet who lived between 1890 and 1937. His works blend science fiction with Gothic themes. Lovecraft was, by the majority of accounts (including his own), a bad writer. He was also an outspoken racist for the majority of his life to a degree which makes much of his work, to a modern reader, politically grotesque. Despite the above, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Lovecraft’s work can be found in the genealogy of almost all modern science fiction and horror. This essay introduces the major concepts in critical responses to the fictional prose works of H.P. Lovecraft. The author examines the recurring themes of language, genre, literary influences, xenophobia, cosmic indifferentism, dreams, time and the influence of Lovecraft. This essay does not, due to length limitations, seek to be inclusive of all Lovecraft criticism, but instead presents key themes and works. Nor does it address the totality of Lovecraft’s work and focuses, instead on readings of his fictional prose works.

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Section: Lovecraft’s Prosementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: ‘Cosmic Indifferentism’ Madness and Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%