H.P. Lovecraft is one of my son's favorites. Even as a young kid, he loved horror stories. (We read so many Goosebumps!) I had not heard of him until my son introduced me to him. It's not my favorite genre, but I'm glad it exists for readers like my son.
The opening claim is the one worth arguing about. Horror as the most moral genre because only a moral instinct can be horrified. It sounds paradoxical until you sit with it. Lovecraft understood this better than most: his narrators aren't frightened by evil. They're frightened by indifference. Which is worse.
Super interesting read! I want to gently push back on the first part of the claim here — that “horror is the most moral of literary genres” because “something can only horrify by arousing a moral instinct, and only by knowing what is good can you recognize what is evil.”
I agree that horror makes morality visceral, but I’m not sure that makes it uniquely moral. Any moving piece of art can activate moral instincts — anger at Snape’s cruelty toward Harry, grief or disgust at betrayal in spy thrillers like Slow Horses, discomfort at injustice in tragedies or love stories. Even sarcasm or comedy often works because we recognize some unsaid tension, contradiction, or moral dilemma beneath the laugh.
Horror may heighten moral recognition by evoking fear and violation — sometimes even activating fight-or-flight, but I’m not sure it has a monopoly on it.
I listened to the audiobook version of The Call of Cthulhu, it was great, but not exactly what I was expecting. I didn't know about Lovecraft's style before going into it. The children's author Lemony Snicket reminds me of Lovecraft's ambiguous, yet dramatized and tension-building horror. The dread in Snicket's stories is akin to the dread and sheer anticipation of something terrible in Lovecraft's stories.
I’ll have to push back on the benefits of Lovecraft, especially when making the claim that horror is the most moral of genres. I view his work as being post-modern, erasing objective morals from existence. Didn’t he hold severe disdain for religion and any belief in God? Wasn’t he a nihilist? Then mix in racist and antisemitic tropes. No wonder his wrk is so scary…….godless despair. I may have to tackle him with an article eventually. Nevertheless, thanks for the article!
I totally agree with the appeal of diving into Lovecraft. But maybe what makes his brand of cosmic horror so deeply unsettling isn't just the tentacles or the ancient gods; it is the ultimate confrontation with our own limits.
Our modern world is driven by the shadow of a metaphysical ego and will—we constantly try to convince ourselves that we are the masters of our reality and that human problems are at the absolute center of the universe. Lovecraft violently strips all of that away. His characters are forced to realize that humanity is just thrown into a vast, indifferent cosmos that we didn't choose and cannot possibly comprehend.
The madness his characters experience is exactly what happens when the ego meets a limit it cannot negotiate with or control. It is the terrifying reminder of our finitude—that we are, in the most ancient sense of the word, merely mortals. But there is a strange existential humility hidden inside that horror, isn't there? Once the illusion of our own grand importance is shattered, we are left to simply face the overwhelming reality of what is out there, completely beyond us.
The gothic horror of Poe made horror personal and almost ordinary. Lovecraft's cosmic horror reflected the ongoing discoveries about the vastness of the universe and our shrinking place within it. I'm a way, it helped shape and define an era - and has left a long lasting impression.
I picked up the Dunwich Horror a few years back, having never read Lovecraft and I can say it is one of the stories I think about often.
Lovecraft’s style of writing felt easy to read, I could imagine the scenes vividly and feel the intense dread of his characters. I’m gonna have to pick these up now, thanks for the suggestion as always!
H.P. Lovecraft is one of my son's favorites. Even as a young kid, he loved horror stories. (We read so many Goosebumps!) I had not heard of him until my son introduced me to him. It's not my favorite genre, but I'm glad it exists for readers like my son.
The opening claim is the one worth arguing about. Horror as the most moral genre because only a moral instinct can be horrified. It sounds paradoxical until you sit with it. Lovecraft understood this better than most: his narrators aren't frightened by evil. They're frightened by indifference. Which is worse.
Super interesting read! I want to gently push back on the first part of the claim here — that “horror is the most moral of literary genres” because “something can only horrify by arousing a moral instinct, and only by knowing what is good can you recognize what is evil.”
I agree that horror makes morality visceral, but I’m not sure that makes it uniquely moral. Any moving piece of art can activate moral instincts — anger at Snape’s cruelty toward Harry, grief or disgust at betrayal in spy thrillers like Slow Horses, discomfort at injustice in tragedies or love stories. Even sarcasm or comedy often works because we recognize some unsaid tension, contradiction, or moral dilemma beneath the laugh.
Horror may heighten moral recognition by evoking fear and violation — sometimes even activating fight-or-flight, but I’m not sure it has a monopoly on it.
I listened to the audiobook version of The Call of Cthulhu, it was great, but not exactly what I was expecting. I didn't know about Lovecraft's style before going into it. The children's author Lemony Snicket reminds me of Lovecraft's ambiguous, yet dramatized and tension-building horror. The dread in Snicket's stories is akin to the dread and sheer anticipation of something terrible in Lovecraft's stories.
I’ll have to push back on the benefits of Lovecraft, especially when making the claim that horror is the most moral of genres. I view his work as being post-modern, erasing objective morals from existence. Didn’t he hold severe disdain for religion and any belief in God? Wasn’t he a nihilist? Then mix in racist and antisemitic tropes. No wonder his wrk is so scary…….godless despair. I may have to tackle him with an article eventually. Nevertheless, thanks for the article!
I totally agree with the appeal of diving into Lovecraft. But maybe what makes his brand of cosmic horror so deeply unsettling isn't just the tentacles or the ancient gods; it is the ultimate confrontation with our own limits.
Our modern world is driven by the shadow of a metaphysical ego and will—we constantly try to convince ourselves that we are the masters of our reality and that human problems are at the absolute center of the universe. Lovecraft violently strips all of that away. His characters are forced to realize that humanity is just thrown into a vast, indifferent cosmos that we didn't choose and cannot possibly comprehend.
The madness his characters experience is exactly what happens when the ego meets a limit it cannot negotiate with or control. It is the terrifying reminder of our finitude—that we are, in the most ancient sense of the word, merely mortals. But there is a strange existential humility hidden inside that horror, isn't there? Once the illusion of our own grand importance is shattered, we are left to simply face the overwhelming reality of what is out there, completely beyond us.
The gothic horror of Poe made horror personal and almost ordinary. Lovecraft's cosmic horror reflected the ongoing discoveries about the vastness of the universe and our shrinking place within it. I'm a way, it helped shape and define an era - and has left a long lasting impression.
I picked up the Dunwich Horror a few years back, having never read Lovecraft and I can say it is one of the stories I think about often.
Lovecraft’s style of writing felt easy to read, I could imagine the scenes vividly and feel the intense dread of his characters. I’m gonna have to pick these up now, thanks for the suggestion as always!