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.
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.
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!
I recently learned of the correspondence between Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the barbarian. You can see a lot of Lovecraft's influence in the Conan stories involving monsters and the supernatural.
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!
The horror of trying and failing to articulate a looming threat to a skeptical and apathetic society invokes the Lovecraftian aesthetic. AI, environmental degradation, plummeting birth rates; obsession with global menaces inspire desperation and madness. Cultic behaviors arise from the atavistic substrate of mystery and conspiracy.
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 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.
Personal favorites from this list are The Rats in the Walls and The Shadow over Innsmouth. Rats is a great delve into the then contemporary history of Lovecraft, his personal beliefs, as well as the focus of his cosmic purview. It’s also contested as to whether or not it should be considered part of his cosmic mythos; as Dr. Dennis Wise writes in his essay “Just like Henry James (Except with
Cannibalism): The International Weird in
H. P. Lovecraft’s
‘The Rats in the Walls’” Rats is “non-cosmic and therefore (for some) not truly ‘Lovecraftian’”.
Innsmouth is one of Lovecraft’s better long form stories. His writing style is a favorite of mine and, understandably, the key dislike of many others. This story captures the atmosphere of the cosmic weird, of the horror in every gossamer thread. There’s also the manga adaptation by Gou Tanabe if anyone’s interested in visualizing what Lovecraft wrote.
The BBC did a great modern day radio play version of The Shadow Over Innsmouth that you can play in headphones and completely sets the mood and setting. Highly recommend it.
I’ve been a Lovecraft fan for years and while you can clearly read racist undertones into his work, he’s never directly racist and it’s more fair to call him a “culturist” (interesting venue for this word to come up...). He didn’t fear races directly but cultures and attitudes he felt were inferior, cultural degradation, contamination, etc. He has stories that feature racial minority characters who are clearly seen as different yet on-par with the educated, proper types of civilizations. And of course he routinely explored ideas of civilisations and cultures far more advanced beyond his own. I don’t think he feared the mixing of cultures or races per se, but the idea of cultural dilution, of a decline back to savagery and animalism that loses all the marking and trappings of a culture itself. Any person of any race seems capable, in his mind, of reducing himself from man to animal. I think that colored a lot of his ideas of horror: losing one’s humanity.
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.
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.
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!
I recently learned of the correspondence between Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the barbarian. You can see a lot of Lovecraft's influence in the Conan stories involving monsters and the supernatural.
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!
The horror of trying and failing to articulate a looming threat to a skeptical and apathetic society invokes the Lovecraftian aesthetic. AI, environmental degradation, plummeting birth rates; obsession with global menaces inspire desperation and madness. Cultic behaviors arise from the atavistic substrate of mystery and conspiracy.
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 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.
Grazie mille. Farò tesoro di questo articolo per riprendere l'enorme libro su tutti i racconti di Lovecraft, ormai pieno di polvere.
Personal favorites from this list are The Rats in the Walls and The Shadow over Innsmouth. Rats is a great delve into the then contemporary history of Lovecraft, his personal beliefs, as well as the focus of his cosmic purview. It’s also contested as to whether or not it should be considered part of his cosmic mythos; as Dr. Dennis Wise writes in his essay “Just like Henry James (Except with
Cannibalism): The International Weird in
H. P. Lovecraft’s
‘The Rats in the Walls’” Rats is “non-cosmic and therefore (for some) not truly ‘Lovecraftian’”.
Innsmouth is one of Lovecraft’s better long form stories. His writing style is a favorite of mine and, understandably, the key dislike of many others. This story captures the atmosphere of the cosmic weird, of the horror in every gossamer thread. There’s also the manga adaptation by Gou Tanabe if anyone’s interested in visualizing what Lovecraft wrote.
The BBC did a great modern day radio play version of The Shadow Over Innsmouth that you can play in headphones and completely sets the mood and setting. Highly recommend it.
I’ve been a Lovecraft fan for years and while you can clearly read racist undertones into his work, he’s never directly racist and it’s more fair to call him a “culturist” (interesting venue for this word to come up...). He didn’t fear races directly but cultures and attitudes he felt were inferior, cultural degradation, contamination, etc. He has stories that feature racial minority characters who are clearly seen as different yet on-par with the educated, proper types of civilizations. And of course he routinely explored ideas of civilisations and cultures far more advanced beyond his own. I don’t think he feared the mixing of cultures or races per se, but the idea of cultural dilution, of a decline back to savagery and animalism that loses all the marking and trappings of a culture itself. Any person of any race seems capable, in his mind, of reducing himself from man to animal. I think that colored a lot of his ideas of horror: losing one’s humanity.
A little Twilight Zone for ya!
#2 and #5 are free at project gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org)
And all stories can be found on The H. P. Lovecraft Archive along with his poems, literary criticisms, and many other works in relation to him
Added to the TBR... you inspired me!
Thank you for this! I've wanted to read Lovecraft, but never knew where to start. Adding these to my reading list!
One of my favourite authors. His universes, Chtulhu, Dagon, the Necronomicon ...
The famous sentence. "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" ("In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.)"
Also, the homage made by Batman's creator, who gave the Gotham madhouse the name Arkham.
Thank you very much.