Cthulhu

A short investigation on the possible roots of the name "Cthulhu", as the most legendary creation of Lovecraft's horror fiction. Also included is an exploration of the astrological and stellar meanings of the "Elder Sign", as designed by Lovecraft himself.

The whole paper is basically an essay about Lovecraft and the concept of Cosmic Horror. There is no abstract since it was part of a series of essays to complete the Master course in Fantasy Literature at the University of Glasgow. I will just update the first paragraphs here below to give an idea of what the paper is about to anybody who would like to read it.


Howard Phillips Lovecraft is one of the most important authors of horror fiction: he, together with Edgar Allan Poe, inspired some of the greatest authors of the genre, including the supreme master of horror: Stephen King . During his life, he mainly owed his fame to his literary activity for the American magazine Weird Tales, and as time went by his writings ended up outlining a real fictional genre with well established features: the weird tale, as he himself defined it.
Weird Tales is one of the many pulp magazines which spread over in America in the early twenties: cheap magazines  which contained stories of various kind, but generally grotesque, fantastic, western and horror. Being a second class magazine, writing for Weird Tales was not regarded as important as writing for other magazines of the time, as for example the tradition-al “slicks”: Smart Set, Atlantic Monthly or Saturday Evening Post (Joshi 1990: 4-5). It was surely more accessible, a place where budding writers could be published more easily. And yet it gave fame to a lot of authors whose works have generated hundreds of adaptations –films, role-play games, board games and videogames– becoming a real mass phenomenon. Not only H. P. Love-craft, then, but also other more fantasy authors, like Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Ervin Howard and Fritz Leiber, who are still today associated with the concept of weird fiction.
The first time Lovecraft mentions the weird tale as a genre is in his essay ‘Supernatural Hor-ror in Literature’ (1927).

The early twentieth-century weird writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft is today best remembered for his genre defining style of academic noir pulp fiction. Yet in focusing on certain tropes of his work, such as the many memorable monsters he created to populate his stories, from the infinite effervescence named Yog-Sothoth to the dreaded cephalopod Cthulhu, scholars have overlooked a deeper terror structuring practically all of his writings, the chillingly resonant fear that, amidst the chaos of globalization, miscegenation, and economic decline, ‘Anglo-Saxon’ civilization would surrender to lesser races. Fundamental to this fear was his understanding of atavism – of evolutionary throwbacks, survivals and regressions – in modern industrial society, and his extraordinary stories were only one expression of a contemporary culture involving eugenicists, political economists, and prominent authors of the Gothic and ‘weird’ traditions between the 1890s and the 1930s. Lovecraft himself in effect penned a number of economic manuscripts on the crisis of the Great Depression, and this article contextualizes his ideas in relation to his wider writings as well as to contemporary traditions of economics and eugenics, drawing a new picture of one of the greatest horror writers of all time.

In this short version of my BA thesis, I investigate how H.P Lovecraft and Kenneth Grant apply strategies to be read as a religious text, based on the theories of Marco Frenschkowski. (This English version was written as a language sample and excludes further contemporary debates in the discussion of fiction-based religion.)

Depuis la fin des années 1930, les mythes contemporains  tels que ceux de Superman ou de Batman fonctionnent sur un même schéma : plusieurs auteurs ont apporté leur vision de ces différents univers et les ont agrémentés au fil des décennies. Cette idée de construction collective d’un même récit n’a pourtant pas été inventé par l’industrie des comics. Des années auparavant, l’écrivain Howard Phillips Lovecraft a créé Le mythe de Cthulhu, un univers de cauchemar régi par une cosmogonie bien particulière et pérennisé par la suite au travers d’œuvres signées August Derleth, Robert E. Howard ou encore Robert Bloch.

En 2016, l’auteur de bandes dessinées Mike Mignola, très influencé par les travaux d’Edgar Allan Poe mais aussi de Lovecraft pour sa série Hellboy , adapte les aventures du justicier de Gotham City à l’univers du Mythe de Cthulhu dans son one-shot The Doom That Came To Gotham . En transposant les personnages créés par Bob Kane dans le monde imaginé par l’homme de Providence, Mignola crée un dialogue entre ces deux mythes, suscitant de ce fait l’interrogation suivante : Les mythes ont-ils des auteurs ?

La principal característica de est e mo vimi e nt o es qu e es estricta m e n t e literario
por volunta d propia de sus autor e s , sin ningun a con n ot a ci ó n co m e r ci al, política, so ci al,
religios a , sexu al, etc., qu e det er mi n e su cre a ci ó n . Es el arte por el arte en una de sus
expr e si o n e s má s sinc er a s y puras; por est o y por la pod er o s a ima gin a ci ó n qu e
de s plie g a se trata de un mo vimi e nt o literario únic o, apr e ci a bl e por sí mis m o y con una
perviv e n ci a as e g ur a d a por es a mis m a funda m e n t a c i ó n artística.
Los Mitos de Cthulhu forma n un conjunt o por la volunta d expr e s a de sus
autor e s de realizar un trab aj o comú n aun q u e no ela b o r ar a n ma nifiest o s ni se reuni er a n
regularm e n t e . La coin cid e n ci a literaria les un e en un esp a ci o de cre a ci ó n col e ctiv o en el
qu e tod o s sigu e n sien d o libres per o en el qu e voluntaria m e n t e utilizan uno s pará m e tr o s
comp a rtid o s . De aquí surg e el gran mérito de los Mitos cthulhunia n o s , al permitir la
aparición de obr a s individual e s g e ni al e s , inclus o dentr o de difer e nt e s estilos, y formar
parte de un mis m o ent orn o cre ativ o.
De la con ci e n ci a co mú n de cre a ci ó n , de la expr e si ó n sinc er a de la
ma nif e st a ci ó n artística, de la profun did a d huma n a de sus reflexion e s , de la
gran di o si d a d y b ellez a de sus imá g e n e s et ern a s se erig e n los Mitos de Cthulhu com o
un mo vimi e nt o literario, al mis m o tiemp o individual y col e ctiv o, qu e mar c a el dev e nir de
la literatura fantástic a en el siglo XX y qu e ap orta una persp e c tiv a singular, brillante e
ima gin ativa a la literatura univ ers al.

A paper written for- and delivered at- the Gothic Realities postgraduate and early-career research symposium at the University of Stirling, October 24-25 2019.

This paper seeks to explore the links between the works of H.P. Lovecraft and British bands Cradle of Filth and Bal-Sagoth, in order to argue that modern metal music is a new and developing form of Gothic textual mode.

This essay seeks to illuminate a fascinating aspect of global popular culture - fandom - by devising an original analytic frame based in Religious Studies which demonstrates that fandoms not only provide their devotees with new mythologies and communities but also succeed in creating subjunctive 'as-if' worlds for their adherents, thus providing a real alternative to traditional religions rather than simply a crude imitation of them. The fandom being examined here is devoted to the Cthulhu Mythos, a series of short interwoven sci-fi horror stories about monstrous alien gods and their dealings with human beings. Born of the pen of pulp author H.P. Lovecraft during the 1920s, this unique brand of "cosmic horror" survived its author's death by continually mutating to this day, attracting a wide ranging group of individuals who have "consecrated themselves" to Lovecraft's literary legacy and "long for the return of the monster gods" he dreamed up.

O Canal GonG lançou um podcast que conta com informações sobre boardgames, filmes, quadrinhos, RPG e uma breve pesquisa histórica acerca do tema que será abordado. Neste episódio, falaremos sobre H. P. Lovecraft e, gostaria de compartilhar com vocês minha pesquisa para este.

Partindo da leitura de três contos de H. P. Lovecraft – "Ar frio" (1926/1928), "Sonhos na Casa da Bruxa" (1932/1933) e "O assombro nas trevas" (1935/1936) – procurou-se tecer algumas considerações a respeito da representação do catolicismo na obra ficcional deste autor. Concluiu-se que a marca desta é, antes do mais, uma interessante ambiguidade.

One among H. P. Lovecraft’s most renowned and remarked thematic points are his peculiar and
unique monsters. Cthulhu, for example, is one of the highlighted monsters in pop culture of the 20th and 21th centuries. However, the critics usually consider only one group of these monsters as a paradigm to Lovecraft’s whole work: tentacular and gelatinous beings, whose accurate descriptions are impossible to be made. We intend with this paper to show that
Lovecraft presented, during his career, different types of monstrosities, sometimes shapeless and unnamable, and sometimes scientifically described. We intend, therefore, to list each of these monstrous categories and analyze their implications inside each work, based on the thinking of Luiz Nazário and Noël Carroll.

H. P. Lovecraft (1890 – 1937), the most important American author of Weird Fiction, is known best for creating the Cthulhu mythos: an alternative universe, reigned by monstrous Gods, in which humanity eventually became meaningless. A contemporary audience can identify with the posthuman world depicted by Lovecraft; he is credited with inventing Cosmic Horror, a genre which makes explicit the insignificance of humanity within the vastness of space. It is within this dichotomy we find the horror in Lovecraft’s stories. The protagonists of Lovecraft’s stories are frequently struck by ‘Cosmic Fear’ after encountering a supernatural scenario, turning them into impotent and insane individuals. During past decades, various boardgames, videogames and tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs) have been trying to implement the characteristic of Cosmic Horror into their game play. In 2017, the Deutsche Lovecraft Gesellschaft e.V. created FHTAGN, the latest Lovecraftian TRPG in German. FHTAGN is named after a quote from Lovecraft’s Call of Cthulhu (“Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn", which can be translated as "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.") FHTAGN is partly designed on the American TRPG Call of Cthulhu by Chaosium. Both games promise to rely heavily on Lovecraft’s concept of Cosmic Horror within the game’s story world(s), as well as in the ways in which creatures and rituals are handled in the game. This article will trace the extent to which the characteristic narrative structures of Lovecraft’s oeuvre were adapted in FHTAGN in order to outline the various possibilities and limitations of such a transmedia adaptation. For instance, it will examine how the powerlessness of the protagonist in Cthulhu’s universe subverts the agency of the player and how Cosmic Horror is implemented in example scenarios from FHTAGN.

La narrativa de H. P Lovecraft ha influido en la literatura universal mediante el ciclo de los Mitos de Cthulhu. Muchos escritores han colaborado en esta mítica narrativa; es el caso del escritor mexicano Emiliano González (1955), quien contribuye con el cuento «La herencia de Cthulhu», integrado al libro Los sueños de la bella durmiente (1978) y el cual remite a «La llamada de Cthulhu» del escritor estadounidense. El objetivo de mi estudio consiste en analizar la relación hipertextual que el cuento de Emiliano González establece respecto al texto lovecraftiano, en tanto reproduce su estilo y algunos de sus motivos temáticos, gracias a lo cual deviene magnífico pastiche de «La llamada de Cthulhu».

Présentation dans le cadre de la journée d'étude « Science-Fiction, religion, théologie » de l’Université catholique de Lille, organisée par le laboratoire Ethics (EA 7446) - Chaire Ethique, technologie et transhumanismes les 21 et 27 avril 2021.

Si la narration de l’auteur américain Howard Philip Lovecraft déploie tout un univers, ce n’est qu’au travers de l’éminence de sa destruction et toujours dans la démonstration de son insignifiance. En effet, les humains y font face, entre autres horreurs, à des entités infinies et monstrueuses qui ont connu une exégèse telle, depuis la mort de l’auteur, que l’on peut parler à leur sujet de « panthéon ». Ces « Grands Anciens » (et autres « Anciens Dieux ») ne sont pas institués en gardiens ou géniteurs de cet univers, mais en agents extérieurs directement responsables de sa dévastation, et en ennemis de l’espèce humaine comme de toute forme de vie dans l’univers autre que la leur propre.

Cette perspective cristallise notamment la violence et l’angoisse du sujet fini au contact de la conscience infinie, et ainsi l’auteur inverse-t-il la fonction canonique de la Révélation : l’infini se faisant entité n’est plus divine mais cosmique et sa puissance, son immortalité comme son incommensurabilité sont essentiellement malignes. Dans une telle narration, le discours du divin consacre à la fois la révélation de  l’échec de la raison — et plus précisément l’échec de toute tentative de représentabilité de l’infini par le fini  — et à la fois la prescription de la seule Loi qui s’impose au contact de cette nouvelle forme de divin, et qui détruit toute autre loi universelle, scientifique ou humaine, résultant en une théologie privant l’homme de toute forme de télos et d’espérance. L’énoncé cosmogonique de cette apocalypse ne se révèle qu’à l’issue d’une quête initiatique, le plus souvent menée au travers d’un discours supposé incorruptible : la pensée scientifique. Les découvertes des sciences positives sont détournées de leurs objectifs premiers, dévoyées, pour être placées au service de la transmission du message cosmique transcendant ; on se trouverait alors ici en présence d’un type de discours pseudo-gnostique. Dès lors, le développement de la science ne conduit pas à une introspection théologique de l’homme sur lui-même, mais à son anéantissement métaphysique par la brutalité de l’altérité (ξένος) la plus absolue. Comment Lovecraft opère-t-il ce triple retournement : apocalyptique, sotériologique et téléologique ? Peut-être par la symbolique de la Grande Race : la présence de cette race extraterrestre érudite interroge les perspectives de la science moderne portée à une apogée fantasmagorique.

O presente trabalho tem como proposta correlacionar a geomitologia de Atlantis e o desaparecimento de civilizações com a literatura de horror lovecraftiana, em específico os Mitos de Cthulhu e sua teoria do fim do mundo. A metodologia da pesquisa será de cunho bibliográfico, a partir da leitura, interpretação e comparação de textos e livros literários e acadêmicos. A partir da compreensão do que se trata a geomitologia, através do significado cunhado por Dorothy Vitaliano e sua produção bibliográfica, se dará a base para a comparação das semelhanças entre a mitologia de Atlantis - e seus estudos mais atuais sobre a cidade submersa – com os Mitos de Cthulhu, de Lovecraft. Analisar e descrever, a partir deste recorte, como um mito criado a partir da observação de materiais paleontológicos, serviu de influência para a criação de um novo universo literário – o “Horror Cósmico” – que perdura e ainda conquista seguidores e crentes nas palavras descritas pelo autor.

¿Son los relatos de horror cósmico del solitario de Providence, en realidad, construcciones míticas? Este artículo analiza las principales definiciones de mito propuestas por la antropología y las ciencias humanas y prueba a aplicarlas a la obra de H. P. Lovecraft.

French author Michel Houellebecq’s greatest fear is that contemporary secular Europe is the end of history.  In Michel Houellebecq’s cautionary tale, democracy is a microwave dinner and religion is reasonableness.
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/07/teaching-submission-after-trump