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This collection of essays examines the legacy of H.P. Lovecraft's most important critical work, Supernatural Horror in Literature. Each chapter illuminates a crucial aspect of Lovecraft's criticism, from its aesthetic, philosophical and literary sources, to its psychobiological underpinnings, to its pervasive influence on the conception and course of horror and weird literature through the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. These essays investigate the meaning of cosmic horror before and after Lovecraft, explore his critical relevance to contemporary social science, feminist and queer readings of his work, and ultimately reveal Lovecraft's importance for contemporary speculative philosophy, film and literature.
List of contents
1. Introduction: The Critical (After)Life of Supernatural Horror in Literature, Sean Moreland.- 2. The Birth of Cosmic Horror from the S(ub)lime of Lucretius, Sean Moreland.- 3. The Evolution of Horror: A Neo-Lovecraftian Poetics, Mathias Clasen.- 4. Ansky's The Dybbuk, Freud's Future of an Illusion, Watson's Little Albert and Supernatural Horror in Literature, Sharon Packer, MD.- 5. Gazing Upon "The Daemons of Unplumbed Space" with H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King: Theorizing Horror and Cosmic Terror, Alissa Burger.- 6. "Lothly thinges thai weren alle": Imagining Horror in the Late Middle Ages, Helen Marshall.- 7. Lovecraft's Debt to Dandyism, Vivian Ralickas.- 8. Lovecraft and the Titans: A Critical Legacy, S. T. Joshi.- 9. Reception Claims in Supernatural Horror in Literature and the Course of Weird Fiction, John Glover.- 10. Bizarre Epistemology, Bizarre Subject: A Definition of Weird Fiction, Michael Cisco.- 11. Women, Sex and the Dismorphmythic: Lovecraft, Carter, Kiernan and Beyond, Gina Wisker.- 12. Weird Cinema and the Aesthetics of Dread, Brian R. Hauser.- 13. Paranoia, Panic, and the Queer Weird, Brian Johnson.
About the author
Sean Moreland is Professor of English at the University of Ottawa, Canada, and editor of
The Lovecraftian Poe (2017).
Summary
This collection of essaysexamines the legacy of H.P. Lovecraft’s most important critical work, Supernatural Horror in Literature. Each chapter illuminates a crucial aspect of Lovecraft’s criticism, from its aesthetic, philosophical and literary sources, to its psychobiological underpinnings, to its pervasive influence on the conception and course of horror and weird literature through the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. These essays investigate the meaning of cosmic horror before and after Lovecraft, explore his critical relevance to contemporary social science, feminist and queer readings of his work, and ultimately reveal Lovecraft’s importance for contemporary speculative philosophy, film and literature.
