This essay discusses how and to what effect Weird and New Weird fiction use description in unique and genre-defining ways. Using H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu” and China Miéville’s
as ...examples, it shows how the Weird relegates a comparatively large part of the text to description and attempts to elicit dread as an aesthetic effect. The essay argues that the Weird breaks with the traditional use of description by employing formally realist tendencies which it defies functionally, and by combining over-description with the failure to describe, whereas the New Weird is more concise in its use of description, ties it more closely to the narrative, and is less reliant on descriptive failures. Both the Weird and the New Weird demand more active reader participation in their creation of aesthetic illusion, which they encourage through the frames they create around their descriptions, thus preparing readers for the potential of aesthetic distance in the reception process and diminishing its effect. The analysis emphasizes the potential of description to be more than a subordinate to the narrative mode and to be a central component in the formation of a text’s implied worldview.
Este trabajo analiza la presencia de un patrón muy específico tanto en The Call of Cthulhu como en otras de las obras icónicas de Lovecraft. Combinando el análisis literario con técnicas ...computacionales de minería de textos, se ha podido cuantificar dicho patrón, que se articula alrededor de tres ejes. En primer lugar, la creación de una atmósfera vertebrada en torno a los sentimientos de miedo, confianza y tristeza, que además se presentan exactamente en ese orden de importancia, y cuya combinación genera emociones de sumisión y desesperación. El segundo eje está relacionado con el sentimiento de confianza, concentrada principalmente al principio de la obra, momento en el que se busca precisamente dotar de credibilidad a los extraordinarios hechos que se relatarán más adelante, en el clímax de la obra. Por último, el tercer eje es el giro final, en el que se produce una reacción de quien entra en contacto con las monstruosas criaturas, alcanzando una pírrica victoria, que sin embargo resulta inútil a largo plazo. Un sentimiento de ira creciente a lo largo de toda la obra, que alcanza su máximo precisamente en este último evento, refuerza esta idea de reacción última y desesperada.
ON THE HORROR OF KNOWLEDGE: SPECULATIVE REALISM AND H.
P. LOVECRAFT
This paper provides an account of the relation between the philosophy of speculative
realism and H. P. Lovecraft’s poetics of ...“cosmic horror”. Q. Meillassoux and R.
Brassier are taken as representatives of speculative realism. These two philosophers
share two fundamental presumptions: first, any philosophy that aspires to the name
of “realism” has to provide an answer to the question as to how thought can think a
world without thought; and second, insofar as it reveals that this is indeed possible
– to think a world without thought – science constitutes the greatest challenge
to correlationism. The first two parts of the text provide an account of these two
aspects of Meillassoux’s and Brassier’s projects respectively. The third part reconstructs the basic tenets of Lovecraft’s poetics of “cosmic horror”, first through an
engagement with his numerous (auto)poetic writings on this genre, and then by a
reading of his famous short story “The Call of Cthulhu”. Finally, the conclusion
brings these various threads together in order to show that an explication of the
relation between these three authors facilitates a better understanding of the specifics
of their individual projects.
H.P. Lovecraft crafted an intricate mythos which initially did not find success until after his death, and his works, most notably “The Call of Cthulhu” (1928), were regarded to be a landmark towards ...the relevancy of occultism both in the field of literature and religious belief. The short story was regarded to be the staple of “cosmic horror” which Lovecraft applied to almost all of his stories. The paper analyze how “The Call of Cthulhu” influenced the belief of modern occultism, which can be inferred from the literary elements in the story. Further analysis will also identify how Lovecraft portrayed the subgenre “cosmic horror” to enhance the elements of occultism within the short story. In relation to the previous elements, the paper examine how a particular cult, Typhonian Order, was influenced by the elements of occultism used in the story.
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