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Acolyte, vol 1, issue 3, whole 3, Spring 1943
Page 3
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POETRY AND THE ARTISTIC IDEAL by H. P. Lovecraft -oOo- (The following article is the body of a letter written by H. P. Lovecraft in 1929 to Miss Elizabeth Toldridge of Washington D. C. Miss Toldridge was a genteel "lady poet" of advanced age who had a deep Victorian indoctrination which H. P. L. was trying to modify. The originals of this and other letters of the same series are in the Harris Collection, John Hay Library, Providence, Rhode Island. "The Acolyte" is enabled to use this article through the courtesy of R. H. Barlow. It has never before been published. FTL.) -oOOo- About the nature of poetry---I surely did not mean to belittle it by calling it "simply an elegant amusement", because I believe that nothing in existence is more important than elegant amusement. What I wished to recommend was that you beware against making a burden of the art; for if you do that, you make it fail of its purpose, which is to amuse the creator. I wished to make it clear that the fun and function of poetry are all comprised within the process of creating it, and that it is needless and unwise to worry about what happens to it once it is written. Its importance resides in the pleasure it gives you during the writing----the mental and emotional satisfaction of self-expression. Once it has given you this, it has fully and adequately performed its function; and there is no need to bother about who else sees it---although it is of course pleasant to have others see one's work, so that there can be criticism and helpful discussion about it. And as I say, this does not imply any triviality on the part of the art; for is not emotional satisfaction the only supreme goal of any intelligent life? The cosmos contains nothing of greater importance for the negligible atoms called human beings than the condition of being elegantly amused. It is only mental laziness and artificial convention which can lead us to measure "accomplishment" by the approval of others. All these things mean nothing. The very idea of "Accomplishment" is basically an artificiality and an illusion. However, if we need a set of empirical working standards---protective illusions, as it were--- we can very logically say that the satisfaction of our own emotions is one solid thing which we can ever get out of life; the only thing we have any rational right to call "success" or "accomplishment" in a quasi-absolute sense. Each thinking person is really a solitary entity facing the formless and illimitable cosmos. None of the other entities really count except as minor decorative factors. Naturally "success" and "accomplishment" can not be the same for any two persons, since each individual has a distinctive set of emotional needs wholly peculiar to himself. The only constant and homogeneous element behind the verbal abstractions is that of emotional equilibrium---a subjective state of satisfaction. If we can attain this, we have "success" and "accomplishment"---but it doesn't matter how we do it so long as we attain it somehow, and each person's particular "success" is a different objective entity or condition from any other person's "success". Certainly, life can have no greater gift than emotional contentment during the aimless years from the nothingness to nothingness again! However---this is not to imply that the business of acquiring contentment is an easy or frivolous matter. Only the psychology of Victorian illusion and hypocrisy tries to invest trivial and meaningless things with the insipid glamour of a pretended jollity and happiness. In stern fact, the relentless demands prompted by our glandular -- 3 --
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POETRY AND THE ARTISTIC IDEAL by H. P. Lovecraft -oOo- (The following article is the body of a letter written by H. P. Lovecraft in 1929 to Miss Elizabeth Toldridge of Washington D. C. Miss Toldridge was a genteel "lady poet" of advanced age who had a deep Victorian indoctrination which H. P. L. was trying to modify. The originals of this and other letters of the same series are in the Harris Collection, John Hay Library, Providence, Rhode Island. "The Acolyte" is enabled to use this article through the courtesy of R. H. Barlow. It has never before been published. FTL.) -oOOo- About the nature of poetry---I surely did not mean to belittle it by calling it "simply an elegant amusement", because I believe that nothing in existence is more important than elegant amusement. What I wished to recommend was that you beware against making a burden of the art; for if you do that, you make it fail of its purpose, which is to amuse the creator. I wished to make it clear that the fun and function of poetry are all comprised within the process of creating it, and that it is needless and unwise to worry about what happens to it once it is written. Its importance resides in the pleasure it gives you during the writing----the mental and emotional satisfaction of self-expression. Once it has given you this, it has fully and adequately performed its function; and there is no need to bother about who else sees it---although it is of course pleasant to have others see one's work, so that there can be criticism and helpful discussion about it. And as I say, this does not imply any triviality on the part of the art; for is not emotional satisfaction the only supreme goal of any intelligent life? The cosmos contains nothing of greater importance for the negligible atoms called human beings than the condition of being elegantly amused. It is only mental laziness and artificial convention which can lead us to measure "accomplishment" by the approval of others. All these things mean nothing. The very idea of "Accomplishment" is basically an artificiality and an illusion. However, if we need a set of empirical working standards---protective illusions, as it were--- we can very logically say that the satisfaction of our own emotions is one solid thing which we can ever get out of life; the only thing we have any rational right to call "success" or "accomplishment" in a quasi-absolute sense. Each thinking person is really a solitary entity facing the formless and illimitable cosmos. None of the other entities really count except as minor decorative factors. Naturally "success" and "accomplishment" can not be the same for any two persons, since each individual has a distinctive set of emotional needs wholly peculiar to himself. The only constant and homogeneous element behind the verbal abstractions is that of emotional equilibrium---a subjective state of satisfaction. If we can attain this, we have "success" and "accomplishment"---but it doesn't matter how we do it so long as we attain it somehow, and each person's particular "success" is a different objective entity or condition from any other person's "success". Certainly, life can have no greater gift than emotional contentment during the aimless years from the nothingness to nothingness again! However---this is not to imply that the business of acquiring contentment is an easy or frivolous matter. Only the psychology of Victorian illusion and hypocrisy tries to invest trivial and meaningless things with the insipid glamour of a pretended jollity and happiness. In stern fact, the relentless demands prompted by our glandular -- 3 --
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