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Fantasy Fan, v. 1, issue 4, December 1933
Page 58
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58 THE FANTASY FAN December, 1933 SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE by H. P. Lovecraft (Copyright 1927 by W. Paul Cook) Part Three This type of fear-literature must not be confounded with a type externally similar but psychologically widely different; the literature of mere physical fear and the mundanely gruesome. Such writing, to be sure, has its place, as has the convential or even whimsical or humorous ghost story where formalism or the author's knowing wink removes the true sense of the morbidly unnatural; but these things are not the literature of cosmic fear in its purest sense. The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain-- a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and daemons of unplumbed space. Naturally we cannot expect all weird tales to conform absolutely to any thcoretical model. Creative minds are uneven, and the best fabrics have their dull spots. Moreover, much of the choices weird work is unconscious; appearing in memorable fragments scattered through material whose massed effect may be of a very different cast. Atmosphere is the all-important thing, for the final criterion of authenticity is not the dovetailing of a plot but the creation of a given sensation. We may say, as a general thing, that a weird story whose intent is to teach or produce a social effect, or one in which the horrors are finally explained away by natural means, is not a genuine tale of cosmic fear; but it remains a fact that such narratives often possess, in isolated sections, atmospheric touches which fulfil every condition of the true supernatural horror-literature. Therefore we must judge a weird tale not by the author's intent, or by the mere mechanics of the plot; but by the emotional level which it attains at its least mundane point. If the proper sensations are excited, such as "high spot" must be admitted on its own merits as weird literature, no matter how prosaically it is later dragged down. The one test of the really weird is simply this-- whether or not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe's utmost (continued on page 61) The Flagon of beauty (cont from p 57) none could interpret. "You are startled? Yes, it is the Flagon! Watch, if you wish, for you may not see when I am finished with you." She drained the very dregs, and flung the stopper in her captive's face. For a long moment there was no change apparent in her flushed countenance. Then she noticeably paled. Her hair swiftly grew leaded and grey, her lips assumed a ghastly pallor, and a score of tiny wrinkles appeared on her smooth skin. She became an old hag, quite out of the place in the splendour of the throne-room.
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58 THE FANTASY FAN December, 1933 SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE by H. P. Lovecraft (Copyright 1927 by W. Paul Cook) Part Three This type of fear-literature must not be confounded with a type externally similar but psychologically widely different; the literature of mere physical fear and the mundanely gruesome. Such writing, to be sure, has its place, as has the convential or even whimsical or humorous ghost story where formalism or the author's knowing wink removes the true sense of the morbidly unnatural; but these things are not the literature of cosmic fear in its purest sense. The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain-- a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and daemons of unplumbed space. Naturally we cannot expect all weird tales to conform absolutely to any thcoretical model. Creative minds are uneven, and the best fabrics have their dull spots. Moreover, much of the choices weird work is unconscious; appearing in memorable fragments scattered through material whose massed effect may be of a very different cast. Atmosphere is the all-important thing, for the final criterion of authenticity is not the dovetailing of a plot but the creation of a given sensation. We may say, as a general thing, that a weird story whose intent is to teach or produce a social effect, or one in which the horrors are finally explained away by natural means, is not a genuine tale of cosmic fear; but it remains a fact that such narratives often possess, in isolated sections, atmospheric touches which fulfil every condition of the true supernatural horror-literature. Therefore we must judge a weird tale not by the author's intent, or by the mere mechanics of the plot; but by the emotional level which it attains at its least mundane point. If the proper sensations are excited, such as "high spot" must be admitted on its own merits as weird literature, no matter how prosaically it is later dragged down. The one test of the really weird is simply this-- whether or not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe's utmost (continued on page 61) The Flagon of beauty (cont from p 57) none could interpret. "You are startled? Yes, it is the Flagon! Watch, if you wish, for you may not see when I am finished with you." She drained the very dregs, and flung the stopper in her captive's face. For a long moment there was no change apparent in her flushed countenance. Then she noticeably paled. Her hair swiftly grew leaded and grey, her lips assumed a ghastly pallor, and a score of tiny wrinkles appeared on her smooth skin. She became an old hag, quite out of the place in the splendour of the throne-room.
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