Mankind is exclusively a blind coil where ancient and new civilizations continuously sink and rise, without any possible external power being able to perpetually rule with its systems and values. In his famous story “The Call of Cthulhu”, Lovecraft gives an example and writes: «What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise.» Nothing can escape the disgraceful and unexpected evolution of cosmic matter, where the only ruler is chaos eternal return, fully master of the abysses with neither beginning nor end. In order to understand Lovecraft’s abyssal nightmare, we have to imagine a crazy world, which wanders aimlessly from nothingness to existence and from existence to nothingness, totally far and unaware of our desires and needs. Chaos eternal return imposes a cosmic horror hegemony on the planetary life, causing its consequent nihilism.
The eternal return is a universal and natural manifestation of “Nothing”. For Nietzsche man can get over such nihilistic condition if he actively accepts the eternal return as the consequent liberation of power will, immersed in the creative energy and in the joy of a Dionysian spirit. Lovecraft, on the contrary, considers the eternal return with horror, ending up with evolving human condition into an unplanned oneiric materialistic dimension; in the refuge of dreams and visions he can see human possibility to give birth to the «greatest creations of man» and to attain «something of the glory and contentment for which we yearn», without getting to “useless puppets” overwhelmed and destroyed by the furious waves of cosmic ocean. We can say that Nietzsche and Lovecraft are radically opposed, as far as the psychological relationship between man and eternal return is concerned: for the philosopher it is vital enjoyment, for the writer it is excruciating torment.
Nietzsche’s typical concepts, such as “Amor fati” or “Superman”, are considered “useless effort” by the materialistic-cosmocentric writer, according to whom such myths are totally far from the tragic actions of Lovecraft’s dreamer and lonely hero, who is busy not to be driven crazy and to understand the true nature of reality, trying to defend his own existence against those awful human creatures that sometimes belong to the same genetic legacy as the heroic main character’s. For example, I can mention the character in “The Shadow over Innsmouth” who finds out, to his surprise, he is not a different creature from those horrible monsters that have besieged him, almost to prove that there is no difference between men and beasts.
Beyond good and evil
With the German philosopher Lovecraft shares not only a pagan Anti-Christianity, but also the pointless inclination man has towards human existence, devoid of any “truth”, since it is forced to ceaselessly and inevitably fight for surviving beyond any moral limits of good and evil, as we cannot «sink or rise to any other “reality”, but just that of our own impulses». Christianity dogma is reduced to a naïve point of view due to the unawareness of men or to a religious imposture. «It is a general objection to Christianity that it stifled artistic freedom, trampled on healthy instincts, and set up false and unjust standards. On this assumption a friend of mine, Samuel Loveman, Esq., has written a magnificent ode “To Satan”. […] The idea of deity is a logical and inevitable result of ignorance, since the savage can conceive of no action save by a volition and personality like his own.» Shortly, for the writer no “Right Road” exists and has ever existed, but we are and we shall always be victims of a deep and intangible cosmic conflict, universally fair for everyone. «We can neither predict nor determine, for we are but the creatures of blind destiny.» Therefore it is obvious that such a system cannot absolutely exist among “human beings” but more naturally among “beasts”, whose wild and foolish nature is in perfect harmony and symbiosis. But is Lovecraft maybe talking of men? Does his gruesome art hide a dramatic report of the infernal human condition that is made harder by the harsh and tough fight for surviving against its own kind?
Like Nietzsche, in his fiction Lovecraft does not make the “metaphysical mistake” of showing the absence or presence of God in the world: God simply does not exist and there is no need to meet him or to avoid him. Lovecraft’s universe is only an eternal cosmic fury, where an emotionless theater of awful creatures rages. «All life is struggle and combat—itself a disproof of divinity—and in this fray an organism fights both its fellows and its surroundings.» For such beasts neither divine plan nor ontological void exists, but only an instinctive activity and necessary will that becomes a violent war far from the least moral concept of good or evil, since it occurs for the preservation and victory of the stronger species on the weaker one. In the short novel “At the Mountains of Madness” the “Old Ones” are defeated by the ruthless “Shoggoths”. In the world it is not important whether an action is “good” or “evil”, but it is important to protect the existence and the sovereignty of the winning species. Fight and death are, for Lovecraft, completely obvious and natural conditions.
All the earthly and cosmic elements, such as things, plants, men or awful beasts are only objects, even if the world is inexplicably a terrible oneiric illusion. That is why Lovecraft does not always analyze the psychology of his characters; he would contradict and distort his cosmos-centric vision where men do not matter more than ants. The writer is not much interested in human psychological investigations, for cosmic terror is not human but supernatural.
Poe and Lovecraft
Even though Poe’s terror comes from the soul whereas Lovecraft’s terror originates within the cosmos, for both fear is caused by the same elements originating cosmic horror: chaos and abyss. Yet, Poe sinks in the soul to knock down external reality, Lovecraft on the contrary sinks in the cosmos to demolish inner reality. Another great difference is that Poe’s mythology is both Christian and pagan, Lovecraft’s is entirely pagan.
In “The Tell-tale Heart” we can find a dark atmosphere, like Lovecraft’s mad universe, in an abyssal and dizzy room described, by the tormentor, which is the main character, as so hidden and dark to almost seem the gloomy hidden-place of a devilish-eyed “monstrous creature”. Besides, in “The man of the Crowd” the same disturbing and omnipresent atmosphere is evoked as in Lovecraft’s delirious cosmos: the chaotic movement of an unknown and lost crowd, where Poe manages brilliantly to predict incommunicability, almost depicts the fuzzy wandering of the horrible Lovecraft’s beasts. In the story is also a strategic fusion of cosmic horror and incommunicability.
A sublime moment of cosmic terror, at such a limit between real and supernatural to almost express a degenerative hallucination of human mind, is described at the end of “The Fall of the House of Usher” with the chromatic energy of such an impulsive and impetuous universe to recall Lovecraft’s impressive style.
«The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now shone vividly through that once barely-discernible fissure, of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened - there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind - the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight - my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder - there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters - and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the House of Usher.»
The same can be said for the final part of “Metzengerstein”.
«The fury of the tempest immediately died away, and a dead calm sullenly succeeded. A white flame still enveloped the building like a shroud and, streaming far away into the quiet atmosphere, shot forth a glare of preternatural light; while a cloud of smoke settled heavily over the battlements in the distinct colossal figure of a horse.»
Taking inspiration and broadening the concept of Poe’s soul terror, Lovecraft becomes “the cosmic Poe”, as Jacques Bergier
states. Following this point of view Lovecraft’s cosmic terror can be partly considered as a materialistic and mythological evolution of Poe’s terror to the creation of a fascinating and potential horror science fiction.
In spite of their radically different cultural background, a short story where Poe’s cosmic terror is incredibly similar as Lovecraft’s is “A Descent into Maelstrom”: here metaphysics of events is chaotically linked to the fear of sudden and unknown events, for a ship is suspended in a terrible jam after being overwhelmed by supernatural events nobody knows the causes of. The ship sinking represents universe instability and its wrecks show the abyss chaos has left behind. In this short story, Poe’s cosmic terror is close to Lovecraft’s because it is related to that sphere of unknown and unpredictable that does not cross the border of supernatural universe, but stays within the “cosmos” and its inexplicable mysteries. How cannot this work contradict Poe’s idealism? The answer is provided by the author himself, who reports a sentence written by Joseph Glanvill in the epigraph of the story: «The ways of God in Nature (as in Providence) are not as ours are: nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the vastness and profundity of his works; which have a depth in them greater than the Well of Democritus.» Therefore, in my opinion, on the basis of the theocentric cosmogony in “Eureka” we can consider that, in spite of the frequent references to psychological abyss without a clear opening to the ultra mundane, Poe’s metaphoric world sometimes tends to the theological field. You only need think of the sudden appearance of a “wild light” in “The Fall of the House of Usher” or of the “preternatural light” in “Metzengerstein” to presume it is about a symbolic revelation of God’s interference in human events. In the Christianity God is the “eternal light”, which enlightens man’s way to salvation from a world dominated by the darkness of chaos.
Romantic Poe’s very harmonious and sad expressive sentimentalism, which sometimes seems to demand Providence interference on man’s wickedness is literally abandoned by Lovecraft to make room for eternal darkness in a cold universe, impulsive and without a soul, where is no theological comfort for a withering rose, for a dying animal, for a man lying dead on the ground in the shade of a black-winged monstrous creature, suddenly appeared from the unknown.
The unknown
«The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.» With this short and popular quotation Lovecraft suggests the deep link between the unintelligible abysses of reality and fear arising from the inability to react directly and dominate such distorted situations. The consequent terror causes a psychological fear connected to earthly or metaphysical elements mankind cannot control. In this “menacing chaos” man is like a child lost in the wood, whose survival is constantly threatened by an unknown and adverse Nature. In this frightful situation the sudden howl of a wild wind causes, in the child’s mind, the fear to be attacked by ghosts, if he does not find a shelter soon. As a consequence, in the child’s imagination those “mythical creatures” rise as an instinctive reaction to fear, which substitute the real causes. Lovecraft, in his essay, gives an enlightening example of the real nature of cosmic fear and writes: «Children will always be afraid of the dark, and men with minds sensitive to hereditary impulse will always tremble at the thought of the hidden and fathomless worlds of strange life which may pulsate in the gulfs beyond the stars, or press hideously upon our own globe in unholy dimensions which only the dead and the moonstruck can glimpse. With this foundation, no one needs wonder at the existence of a literature of cosmic fear.» But terror takes the upper hand in the victim’s mind when he cannot understand anymore the phenomena he sees and hears, coming from an external origin he cannot get to. This vision is obviously supported by the fact that the uncertain and the dangerous are always arm-in-arm; as a consequence an unknown universe easily becomes a world full of dangers and evil events.
A very good example of psychological disorientation is in “The Crawling Chaos”, where fear becomes absolute, since the main character cannot identify anymore the natural or ultra mundane cause coming from an unrecognizable adverse environment. His mind, engulfed in a condition of confusion and upset due to the use of drugs, is prey of brutal and fearful fantasies that identify the hidden being or thing as a ghastly monster inclined to act in an unreal and uncontrollable way.
«Slowly but inexorably crawling upon my consciousness and rising above every other impression came a dizzying fear of the unknown: a fear all the greater because I could not analyze it, and seeming to concern a stealthily approaching menace; not death, but some nameless, unheard-of thing inexpressibly more ghastly and abhorrent. […] The waves were dark and purplish, almost black and clutched at the yielding red mud of the bank as if with uncouth, greedy hands. I could not but feel that some noxious marine mind had declared a war of extermination upon all the solid ground, perhaps abetted by the angry sky.»
The Cthulhu myths
It is exactly that perverse psychological link, made up of narrative delirium and association of the myth with a naïve theophany, to lead Lovecraft to the brilliant and original creation of “The Cthulhu Myths”, which are like the lord of chaos, Seth, in Egyptian mythology. Pagan mythology predisposition to comply with cosmological theories leads Lovecraft to the creation of a pantheon inspired by his cosmogony. In fact, such divinities symbolize the chaotic structure of world reality.
In the horrible dimension of chaos, with great imagination the writer pictorially describes the nightmare coming from unknown realities, where the “light” deceives our world perception, because it is in the “darkness” of the unknown that the true aspect of mankind lies. In this context Lovecraft becomes a sort of “black priest” of an immanent cosmic pantheon, where an unmasked vision of reality causes a dreadful psychological delirium. In the well-known story “Dagon” such a mythological and dark show is analyzed in memorable lines.
«[…] I think my horror was greater when I gained the summit of the mound and looked down the other side into an immeasurable pit or canyon, whose black recesses the moon had not yet soared high enough to illumine. I felt myself on the edge of the world, peering over the rim into a fathomless chaos of eternal night […] gazing into the Stygian deeps where no light had yet penetrated. […] the thing slid into view above the dark waters. Vast, Polyphemus-like, and loathsome, it darted like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the monolith, about which it flung its gigantic scaly arms, the while it bowed its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds. I think I went mad then.»
When we experience such feelings of panic we unwarily create some mythologies, which represent human events. So, taking psychoanalysis into consideration, through these myths we put on ourselves the “mask” of the myth, which subconsciously express our real way of being.
The unbearable feeling of weakness and bewilderment towards the unknown and the unrecognizable, becoming terribly uncatchable to cause a terrible psychic delirium, calls to mind “The Haunter of the Dark” in which the idiot and blind god Azathoth, who lives in the centre of the universe in a mindless and sluggish way, appears before Robert Blake.
«Before his eyes a kaleidoscopic range of phantasmal images played, all of them dissolving at intervals into the picture of a vast, unplumbed abyss of night wherein whirled suns and worlds of an even profounder blackness. He thought of the ancient legends of Ultimate Chaos, at whose centre sprawls the blind idiot god Azathoth, Lord of All Things, encircled by his flopping horde of mindless and amorphous dancers, and lulled by the thin monotonous piping of a demoniac flute held in nameless paws.»
Before Robert Blake’s involvement by Azathoth, it is important to remember that a sort of assimilation occurs: the delirious aspect of the idiot god quickly penetrates the protagonist’s feelings to show how it is easy for the frail human condition to be psychologically absorbed by the unknown.
The myths of Cthulhu hurl us before the nameless, make us sink in the dark
abyss, pervade us of an ancestral fear leading to cosmic terror through an eternal and unsolvable recurrence of the dreadful event. They put us before the impenetrability of unknown with no easily identifiable semantic contents, in order to disclose us that chaos is the only ruling power nobody can make out. In this diabolic system the myths show us the true aspect of cosmic reality at the cost of an agonizing psychological state close to madness.
Prometheus’ nightmare
Fear also arises from the existential uselessness of man who, even though he is endowed with reason and noteworthy techno-scientific resources, is often alone before the immensity of an unknown and adverse chaotic universe, enraged by a blind and irreparable force, where flocks of “night-gaunts” linger. They are wicked and unknown creatures without a face, black, quiet, bat-like winged and provided with pointed tails.
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