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| H. P. Lovecraft | |
| Birth name: | Howard Phillips "H. P." Lovecraft |
| Gender: | Male |
| Medium(s): | Novels |
| Roles: | Writer |
| Date of birth: | August 20th, 1890 |
| Place of birth: | Providence, Rhode Island |
| Date of death: | March 15th, 1937 |
Howard Phillips "H. P." Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction.
Lovecraft's guiding literary principle was what he termed "cosmicism" or "cosmic horror", the idea that life is incomprehensible to human minds and that the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. As early as the 1940s, Lovecraft's work had developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fiction featuring a pantheon of humanity-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism, Humanism and Christianity. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the antithesis of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality and the abyss.
Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades, and he is now regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century. According to Joyce Carol Oates, Lovecraft — as with Edgar Allan Poe in the 19th century — has exerted "an incalculable influence on succeeding generations of writers of horror fiction". Stephen King called Lovecraft "the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale." King has even made it clear in his semi-autobiographical non-fiction book Danse Macabre that Lovecraft was responsible for his own fascination with horror and the macabre, and was the single largest figure to influence his fiction writing.
Lovecraft's themes and ideas have had a profound effect on culture and literature in general, and have embedded themselves into the foundation that is used for horror associated with the strange.
Notes & Trivia[]
- The second episode of Masters of Horror entitled "Dreams in the Witch-House" was also inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
- A fictionalized version of Lovecraft was presented in the season six episode of Supernatural called "Let It Bleed". Played by actor Peter Ciuffa, the character was seen in a flashback sequence in which he held a dinner party of cultists who attempted to open a doorway into an alien dimension. Unfortunately for Lovecraft and his friends, he succeeded.
- Actor Paul Titley played H.P. Lovecraft in the 2018 psycho-thriller film Incident in a Ghostland. In the film, Lovecraft appears before an adolescent girl named Beth as part of a fantasy sequence. Beth worships Lovecraft and in the fantasy, he compliments her on her writing.
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