Howard Phillips Lovecraft, a Literary Apprentice of Poe: Inner Fears in Outer Space Lukáš Nešpor Bachelor Thesis 2015 ABSTRAKT Tato bakalářská práce se zabývá problematikou míry ovlivnění děl Howarda Phillipse Lovecrafta pracemi Edgara Allana Poea. Podobnost i rozdílnost prací obou autorů, která se týká jejich konceptů strachu, je porovnána skrze analýzu jejich povídek. Úvodem této práce budou vysvětleny pojmy Gotické literatury a dále prozkoumány životy výše zmíněných autorů, s úmyslem najít elementy, jež by mohly mít vliv na zformování jednotlivých konceptů strachu a následně analyzovat tři povídky od každého z nich a určit nakolik byl Lovecraftův koncept vnějšího strachu ovlivněn Poeovým konceptem strachu vnitřního. Klíčová slova: Lovecraft, Poe, gotická literatura, vnitřní strach, vnější strach, duch perverznosti ABSTRACT This bachelor thesis deals with the issue of to what degree was Howard Phillips Lovecraft influenced by the work of Edgar Allan Poe. The similarities and differences of the concepts of fear are explored through the analysis of their short stories. At the beginning of this thesis, the notion of the genre of Gothic literature and its sub-genres will be explored. Secondly, the biographies of each author will be analysed in order to determine elements that could have influenced authors’ concepts of fear and lastly, three short stories of each author will be analysed for the purpose of determining the degree of influence of Poe’s inner fear concept on Lovecraft’s outer fear concept. Keywords: Lovecraft, Poe, Gothic literature, inner fear, outer fear, spirit of perverse ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Mgr. Vladimíra Fonfárová for her support, helpful comments, and patience. I would also like to thank my family for their support throughout my studies. Last but not least, I am grateful to all my friends who provided me with their positive attitude and thoughts. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 9 1 GOTHIC LITERATURE .......................................................................................... 11 1.1 British Gothic Literature ........................................................................................ 11 1.2 American Gothic Literature ................................................................................... 12 1.3 Southern Gothic Literature .................................................................................... 13 2 THE STIMULI OF INNER AND OUTER FEAR .................................................. 15 2.1 The Early Years ..................................................................................................... 15 2.2 Madness ................................................................................................................. 15 2.3 Interests and Education .......................................................................................... 18 2.4 Religion ................................................................................................................. 22 2.5 Women ................................................................................................................... 22 3 ANALYSIS OF INNER AND OUTER FEAR CONCEPTS .................................. 26 3.1 The Inner Fear ....................................................................................................... 26 3.1.1 Berenice .......................................................................................................... 27 3.1.2 The Fall of the House of Usher ...................................................................... 30 3.1.3 The Black Cat ................................................................................................. 32 3.2 Outer Space and the Fear of the Unknown ............................................................ 36 3.2.1 The Tomb ....................................................................................................... 37 3.2.2 The Rats in the Walls ..................................................................................... 38 3.2.3 The Whisperer in Darkness ............................................................................ 40 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................. 43 BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................................. 46 TBU in Zlín, Faculty of Humanities 9 INTRODUCTION “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”1 This quote is a way to describe the world of Howard Phillips Lovecraft which expresses the fear of something unknown that is lurking in the dark. In opposition to this would probably stand Edgar Allan Poe with his “Darkness there and nothing more.”2 – that could be interpreted in a way that there is no evil in the darkness waiting for us, for the evil lies within us. The comparison of the works of Poe and Lovecraft has been a topic of many researches and there can be found a great number of works on various approaches to the contrasting of the concept of inner and outer fear as for example the work of José Carlos Gil “Poe and Lovecraft: Interior and Cosmic Terror”3. Narrowing the topic to the analysis of to what extent was Lovecraft’s concept of outer fear influenced by Poe’s concept of inner fear provides those who are interested in this matter with a different perspective. Even Lovecraft himself, being a fan of Poe, dealt with the analysis of Poe’s work in his essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature” (1927).4 The analysis of the inner and outer fear concepts in this work is done through the exploration of the authors’ lives, more precisely of elements that could have contributed to the formation of authors’ concepts of fear with the emphasis on creation of inner fear concept in Poe and outer fear concept in Lovecraft. Specific focus will be given to the themes of madness in their stories, their interests and education – in Poe visible in his use of intertextual references and in Lovecraft in his fascination with astronomy which evolved into fascination with outer space. Furthermore, the significance of religious influences will be explored, mainly in regard to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos. The last but not the least important part consists of the role that women played in the authors’ works. As will be found out, women bore importance to both authors but their influence is more significant in Poe’s stories than in Lovecraft’s. For the purpose of analyzing the aforementioned influences, I chose three short stories from each author that all portray their concepts of 1 Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Collected Essays: Volume 2, ed. S T. Joshi (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2004), 82. 2 Edgar Allan Poe, The Portable Edgar Allan Poe, ed. J. Gerald Kennedy (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), 422. 3 See José Carlos Gil, “Poe and Lovecraft: Interior and Cosmic Terror,” In Anglo Saxonica Ser.III N.1 (2010): 37-43. 4 Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Collected Essays: Volume 2, ed. S T. Joshi (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2004), 82-135. TBU in Zlín, Faculty of Humanities 10 fear to some degree. Furthermore, there are time differences of several years between the times when each story was written and this is essential mainly for the analysis of Lovecraft’s works because these time differences capture the aim of this the fading influence of Poe’s inner fear concept on Lovecraft’s work, which gradually developed to portray Lovecraft’s own concept of outer fear. In addition to this, not only the previously mentioned elements but symbolism contributes to the differentiation of the concepts of fear in this thesis, as well. Symbols are essential for Poe’s works and help to analyse Poe’s concept of inner fear. The aim of this thesis is to establish the connection between the creation of the fear concepts in Poe’s and Lovecraft’s works and the selected events and influences in their lives. Furthermore, it aims at determining of the degree of influence of Poe’s inner fear concept on Lovecraft’s concept of outer fear.