Lovecraftian Proceedings No. 6

• Edited by Elena Tchougounova-Paulson

• ISBN 9781614985013

• 320 pp

• Cover art by Pete Von Sholly

This sixth volume of Lovecraftian Proceedings, including selected papers from the Armitage Symposium of NecronomiCon Providence 2024, presents numerous advances in Lovecraft scholarship. From a biographical perspective, Daniel J. Holmes examines Lovecraft’s early poem “Providence in 2000 A.D.” (1912); Dale Allen Crowley studies Lovecraft’s trip to Cleveland in 1922 and its influence on his writing; and Taylor Walker presents an historical account of Butler Hospital, where both of Lovecraft’s parents died.

Heather Miller analyzes the influence of Melville’s Moby-Dick upon Lovecraft; Carlos González investigates Lovecraft’s influence on the Argentinian writer Mariana Enriquez; James R. M. Young conducts a philosophical study of evil in Lovecraft’s work; Gus Kraus ponders the influence of Indian religious texts on Lovecraft; and Perry Neil Harrison studies the Necronomicon in the context of phonotactics. More theoretical papers broach the concept of a “weird poetics” and the possibility of a horrific Platonism.

Other essays treat such subjects as Farnsworth Wright’s inclusion of translated horror stories in Weird Tales; Robert W. Chambers’s disturbing dystopian tale, “The Repairer of Reputations,” from The King in Yellow; the role of intertextuality in the in the TV show Twin Peaks; and the film The Wicker Man as a twisted utopia.

All in all, this book contains a bountiful and diverse group of papers expanding our knowledge of Lovecraft and weird fiction.

Table of Contents
 

Preface / Niels-Viggo S. Hobbs, Ph.D.

Introduction / Elena Tchougounova-Paulson

Melville, Moby-Dick, and the Shaping of the Lovecraftian Gaze / Heather Miller

“Always-Already Unrepresentable”: Toward a Weird Poetics / Timothy J. Jarvis

Translating the Necronomicon: Lineages of Dark Epistemology / Carlos A. González

Cosmic Terror “Crystallised”: A Lovecraftian Episode in an Indian Epic? / Gus Kraus

Translating Weirdness: Farnsworth Wright, World Literature, and the Creation of Weird Fiction / Eric Williams

Rhode Island in 1912 A.D.: Immigration, Catholicism, and the Nativist Grotesque / Daniel J. Holmes

Eldritch Institutions: Lovecraft and Butler Hospital / Taylor Walker

Intertextuality and the Violability of Self in Twin Peaks / Katherine Kerestman

Aspects of Evil in the Main Stories of H. P. Lovecraft / James R. M. Young

I Am the Sovereign: Narrative, Spectacle and Cruel Optimism in Robert W. Chambers’s “The Repairer of Reputations” / Nathaniel R. Wallace

The Phonotactics of Fear: H. P. Lovecraft and “Unknowable” Languages / Perry Neil Harrison

Horrific Platonism / Eric Steinhart

The Shadow over Lake Erie: A Trip to Cleveland and Its Influence on H. P. Lovecraft’s Innsmouth / Dale Allen Crowley

Monster-Making in an Era of Entertainment / Kejia Wu

Cops for Crops: Utopia and the Weird in The Wicker Man / Sean Lovitt

Time as a Narrative Tool in “The Silver Key”: A Figural Interpretation of Randolph Carter / Zac Rutledge

Appendix: Abstracts from The Sixth Biennial Dr. Henry Armitage Memorial Scholarship Symposium of New Weird Fiction and Lovecraft-Related Research, Providence, R.I., 15–18 August 2024

Contributors

Index