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Ahriman the Deceiver Crew
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 Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 9:20 pm
I wrote a report on lovecraft, an for no other reason then that it makes sense to, i will post it here, now point out my in-accuracies, because my teacher will not. He hadnt even heard of Lovecraft before i came into his class. Stupid english teachers, Damn you Hamlet!
The report is titled The Death Of A God
disregard the citation refrences
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On March 15 of 1937 Howard Phillips Lovecraft who has become the god of modernhorror authors, died. The cause of his death was cancer of his small intestine and kidney failure. Lovecraft, who in his life time was little recognized by anyone outside of his friends and correspondents, would later become the major influence for world wide known authors such as Robert Bloch, author of Psycho, and Stephen King author of It, Cell, The Stand, The Dark Tower and many other popular books. His works, at the time of his life were only given life through the magazines. It wasn’t until after his death that anthologies of his horror stories were collected and published. His friend and fellow author August Derleth, after Lovecraft’s death started a publishing company named Arkham House, to publish all of Lovecraft’s works. The name of the company was taken from a city which most of Lovecraft’s fiction feature in one way or another. Arkham House first published only works of Lovecraft but soon they began to publish also Cthulhu Mythos and stories written in the Lovecraftian style,
H.P. Lovecraft has become part of the American literature culture. Mostly hidden behind a veil of modern writers and ideas, he is still an ever present theme in horror influencing modernauthors. Most Americans have heard of the book The Necronomicon, or some variant of the name from reading stories by Lovecraft, August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Stephen King, any one of a hundred authors or watching movies like The Evil Dead, The Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness, The Dreams in The Witch House (named after and based directly on one of Lovecraft’s short stories), Dagon or any one of the many other horror movies that have it. It was one of his early creations that he used in many of his different works for the rest of his life. He also changed the way people thought about horror. When most people think of horror, they think of physical harm brought on by monsters. His creations showcased insanity and fear, as well as slaughter, being a well known associate of horror. One example, in the story The Rats in the Walls, a man was driven insane and ate one of his friends.
The Cthulhu mythos are the most well know creation of Lovecraft. The term Cthulhu mythos was first used by August Derleth to describe the specific pantheon of deities and creatures that several of Lovecraft’s stories held in common. Derleth was one of Lovecraft’s friends and an author who used many Lovecraftian elements in his stories. Derleth has written many Cthulhu Mythos, expanding the pantheon and the monstrosities that went along with it. Many Cthulhu mythos Purists do not accept any mythos other then those written by Lovecraft or with the guidance of Lovecraft as actual Mythos, everything else is treated as less then fan fiction. Derleth had written many mythos under the guidance of Lovecraft, such as the stories in the book The Watchers Out of Time. The Cthulhu Mythos center largely around the god Cthulhu. “If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings.” (Lovecraft,169). Cthulhu first appeared in the story The Call of Cthulhu. This tells of how one person is dragged into knowing of Cthulhu accidently, first by the death of his grand uncle and the finding of a case which contained a bas relief of Cthulhu, newspaper clippings that involved Cthulhu and a police report that dealt with a Cthulhu cult. It is through these and some of his own searching that he learned of the god and he predicts that he will be killed by the cult as he thinks his grand uncle was killed. The term Cthulhu Mythos was first used by August Derleth to describe a series of stories that Lovecraft had written which share common characters, events, gods, or themes. This term has survived and become the name of a sub-genre of horror and science fiction. Many authors have written cthulhu mythos, such as Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Howard, Frank Belknap Long, Robert Bloch, Henry Kutner, Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, and hundreds of others. Every year there are many new books published which are anthologies of new Cthulhu Mythos.
The dream cycle is another important part of Lovecraft’s writings that some would argue is part of the Cthulhu Mythos and not their own mythos set. The dream cycle stories all take place in the dreamlands. The difference between the dream cycle and all other stories of his is the dreamlands, as well as the two groupings of gods, the great ones and the other gods. There are several recurring dream cycle characters, such as Randolph Carter (who first appeared in the non-dream cycle story, The Statement of Randolph Carter), Richard Pickman, King Kuranes and some others. In several of the dream cycle stories the Necronomicon, a book of great importance to the cthulhu mythos appears and is used or read by one of the main characters. Cats are important to the Dream Cycle. In the Dream Cycle story The Cats Of Ulthar Cats form up and eat a couple who had been trapping and killing cats in a small village, that and the story The Tree were both written in a style that was similar to mythology. In The Dream Quest of an Unknown Kadath cats are intelligent creatures which live in a tribal society and speak a complex language that dreamers can understand and speak.
One of the main theme’s in many of Lovecraft’s stories is insanity. In one short story, The Temple, a commander of a submarine said “If I am mad, it is mercy! May the gods have pity on the man who in his callousness can remain sane to the hideous end!” (Lovecraft 73) right before he went through the lock on a submarine into deep ocean. Several characters are driven insane by the gods and monsters that comprise the what has been called the Cthulhu pantheon. This includes Cthulhu, Dagon, Hastur, Mother Hydra, Nyarlothep, Shub-Niggurth as well as several others. In the mythos written by August Derleth, who was a correspondent of and one of the few friends of Lovecraft, the god Hastur is the half brother to Cthulhu while in the Lovecraftian mythos Hastur was not related to Cthulhu. In the Cthulhu Mythos written by Derleth, Cthulhu and Hastur are always warring with each other. Cthulhu is a god of insanity, any who look upon Cthulhu are driven insane. Cthulhu is one of the gods of the Great Old Ones who are always against the Outer Gods. The Outer Gods are, on a cosmic scale, vastly more powerful then the Great Old Ones, but the Great Old Ones have more influence over mortals. The term Outer Gods was first used by the call of Cthulhu role-playing game, published by Chaosium in 1981.
The death of H.P.Lovecraft was a great loss to the genre of horror. He never knew fame in his life but will live forever because of his works through the efforts of August Derleth and Arkham House. Lovecraft has become like a god to denizens of horror. It is a great loss that cancer and kidney failure claimed him. His influence will continue to be felt either directly through what he created or through newer horror authors, such as Stephen King, Robert Bloch and all of the others who borrow his ideas. During his life time, his stories were published only through magazines, but now publishers such publishers as Arkham House, Del Rey, Caroll & Graf, Penguin and many more have continued to publish his works.
Though hidden behind modern horror Lovecraft and his creations, such as the Necronomicon or Cthulhu, are ever present elements of horror and science fiction. The influence of Lovecraft can be felt everywhere, including the campaigns for presidency. During the 1996, 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, many cthulhu fanatics wore t-shirts which advertised cthulhu for president with the slogan “Why vote for a lesser evil?” (Cthulhu for President). He will live on as an immortal god because of the new generations of authors who continue to be inspired by him. Like his idol, Edgar Allen Poe, he will live forever.
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Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 7:04 am
cool smile
Hmm, just thought about something... When you write the source of citations, ex: (Lovecraft,169)
you should write the title of the story so that the teacher doesn't get confused
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Ahriman the Deceiver Crew
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Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 4:38 pm
aerialraver cool smile Hmm, just thought about something... When you write the source of citations, ex: (Lovecraft,169) you should write the title of the story so that the teacher doesn't get confused I had to follow that format, or i would have lost points
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Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 7:50 am
oh ok, didnt know smile
Did you get a good mark?
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Ahriman the Deceiver Crew
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Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 7:38 am
i was suprised, i got an A
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Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 4:31 pm
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Ahriman the Deceiver Crew
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Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 5:27 pm
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Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 8:57 am
probably influenced you in your sleep wink
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Ahriman the Deceiver Crew
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Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 9:44 pm
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Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 5:29 am
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Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:55 pm
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Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 11:12 pm
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Ahriman the Deceiver Crew
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Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 9:10 pm
I wrote a report on Lovecraft once, and then I was surprized to get a B, because it was so horrible. I sort of got hung up on things like that he rode the underground all day on his somethingth birthday and was a total Anglophilliac and the whole things didn't have much of a point, really. Yours is better. (Mine was longer. Really longer. I rambled.)
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Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 10:02 pm
Master Ulthar I wrote a report on Lovecraft once, and then I was surprized to get a B, because it was so horrible. I sort of got hung up on things like that he rode the underground all day on his somethingth birthday and was a total Anglophilliac and the whole things didn't have much of a point, really. Yours is better. (Mine was longer. Really longer. I rambled.) Rambling....sounds like cthulhu touched you a little more.. (i did not mean that as it reads, but i am too lazy to delete it. Instead i write out this much longer explanation that uses up far more energy and time to do)
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Ahriman the Deceiver Crew
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