By Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Poe and Lovecraft share an important connection, which has not passed unnoticed by fans of horror. Aside from the obvious geographical traits (they were both from New England) and interests (a proclivity for science or poetry), there is the fact, as Robert Bloch said, that “Poe and Lovecraft deliberately chose to turn their backs on contemporary styles and subject-matter and created their own individual worlds of fantasy. In this above all else they were similar.”
Poe was Lovecraft’s hero. Lovecraft admired, praised and even imitated Poe (“The Outsider”or “The Rats in the Walls”). Many of his early stories can be read as Poe pastiches, with all the Gothic trappings in place. As Darrel Scweitzer explains, “The immediate result was a slavish imitation of Poe’s technique. Lovecraft’s very earliest stories had been imitations of dime novels – lots of thrilling developments in very short chapters – but now he had a new approach, which was to stay with him to some degree for the rest of his life.”
Lovecraft was so enthusiastic about the work of Poe that he wrote a poem about him (“No common glance discerns him, though his song/Peals down through time with a mysterious spell/Only the few who sorcery’s secret know/Espy amidst these tombs the shade of Poe”) and dedicated a nice chunk of his Supernatural Horror in Literature to Poe.
It is easy to see why Poe appealed so much to Lovecraft, as he explained, “Before Poe the bulk of weird writers had worked largely in the dark; without an understanding of the psychological basis of the horror appeal, and hampered by more or less of conformity to certain empty literary conventions such as the happy ending, virtue rewarded, and in general a hollow moral didacticism, acceptance of popular standards and values, and striving of the author to obtrude his own emotions into the story and take sides with the partisans of the majority’s artificial ideas.”
Here, of course, Lovecraft pinpoints some of the same elements which characterize his fiction: psychological horror, depressing endings and the collapse of natural and moral standards. Poe’s musings on decrepit and festering lineages (“Fall of the House of Usher”) gave way to the inbred fish-people of Innsmouth and the deformed creatures of Lovecraft’s imagination.
There are, of course, differences. Women figure prominently in Poe’s fiction. There is Ligeia, Lenora, Morella and Berenice. Lovecraft, despite the copious amount of bizarre, implicit sex in his tales, shuns women. While Lovecraft’s protagonists are driven to insanity by external horrors (the sight of one of his Mythos Gods, for example), Poe’s protagonists reach madness due to deeply internalized causes (that tell-tale heart that won’t stop ticking, or the black cat that haunts the hero). And, while both writers offer us plenty of anti-heroes, one wouldn’t confuse a Lovecraft crazy-dude with one of Poe’s men.
However, one of the sad facts of life is that nowadays, many a Cthulhu fan shuns Poe. This is probably due to having been force-fed “The Raven” back in school or having watched a botched story adaptation on the telly. Nevertheless, Lovecraft-heads, I beseech you to sit down for a few minutes as Halloween draws near and read some Poe. Maybe you read it a long time ago; maybe you forgot him. The point is: get yourselves some Poe. You’ll be surprised how fun it can be, and may find some interesting points of comparison, or outright contrasts, with Lovecraft.
Without further ado, here is a list of a few Poe stories that Lovecraft fans may enjoy:
- The Fall of the House of Usher: With its tale of corrupted lineages and a creepy house, you’ll find much to like here.
- The Black Cat: A gruesome, little story of a guy going bonkers. Or is he? Unreliable narrator galore.
- The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar: The direct ancestor to “Cool Air”, with a man cheating death.
- Ligeia: Talk about a strong personality. Ligeia is both a creepy and interesting lady.