Cthulhu Mythos
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Cthulhu Mythos is a
mythopoeia Mythopoeia (, ), or mythopoesis, is a subgenre of speculative fiction, and a theme in modern literature and film, where an artificial or fictionalized mythology is created by the writer of prose fiction, prose, poetry, or other literary forms. T ...
and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of American horror writer
H. P. Lovecraft Howard Phillips Lovecraft (, ; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of Weird fiction, weird, Science fiction, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos. Born in Provi ...
. The term was coined by
August Derleth August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971) was an American writer and anthologist. He was the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. He made contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the Lovecraftian horror, cosmi ...
, a contemporary correspondent and
protégé Mentorship is the patronage, influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the perso ...
of Lovecraft, to identify the settings, tropes, and lore that were employed by Lovecraft and his literary successors. The name "
Cthulhu Cthulhu is a fictional cosmic entity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was introduced in his short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published by the American pulp magazine ''Weird Tales'' in 1928. Considered a Great Old One within the pantheon ...
" derives from the central creature in Lovecraft's seminal short story "
The Call of Cthulhu "The Call of Cthulhu" is a cosmic horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in the summer of 1926, it was first published in the pulp magazine ''Weird Tales'' in February 1928. The story is a founding document of the Cthul ...
", first published in the
pulp magazine Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955. The term "pulp" derives from the Pulp (paper), wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed, due to their ...
''
Weird Tales ''Weird Tales'' is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, printe ...
'' in 1928. Richard L. Tierney, a writer who also wrote Mythos tales, later applied the term "Derleth Mythos" to distinguish Lovecraft's works from Derleth's later stories, which modify key tenets of the Mythos. Authors of
Lovecraftian horror Lovecraftian horror, also called cosmic horror or eldritch horror, is a subgenre of horror, fantasy fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is na ...
in particular frequently use elements of the Cthulhu Mythos.


History

In his essay "H. P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos", Robert M. Price described two stages in the development of the Cthulhu Mythos. Price called the first stage the "Cthulhu Mythos proper". This stage was formulated during Lovecraft's lifetime and was subject to his guidance. The second stage was guided by August Derleth who, in addition to publishing Lovecraft's stories after his death, attempted to categorize and expand the Mythos.


First stage

An ongoing theme in Lovecraft's work is the complete irrelevance of mankind in the face of the cosmic horrors that apparently exist in the universe. Lovecraft made frequent references to the " Great Old Ones", a loose pantheon of ancient, powerful
deities A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship due to having authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines ''deity'' as a God (male deity), god or god ...
from space who once ruled the Earth and have since fallen into a deathlike sleep. While these monstrous deities were present in almost all of Lovecraft's published work (his second short story "
Dagon Dagon or Dagan (; ) was a god worshipped in ancient Syria, across the middle of the Euphrates, with primary temples located in Tuttul and Terqa, though many attestations of his cult come from cities such as Mari and Emar as well. In settl ...
", published in 1919, is considered the start of the Mythos), the first story to really expand the pantheon of Great Old Ones and its themes is "
The Call of Cthulhu "The Call of Cthulhu" is a cosmic horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in the summer of 1926, it was first published in the pulp magazine ''Weird Tales'' in February 1928. The story is a founding document of the Cthul ...
", which was published in 1928. Lovecraft broke with other pulp writers of the time by having his main characters' minds deteriorate when afforded a glimpse of what exists outside their perceived reality. He emphasized the point by stating in the opening sentence of the story that "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." Writer Dirk W. Mosig noted that Lovecraft was a "mechanistic materialist" who embraced the philosophy of cosmic indifferentism and believed in a purposeless, mechanical, and uncaring universe. Human beings, with their limited faculties, can never fully understand this universe, and the
cognitive dissonance In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is described as a mental phenomenon in which people unknowingly hold fundamentally conflicting cognitions. Being confronted by situations that challenge this dissonance may ultimately result in some ...
caused by this revelation leads to insanity, in his view. There have been attempts at categorizing this fictional group of beings. Phillip A. Schreffler argues that by carefully scrutinizing Lovecraft's writings, a workable framework emerges that outlines the entire "pantheon"from the unreachable "Outer Ones" (e.g.,
Azathoth Azathoth is a deity in the Cthulhu Mythos and Dream Cycle stories of writer H. P. Lovecraft and other authors. He is the supreme deity of the Cthulhu Mythos and the ruler of the Cthulhu Mythos deities#Outer Gods, Outer Gods, and may also be see ...
, who occupies the centre of the universe) and "Great Old Ones" (e.g., Cthulhu, imprisoned on Earth in the sunken city of R'lyeh) to the lesser castes (the lowly slave shoggoths and the Mi-Go). David E. Schultz said Lovecraft never meant to create a canonical Mythos but rather intended his imaginary pantheon to serve merely as a background element. Lovecraft himself humorously referred to his Mythos as "Yog Sothothery" (Dirk W. Mosig coincidentally suggested the term ''Yog-Sothoth Cycle of Myth'' be substituted for ''Cthulhu Mythos''). At times, Lovecraft even had to remind his readers that his Mythos creations were entirely fictional. The view that there was no rigid structure is expounded upon by S. T. Joshi, who said Price said Lovecraft's writings could at least be divided into categories and identified three distinct themes: the "Dunsanian" (written in a similar style as Lord Dunsany), " Arkham" (occurring in Lovecraft's fictionalized
New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
setting), and "Cthulhu" (the cosmic tales) cycles. Writer Will Murray noted that while Lovecraft often used his fictional pantheon in the stories he ghostwrote for other authors, he reserved Arkham and its environs exclusively for those tales he wrote under his own name. Although the Mythos was not formalized or acknowledged between them, Lovecraft did correspond, meet in person, and share story elements with other contemporary writers including
Clark Ashton Smith Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961) was an influential American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction stories and poetry, and an artist. He achieved early recognition in California (largely through the enthusiasm ...
,
Robert E. Howard Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) was an American writer who wrote pulp magazine, pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He created the character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sor ...
,
Robert Bloch Robert Albert Bloch (; April 5, 1917September 23, 1994) was an American fiction writer, primarily of crime fiction, crime, psychological horror fiction, horror and Fantasy Fiction, fantasy, much of which has been dramatized for radio, cinema and ...
,
Frank Belknap Long Frank Belknap Long Jr. (April 27, 1901 – January 3, 1994) was an American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best k ...
,
Henry Kuttner Henry Kuttner (April 7, 1915 – February 3, 1958) was an American author of science fiction, fantasy fiction, fantasy and horror fiction, horror. Early life Henry Kuttner was born in Los Angeles, California in 1915. Kuttner (1829–1903) and ...
, Henry S. Whitehead, and
Fritz Leiber Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. ( ; December 24, 1910 – September 5, 1992) was an American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. Along with Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock, Leiber is one of the fathers of sword and sorcery. Life ...
a group referred to as the "Lovecraft Circle". For example, Robert E. Howard's character Friedrich Von Junzt reads Lovecraft's '' Necronomicon'' in the short story "The Children of the Night" (1931), and in turn Lovecraft mentions Howard's '' Unaussprechlichen Kulten'' in the stories "Out of the Aeons" (
1935 Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * January 12 – Amelia Earhart ...
) and "The Shadow Out of Time" (
1936 Events January–February * January 20 – The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King Edward VIII, following the death of his father, George V, at Sandringham House. * January 28 – Death and state funer ...
). Many of Howard's original unedited '' Conan'' stories also involve parts of the Cthulhu Mythos.


Second stage

Price denotes the second stage's commencement with August Derleth, with the principal difference between Lovecraft and Derleth being Derleth's use of hope and development of the idea that the Cthulhu Mythos essentially represented a struggle between good and evil. Derleth is credited with creating the "Elder Gods". He stated: Price said the basis for Derleth's system is found in Lovecraft: "Was Derleth's use of the rubric 'Elder Gods' so alien to Lovecraft's in ''At the Mountains of Madness''? Perhaps not. In fact, this very story, along with some hints from "The Shadow over Innsmouth", provides the key to the origin of the 'Derleth Mythos'. For in ''At the Mountains of Madness'' is shown the history of a conflict between interstellar races, first among them the Elder Ones and the Cthulhu-spawn." Derleth said Lovecraft wished for other authors to actively write about the Mythos as opposed to it being a discrete plot device within Lovecraft's own stories. Derleth expanded the boundaries of the Mythos by including any passing reference to another author's story elements by Lovecraft as part of the genre. Just as Lovecraft made passing reference to Clark Ashton Smith's '' Book of Eibon'', Derleth in turn added Smith's Ubbo-Sathla to the Mythos. Derleth also attempted to connect the deities of the Mythos to the
four elements The classical elements typically refer to earth, water, air, fire, and (later) aether which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances. Ancient cultures in Greece, Angola, Tibet, India, a ...
(air, earth, fire, and water), creating new beings representative of certain elements in order to legitimize his system of classification. He created "Cthugha" as a sort of fire elemental when a fan, Francis Towner Laney, complained that he had neglected to include the element in his schema. Laney, the editor of '' The Acolyte'', had categorized the Mythos in an essay that first appeared in the Winter 1942 issue of the magazine. Impressed by the glossary, Derleth asked Laney to rewrite it for publication in the Arkham House collection ''Beyond the Wall of Sleep'' (1943). Laney's essay ("The Cthulhu Mythos") was later republished in ''Crypt of Cthulhu #32'' (1985). In applying the elemental theory to beings that function on a cosmic scale (e.g., Yog-Sothoth) some authors created a fifth element that they termed ''aethyr''.


Fictional cults

A number of fictional cults dedicated to "malevolent supernatural entities" appear in the Cthulhu Mythos, the loosely connected series of horror stories written by Lovecraft and other writers inspired by his creations. These fictional cults have in some ways taken on a life of their own beyond the pages of Lovecraft's works. According to author John Engle, "The very real world of esoteric magical and occult practices has adopted Lovecraft and his works into its canon, which have informed the ritual practices, or even formed the bedrock, of certain cabals and magical circles".


Significance

The Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft is considered to have been highly influential for the
speculative fiction Speculative fiction is an umbrella term, umbrella genre of fiction that encompasses all the subgenres that depart from Realism (arts), realism, or strictly imitating everyday reality, instead presenting fantastical, supernatural, futuristic, or ...
genre. It has been called "the official fictional religion of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, a grab bag for writers in need of unthinkably vast, and unthinkably indifferent, eldritch entities".


Biology

'' Sollasina cthulhu'', an extinct ophiocistioid
echinoderm An echinoderm () is any animal of the phylum Echinodermata (), which includes starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins, sand dollars and sea cucumbers, as well as the sessile sea lilies or "stone lilies". While bilaterally symmetrical as ...
, is named after the Cthulhu Mythos. Yogsothoth is a genus of centrohelid protists.


See also

* * * * *


References


Further reading

* * * * * * Dziemianowicz, Stefan. "The Cthulhu Mythos: Chronicle of a Controversy". In The Lovecraft Society of New England (ed) ''Necronomicon: The Cthulhu Mythos Convention 1993'' (convention book). Boston: NecronomiCon, 1993, pp. 25–31 * * * * * * *


External links


Lovecraft Archive
*

a mapping of Lovecraft's imaginary version of New England
Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown
– full documentary at the Snagfilms company YouTube channel
Schema on Lovecraft's »The Call of Ctuhulhu« and the Cthulhu Mythos
{{Fantasy fiction American novels adapted into films American novels adapted into plays Fictional universes Horror genres Mythopoeia Novels adapted into video games Shared universes