this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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Cosmic Horror

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A community to discuss Cosmic Horror in it's many forms; books, films, comics, art, TV, music, RPGs, video games etc.

"cosmic horror... is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock... themes of cosmic dread, forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks associated with scientific discoveries... the sense that ordinary life is a thin shell over a reality that is so alien and abstract in comparison that merely contemplating it would damage the sanity of the ordinary person, insignificance and powerlessness at the cosmic scale..."

For more Lovecraft & Mythos-inspired Cosmic Horror:-!lovecraft_mythos@lemmy.world

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"In order to better understand the extent and importance of Lovecraft’s conception of “cosmic horror,” we need to recognize it as a transvaluation of a term already widely circulating in the first thirty years of Lovecraft’s life. During this era, the term “cosmic horror” derived primarily from the (at the time, highly influential) writings of American physician, ophthalmologist and medical lexicographer, George Milbry Gould. This short essay builds on one small part of the larger argument of “The Birth of Cosmic Horror from the S(ub)lime of Lucretius,” included in the essay collection New Directions in Supernatural Horror Literature, published by Palgrave in 2018 (if you’re looking for a peer-reviewed and properly citational version of the basic argument, use that.) I develop these connections further and more formally in my in-progress book, which offers a literary-historical genealogy of cosmic horror..."

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[–] Emperor@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago

This short essay builds on one small part of the larger argument of “The Birth of Cosmic Horror from the S(ub)lime of Lucretius,” included in the essay collection New Directions in Supernatural Horror Literature, published by Palgrave in 2018 (if you’re looking for a peer-reviewed and properly citational version of the basic argument, use that.) I develop these connections further and more formally in my in-progress book, which offers a literary-historical genealogy of cosmic horror.

That's very much my cup of tea - Lovecraft (like George Lucas and Quentin Tarantino) had a magpie's eye for fantastic inspiration and was able to stitch it together into something new (with varying degrees of success) that inspired generations. I've had productive time mining the earlier authors that Lovecraft drew on or praised. It would definitely be interesting to read a detailed history of cosmic horror, as it will bring up more avenues of exploration.