Gothic Fiction and Poe’s

Influence on Lovecraft
Name: Endrődi Csaba Levente (PIW73X)

Majors: Teacher of English language and

culture, teacher of Hungarian language and
literature

Course: Introduction to the Reading of

Literary Texts in English (ANGA136_6)

2021/2022 2. semester
Introduction
When it comes to Gothic horror and supernatural writing we can not miss mentioning two
iconic authors of this genre; Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) and Howard Phillips Lovecraft
(1890-1937). They are both remarkable writers in Gothic fiction, and able to give some
unhealing wounds to the readers. The term Gothic fiction is associated with these people. Poe
wasn’t the one who invented Gothic fiction but he was the mastermind who reshaped it. He
focused on the psychology of terror, and he realized that the best way to convey fear isn’t
through long novels but through short stories. That’s why he was careful with every episode,
every single paragraph, and every word in his short stories. He called this method the „unity
of effect”. 1
There was almost a century between the works of Poe and Lovecraft, despite that,
Lovecraft looked up to Poe and learned much from him. He stated the followings: „When I
write stories, Edgar Allan Poe is my model.” and „Poe was my God of Fiction.” 2 This
shouldn’t be interpreted as Lovecraft copying every story of Poe. It is beyond debate that
Lovecraft was inspired by Poe, but he also had unique techniques and like his „Master”, he
also refashioned the Gothic mode of writing. In my essay, I would like to talk about Gothic
fiction, Edgar Allan Poe, and elaborate on the influence of Poe on Lovecraft.
Gothic fiction
The word Gothic has a wide range of meanings and terms. The original meaning is „to deal
with the Goths”, who were barbarian tribes in Northern Europe around the fall of the Roman
Empire. In the eighteenth century the meaning changed; it referred to characteristics like
historical, medieval, old and dangerous. It has literary, historical, architectural manifestations,
and many others. Obviously, in my essay, I refer to the literary term. In a literary context, the
term Gothic is used for the novels written between 1760-and 1820 (some legendary authors
are Mary Shelley, Ann Radcliffe, and Matthew Lewis). When we think about the old Gothic
novels werewolves, vampires, and old castles, come to mind. But the Gothic can also refer to
supernatural horrors, like the ones Poe and Lovecraft wrote, so the literary historians defined
1
The Lovecraftian Poe, Essays on Influence, Reception, Interpretation, and Transformation, Editor: Sean
Moreland, Lehigh University Press, Bethlehem, 2017, Page 6

2
H.P. Lovecraft: Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner, Editors: S.T. Joshi, David E. Schultz, Hippocampus Press, New
York, 2005
the Gothic as a larger group, thus they created the term Gothic fiction. This means the
writings, that were not created in those sixty years, can also be considered Gothic. There is a
general truth to Gothic fiction, which is that it is connected with fearful and haunting stories.
Gothic can be categorized by geographical regions periods of time, but from now on I will
talk about the American Gothic because the literary works of Poe and Lovecraft fall into that
category.3
Mostly, British Gothic fiction writers influenced American Gothicism (for example,
Mary Shelley with Frankenstein), but they also moved in another direction. America did not
have a feudal past, so castles and monasteries were not common, so the authors refused to set
their stories in a classic European Gothic setting. They used more American settings for their
stories, like an abandoned house instead of an old castle, and an urban landscape instead of
the forest. Its uniqueness is that it talks about slavery, the oppression of women, and other
traumas, of course not in a straightforward way, but metaphorically. „The psychoanalytical
potential of Gothic is in providing a metaphorical representation of trauma and anxiety in its
readership…American Gothic might be seen to offer a „voice” for the culturally silenced, and
the repressed events of American history.”4 It also focused more on consciousness, and
mentally ill people. The protagonists are usually crazy people, who did something hideous,
and we see everything from their perspectives, and we learn about their madness, because we
get a detailed description of their thoughts, and the king of that depiction was Edgar Allan
Poe.
The Tomahawk Man
Among all of the important figures in American Gothic Edgar Allan Poe stands out. He put so
much effort into making American literature great because he thought that the arts of the
United States (especially writing because that was close to him) should be exceptional. That is
the reason he wrote many pieces of criticisms. He had high standards, so he wrote many harsh
reviews. „Edgar Allan Poe was best known, in his lifetime, as an editor and critic whose
cuttingly harsh reviews earned him the nickname „Tomahawk Man””5.

3
You can find more about Gothic overally in: David Punter: The Literature of Terror The Literature of Terror: A

History of Gothic Fictions from 1765 to the Present Day, Vol. 1: The Gothic Tradition, Routledge, London, 1996

4
Allan Lloyd-Smith: American Gothic Fiction: An Introduction, Continuum, London, 2004, page 31

5
Harriet Staff: Between Popular and Literary: Remembering Edgar Allan Poe 165 Years After his Death, Poetry
Foundation 2014. Oct. 8., https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/edgar-allan-poe-prose-poetry/9455/ (Time
 Beyond the criticism, he brought extraordinary prose writing to the table. As I
mentioned above, he is amazing at writing short stories, because of the utility of effect, and
because of how well he uses the first-person narrator. Maybe he would not have been a master
of this technique if he had been unaware of the Scottish school of common sense. This idea
comes from the work of Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson, James Beattie, and Donald Stewart,
but Immanuel Kant also wrote about it. The main point is the following: „the Common Sense”
model of experience based on the reflection on the evidence of the senses could not account
for even the most basic experience of time and space, which must instead depend upon innate
qualities of the mind”6. Poe uses this idea when it comes to describing his protagonists’
thoughts. His characters try to contain their unnatural experiences and acts within a rational
framework. A good example of that is in Poe’s most well-known story, „The Tell-Tale
Heart”, where the narrator is trying to prove that he is completely sane. „You fancy me mad.
Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I
proceeded…Would a madman have been so wise as this?” 7 The creepy thing is that the
narrator confesses the murder, but he believes that when he finishes his monologue, everyone
will agree with him, and understand his perspective. This writing method influences Lovecraft
because he also writes stories with similarly crazy narrators, but in other stories, he creates
something new.
Poe’s influence on Lovecraft
Surprisingly, the two men’s biographies share some similarities. Both of their careers lasted
almost for two decades, and they wrote mostly short stories, and essays. Even their
personalities seem to be alike, both of them liked solitude, they were introverted, and
uncomfortable with women. Poverty affected their lives, and they both died in their forties. A
difference might be that maybe Lovecraft became familiar with Gothic literature at a younger
age. He started reading Poe at the age of eight, and became a completely different person, at
that time he also started examining Greek mythology. These two experiences served as a
foundation for his later writings because he created his own myths (like the Cthulhu and the
old gods’ myths). “Then I struck EDGAR ALLAN POE! It was my downfall, and at the age
of eight, I saw the blue firmament of Argos and Sicily darkened by the miasmal exhalations of

of download: 2022.04.24.)

6
Allan Lloyd-Smith: American Gothic Fiction: An Introduction, Continuum, London, 2004, page 68

7
Edgar Allan Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings, Bantam Classics, New York, 2004, page 2
 8
the tomb” He admitted Poe’s influence quite late, in 1935, but out of pride, he denied that
his stories modeled only Poe’s. „If I picked it up through any especial influence, that
influence is probably the practice of the 18th century rather than Poe.” 9 It is challenging to
deny the fact that Lovecraft’s early work has the same rhetoric as Poe’s stories, it has the plot
same elements, same setting, commonly thinking narrators, and killings. They both set their
stories in narrow spaces like dungeons, attics, and cellars to create a sense of claustrophobia
(fear of enclosed spaces). But we can’t say that Lovecraft is a copycat, who doesn’t have
original thoughts.
The later works of Lovecraft differ from Poe’s. The way I see it, Lovecraft learned
how to express fear from Poe, but the thing his the characters fear is completely different. In
Poe’s stories, the characters are scared because they may not be able to get away with murder.
I would say this is somehow human, and everyone can understand this. Poe’s characters know
what they are afraid of, but Lovecraft’s do not, which makes his novellas scarier. As he states:
„The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear
is fear of the unknown.”10 The characters experience such hideous terrors that they can’t
describe. This has a huge impact on the reader because everyone depicts these horrors as
bizarre as they can, and everyone depicts them differently. This is called cosmic horror, which
Lovecraft mastered so well that it is also called Lovecraftian horror. This is an idea, that
Lovecraft got from Poe, but it seems like he surpassed him. Pieces of cosmic horrors are
weird and scary because they are unknowable. The characters in these stories are afraid of
things, so hideous that they can not describe. Cosmic horror tales make feel us small,
inconsequential, and completely helpless. One of Lovecraft’s greatest cosmic horror stories is
At the Mountains of Madness. We follow a failed Antarctic expedition, where the crew
encounters a prehistoric alien civilization. It is set in Antarctica, so it draws a comparison to
Poe’s only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Even Lovecraft mentions this title in
his tale.
Conclusion
Poe is the most important person when it comes to Gothic stories, but he influenced many
other authors. His utility of effect, which he shared in The Philosophy of Composition, was a
basic method that writers after him used. I believe his best „student” was Lovecraft. We can
see the undeniable influence in Lovecraft’s work. He uses the utility of effect, but he was able
to put it in a short novel. He started to use Poe’s way of the first-person narration and the
8
H. P. Lovecraft, Letter to Bernard Austin Dwyer, March 3, 1927
9
H.P. Lovecraft, Letter to Richard F. Searight, November 4, 1935
10
H.P. Lovecraft: Supernatural Horror in Literature, Dover Publications, New York, 1973
description of the narrator’s thoughts. He found his own way of writing in cosmic horror.
Without Poe maybe I would not be able to talk about Lovecraft, but he did not stay in Poe’s
shadow, he was able to find an origin, an influence and he was able to refashion it and make
something new. There are many similar things between these two iconic author but the most
common thing is that they both cause some unhealable marks to their readers.

Bibliography:
Allan Lloyd-Smith: American Gothic Fiction: An Introduction, Continuum, London, 2004

David Punter: The Literature of Terror The Literature of Terror: A History of Gothic Fictions
from 1765 to the Present Day, Vol. 1,2: The Gothic Tradition, Routledge, London, 1996

David Simmons: American Horror Fiction and Class: From Poe to Twilight, Palgrave
Macmillan, London, 2017

The Lovecraftian Poe, Essays on Influence, Reception, Interpretation and Transformation,

Editor: Sean Moreland, Lehigh University Press, Bethlehem, 2017

H.P. Lovecraft: Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner, Editors: S.T. Joshi, David E. Schultz,
Hippocampus Press, New York, 2005

Harriet Staff: Between Popular and Literary: Remembering Edgar Allan Poe 165 Years After
His Death, Poetry Foundation 2014. Oct. 8.,
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/edgar-allan-poe-prose-poetry/9455/ (Time of
download: 2022.04.24.)

Edgar Allan Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings, Bantam Classics, New York, 2004

H. P. Lovecraft, Letter to Bernard Austin Dwyer, March 3, 1927 Selected Letters, 1925–1929.
Ed. August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1968. 105–13.
Print.
H.P. Lovecraft, Letter to Richard F. Searight, November 4, 1935 Selected Letters, 1934–1937.
Ed. August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1976. [first page of
letter – last page of letter]. Print.

H.P. Lovecraft: Supernatural Horror in Literature, Dover Publications, New York, 1973

Sarah S. Davis: Your introduction to the cosmic horror genre, 2019. Feb. 19.,
https://bookriot.com/cosmic-horror/ (Date of download: 2022.04.26.)