WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.040 Welcome to the Deep Dive, where we take the mountain 00:00:02.040 --> 00:00:04.280 of sources you shared with us and distill them 00:00:04.280 --> 00:00:07.139 down to the essential, fascinating, and sometimes 00:00:07.139 --> 00:00:10.679 terrifying truths. And today's mission is a big 00:00:10.679 --> 00:00:13.320 one. It is. We're going to move beyond, you know, 00:00:13.339 --> 00:00:16.460 the green tentacles and the easy scares and plunge 00:00:16.460 --> 00:00:19.739 deep into the profound, complex, and often contradictory 00:00:19.739 --> 00:00:23.059 life, philosophy, and enduring legacy of Howard 00:00:23.059 --> 00:00:25.640 Phillips Lovecraft. Lovecraft, born in 1890, 00:00:25.980 --> 00:00:29.859 dies in 1937. And he really stands as arguably 00:00:29.859 --> 00:00:32.960 the most significant figure in 20th century supernatural 00:00:32.960 --> 00:00:35.380 horror. But he's so much more complicated than 00:00:35.380 --> 00:00:37.600 that. Oh, completely. When you truly deep dive 00:00:37.600 --> 00:00:40.219 into his biography, you realize the man himself 00:00:40.219 --> 00:00:43.159 was a walking paradox. You have a writer who 00:00:43.159 --> 00:00:45.640 is incredibly prolific. I mean, thousands of 00:00:45.640 --> 00:00:48.119 pages of letters, dozens of stories, yet who 00:00:48.119 --> 00:00:50.159 could never earn a comfortable living from his 00:00:50.159 --> 00:00:52.859 fiction. Right. And you have this rigid traditionalist 00:00:52.859 --> 00:00:55.340 and aristocrat who eventually becomes a supporter 00:00:55.340 --> 00:00:59.600 of. Well, a form of elitist socialism. And the 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:01.219 greatest contradiction of all, the one that I 00:01:01.219 --> 00:01:04.280 think really defines his legacy, is that his 00:01:04.280 --> 00:01:06.859 horror wasn't rooted in classic supernatural 00:01:06.859 --> 00:01:09.900 tropes. You know, no ghosts or devils. Instead, 00:01:10.140 --> 00:01:12.579 his entire philosophy was rooted in scientific 00:01:12.579 --> 00:01:15.780 materialism. He was a traditionalist whose fiction 00:01:15.780 --> 00:01:18.299 predicted the utter insignificance of humanity 00:01:18.299 --> 00:01:20.900 based entirely on scientific and astronomical 00:01:20.900 --> 00:01:24.260 progress. It was a terrifyingly modern worldview. 00:01:24.730 --> 00:01:28.109 Exactly. We're dealing here primarily with weird 00:01:28.109 --> 00:01:32.329 fiction, horror, fantasy, and some very early 00:01:32.329 --> 00:01:34.810 science fiction. Lovecraft essentially defined 00:01:34.810 --> 00:01:37.709 the modern cosmic horror genre. But the sheer 00:01:37.709 --> 00:01:40.030 volume of his influence means we should probably 00:01:40.030 --> 00:01:42.689 clarify some terminology right up top. Definitely. 00:01:42.790 --> 00:01:44.989 When people talk about his great contribution, 00:01:45.189 --> 00:01:48.030 they immediately jump to the Cthulhu mythos. 00:01:48.150 --> 00:01:49.890 And that's important to clarify right at the 00:01:49.890 --> 00:01:52.340 start for you, the listener. While Lovecraft 00:01:52.340 --> 00:01:54.700 is credited with creating the entities and concepts, 00:01:54.920 --> 00:01:57.319 you know, Kulu, the Necronomicon, the Great Old 00:01:57.319 --> 00:01:59.980 Ones, the term Kulumikos itself was actually 00:01:59.980 --> 00:02:02.180 coined by later authors. He had a great little 00:02:02.180 --> 00:02:04.140 nickname for it, though, didn't he? He did. In 00:02:04.140 --> 00:02:06.659 his letters, Lovecraft playfully referred to 00:02:06.659 --> 00:02:10.500 his fictional cosmology as yogsothothery. And 00:02:10.500 --> 00:02:12.740 that playful term, it really speaks to the collaborative 00:02:12.740 --> 00:02:15.419 nature of his fictional universe, which was built 00:02:15.419 --> 00:02:17.699 primarily through correspondence with his circle 00:02:17.699 --> 00:02:20.419 of writer friends. So our goal in this deep dive 00:02:20.419 --> 00:02:23.340 is to move beyond the easy image of the monsters 00:02:23.340 --> 00:02:26.039 and truly understand the philosophical bedrock 00:02:26.039 --> 00:02:29.120 that makes his work resonate so deeply. We are 00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:32.030 talking about cosmicism. We want to understand 00:02:32.030 --> 00:02:34.490 the origins of this philosophy, which allows 00:02:34.490 --> 00:02:37.349 us to grasp why his work remains so influential 00:02:37.349 --> 00:02:39.550 today, despite the fact that he was virtually 00:02:39.550 --> 00:02:42.030 unknown to the mainstream public during his own 00:02:42.030 --> 00:02:44.460 lifetime. And by the end of this, you'll grasp 00:02:44.460 --> 00:02:47.699 why the true terror in a Lovecraft story is always 00:02:47.699 --> 00:02:50.520 psychological and deeply philosophical, not merely, 00:02:50.680 --> 00:02:53.039 you know, some external threat. OK, so let's 00:02:53.039 --> 00:02:55.340 unpack his biography. Yeah. Because it doesn't 00:02:55.340 --> 00:02:57.939 just provide context. It provides the psychological 00:02:57.939 --> 00:03:00.159 blueprint for everything he ever wrote. It really 00:03:00.159 --> 00:03:02.319 does. Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode 00:03:02.319 --> 00:03:05.300 Island in 1890, the only child of Winfield Scott 00:03:05.300 --> 00:03:08.120 Lovecraft and Sarah Susan Lovecraft. And the 00:03:08.120 --> 00:03:10.439 family background was initially quite affluent. 00:03:10.580 --> 00:03:13.740 Oh, very. Thanks specifically to the substantial 00:03:13.740 --> 00:03:15.840 wealth of his maternal family, the Phillips, 00:03:16.080 --> 00:03:19.379 they were in many ways old New England aristocracy. 00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:21.819 But that initial sense of security and tradition 00:03:21.819 --> 00:03:24.240 was shattered almost immediately. Almost instantly. 00:03:24.599 --> 00:03:28.020 In 1893, when Lovecraft was just three years 00:03:28.020 --> 00:03:31.500 old, his father, Winfield, suffered a severe 00:03:31.500 --> 00:03:34.379 psychotic episode in a Chicago hotel. And he 00:03:34.379 --> 00:03:36.250 was committed. He was subsequently committed 00:03:36.250 --> 00:03:39.810 to Butler Hospital in Providence. And the medical 00:03:39.810 --> 00:03:41.629 records, they indicate he had been exhibiting 00:03:41.629 --> 00:03:44.289 bizarre and erratic behavior for a year prior 00:03:44.289 --> 00:03:47.129 to this commitment. Winfield died five years 00:03:47.129 --> 00:03:50.030 later in 1898. And here is where the source material 00:03:50.030 --> 00:03:52.629 immediately links his personal tragedy to his 00:03:52.629 --> 00:03:55.449 literary themes. The death certificate listed 00:03:55.449 --> 00:03:57.750 the cause as general paresis. Right. So just 00:03:57.750 --> 00:03:59.870 to clarify for you, what does it mean that general 00:03:59.870 --> 00:04:02.229 paresis was the real cause? And how does that 00:04:02.229 --> 00:04:04.969 complexity frame the family? is myth -making. 00:04:05.150 --> 00:04:07.210 Well, general paresis is medically synonymous 00:04:07.210 --> 00:04:09.930 with late -stage syphilis, and that's a fact 00:04:09.930 --> 00:04:12.409 the family went to enormous lengths to conceal. 00:04:12.569 --> 00:04:14.930 Of course. Winfield's condition, which involved 00:04:14.930 --> 00:04:17.750 psychosis and eventual paralysis, was almost 00:04:17.750 --> 00:04:19.769 certainly a consequence of this long -term disease. 00:04:20.350 --> 00:04:24.189 However, Lovecraft was told, or perhaps chose 00:04:24.189 --> 00:04:26.509 to maintain throughout his life, that his father 00:04:26.509 --> 00:04:29.110 died from paralytic insomnia and overwork. That 00:04:29.110 --> 00:04:32.009 distinction is crucial. It means the origins 00:04:32.009 --> 00:04:34.509 of the greatest source of familial corruption 00:04:34.509 --> 00:04:37.410 and destruction, the father's madness and death, 00:04:37.610 --> 00:04:41.189 was covered up by a sanitized, easily digestible, 00:04:41.189 --> 00:04:45.290 if sad, story. This immediately foreshadows that 00:04:45.290 --> 00:04:49.379 core Lovecraftian theme. The real horror is the 00:04:49.379 --> 00:04:51.819 secret, corrupting knowledge hidden beneath the 00:04:51.819 --> 00:04:54.319 surface of normal life. Precisely. That need 00:04:54.319 --> 00:04:56.839 for hidden, dark knowledge to justify the trauma 00:04:56.839 --> 00:04:59.139 of his early life would become absolutely central. 00:04:59.399 --> 00:05:01.459 So with his father gone, who becomes the central 00:05:01.459 --> 00:05:03.740 figure? The key figure in young Howard's life 00:05:03.740 --> 00:05:05.959 became his maternal grandfather, Whipple Van 00:05:05.959 --> 00:05:08.660 Buren Phillips. Lovecraft himself later wrote 00:05:08.660 --> 00:05:10.720 that Whipple was the center of my entire universe. 00:05:10.939 --> 00:05:13.360 And Whipple was instrumental not only in Lovecraft's 00:05:13.360 --> 00:05:15.959 education, fostering an appreciation for classics, 00:05:16.180 --> 00:05:19.319 Roman culture, English poetry. But he also created 00:05:19.319 --> 00:05:21.819 the first monsters Lovecraft ever encountered. 00:05:22.100 --> 00:05:25.759 Yes. Yes. Whipple entertained young Lovecraft 00:05:25.759 --> 00:05:29.420 with original weird tales of winged horrors and 00:05:29.420 --> 00:05:33.279 deep low moaning sounds. It's a fascinating combination, 00:05:33.339 --> 00:05:35.939 isn't it? Grounding the boy in rigid classical 00:05:35.939 --> 00:05:38.699 structure while simultaneously feeding him chaotic, 00:05:38.959 --> 00:05:42.040 invented gothic horror. And Lovecraft later noted 00:05:42.040 --> 00:05:44.240 that these stories, which terrified and thrilled 00:05:44.240 --> 00:05:47.680 him, likely originated from classic gothic novelists 00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:50.399 his grandfather had read, like Anne Radcliffe 00:05:50.399 --> 00:05:52.740 and Charles Maturin. But the trauma just kept 00:05:52.740 --> 00:05:56.540 coming. His grandmother, Robie, died in 1896, 00:05:56.720 --> 00:05:59.560 which, according to Lovecraft, plunged the family 00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:01.980 into a gloom from which it never fully recovered. 00:06:02.490 --> 00:06:05.350 And this profound familial despair coincided 00:06:05.350 --> 00:06:07.589 directly with the onset of his famous recurring 00:06:07.589 --> 00:06:09.870 nightmares. This is such a clear manifestation 00:06:09.870 --> 00:06:12.069 of psychological stress. The nightmares of the 00:06:12.069 --> 00:06:14.129 Night Gaunts. The Night Gaunts. He described 00:06:14.129 --> 00:06:17.569 them as slithy, black, vast, and gelatinous things 00:06:17.569 --> 00:06:19.709 that would whirl me through space at a sickening 00:06:19.709 --> 00:06:21.949 rate of speed. Terrifying. What's striking is 00:06:21.949 --> 00:06:23.930 that the Night Gaunts, these terrifying entities 00:06:23.930 --> 00:06:26.750 of his youth, then appeared in his adult fiction 00:06:26.750 --> 00:06:29.170 three decades later, like in the dream quest 00:06:29.170 --> 00:06:32.529 of Unknown Kadath. So the trauma of the 1890s 00:06:32.529 --> 00:06:34.430 directly manifested in the nightmares, which 00:06:34.430 --> 00:06:37.310 then became physical entities in his cosmic fiction. 00:06:37.449 --> 00:06:39.709 It's a direct through line from childhood psychological 00:06:39.709 --> 00:06:43.470 terror to adult literary philosophy. But the 00:06:43.470 --> 00:06:45.649 family's foundation was built on sand because 00:06:45.649 --> 00:06:47.649 the emotional and medical tragedy was quickly 00:06:47.649 --> 00:06:51.149 followed by financial collapse. Right. By 1900, 00:06:51.649 --> 00:06:53.870 Whipple's business ventures were struggling and 00:06:53.870 --> 00:06:56.970 they were forced to fire hired servants. But 00:06:56.970 --> 00:06:59.910 the major blow came in the spring of 1904. What 00:06:59.910 --> 00:07:02.110 happened? Whipple's largest business venture 00:07:02.110 --> 00:07:05.009 suffered a catastrophic failure, leading to this 00:07:05.009 --> 00:07:08.889 slow, painful erosion of the family wealth. And 00:07:08.889 --> 00:07:11.550 within months, Whipple, the last remaining stable 00:07:11.550 --> 00:07:14.589 male figure, died from a stroke. So the loss 00:07:14.589 --> 00:07:16.569 of his financial foundation, the loss of his 00:07:16.569 --> 00:07:19.089 major paternal figure, and the resulting necessity 00:07:19.089 --> 00:07:21.889 of moving from the expansive family home to a 00:07:21.889 --> 00:07:24.829 small duplex later that year, that marked this 00:07:24.829 --> 00:07:27.170 as one of the darkest periods of his life. So 00:07:27.170 --> 00:07:30.089 dark, in fact, that Lovecraft wrote in a 1934 00:07:30.089 --> 00:07:32.769 letter that he saw no point in continuing to 00:07:32.769 --> 00:07:35.550 live in contemplated suicide. And this is where 00:07:35.550 --> 00:07:37.689 his intellectual life first intersected with 00:07:37.689 --> 00:07:40.600 his emotional state. He claimed the only thing 00:07:40.600 --> 00:07:42.600 that prevented him was his inherent scientific 00:07:42.600 --> 00:07:45.420 curiosity. Right, the desire to know more about 00:07:45.420 --> 00:07:48.139 the world. It suggests that reason and knowledge 00:07:48.139 --> 00:07:50.360 were the only angers left for him, even when 00:07:50.360 --> 00:07:52.980 they led to his pessimism. This internal chaos 00:07:52.980 --> 00:07:55.779 was reflected in his academic life. His school 00:07:55.779 --> 00:07:58.899 career was sporadic, marked by long periods of 00:07:58.899 --> 00:08:02.819 removal due to unidentified health concerns and 00:08:02.819 --> 00:08:06.399 near breakdowns. He enjoyed high school, excelled 00:08:06.399 --> 00:08:09.019 in chemistry and physics, but he never graduated 00:08:09.019 --> 00:08:12.240 in 1908 after suffering a severe, debilitating 00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:15.160 health crisis. And the exact nature of that 1908 00:08:15.160 --> 00:08:17.779 event is still a mystery. It is. His letters 00:08:17.779 --> 00:08:20.100 described it retrospectively as a nervous collapse 00:08:20.100 --> 00:08:23.220 or a breakdown characterized by intense headaches, 00:08:23.480 --> 00:08:25.740 insomnia and a nervous weakness that prevented 00:08:25.740 --> 00:08:27.899 him from continuous application to anything. 00:08:28.180 --> 00:08:30.480 The surrounding details paint a picture of immense 00:08:30.480 --> 00:08:33.299 psychological distress. One high school classmate 00:08:33.299 --> 00:08:35.759 reported Lovecraft exhibited terrible tics and 00:08:35.759 --> 00:08:37.799 would suddenly up and jump in his seat. Which 00:08:37.799 --> 00:08:40.120 has led analysts to speculate on several possible 00:08:40.120 --> 00:08:43.240 causes, from chorea minor, which is rare after 00:08:43.240 --> 00:08:46.039 adolescence, to something called a hysteroid 00:08:46.039 --> 00:08:48.580 seizure, which is a term now used to describe 00:08:48.580 --> 00:08:51.120 atypical depression involving profound physical 00:08:51.120 --> 00:08:53.580 and mental withdrawal. He noted that he could 00:08:53.580 --> 00:08:56.299 hardly bear to see or speak to anyone and liked 00:08:56.299 --> 00:08:58.779 to shut out the world by pulling down dark shades 00:08:58.779 --> 00:09:01.179 and using artificial light. That sounds like 00:09:01.179 --> 00:09:03.840 a total social and emotional withdrawal that 00:09:03.840 --> 00:09:05.860 lasted for years. It did. He retreated almost 00:09:05.860 --> 00:09:09.000 completely until 1913. And the thing that finally 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:11.539 dragged him back into the wider world, and thus 00:09:11.539 --> 00:09:13.879 into his writing career, was not some burst of 00:09:13.879 --> 00:09:16.960 creativity. It was pure literary combat. That's 00:09:16.960 --> 00:09:19.539 often how genius is sparked, isn't it? A seemingly 00:09:19.539 --> 00:09:22.220 trivial personal offense leading to a lifelong 00:09:22.220 --> 00:09:25.049 pursuit. So tell us about this strange literary 00:09:25.049 --> 00:09:27.909 feud. It began with a letter he wrote to a popular 00:09:27.909 --> 00:09:31.809 pulp magazine called Argosy in 1913. It was viciously 00:09:31.809 --> 00:09:33.789 critical of one of the magazine's writers, Fred 00:09:33.789 --> 00:09:36.629 Jackson. He called his stories trivial, effeminate, 00:09:36.690 --> 00:09:40.139 and in places coarse. And in a deeply troubling 00:09:40.139 --> 00:09:43.639 display of his prejudices, he suggested Jackson's 00:09:43.639 --> 00:09:46.179 characters exhibited delicate passions and emotions 00:09:46.179 --> 00:09:50.299 proper to Negroes and anthropoid apes. This sparked 00:09:50.299 --> 00:09:53.559 a nearly year -long public feud in the magazine's 00:09:53.559 --> 00:09:55.879 letters section. And that bizarre, aggressive, 00:09:56.059 --> 00:09:59.659 and frankly racist literary feud led directly 00:09:59.659 --> 00:10:02.620 to his rejuvenation. It did. The editor of the 00:10:02.620 --> 00:10:05.299 United Amateur Press Association, Edward F. Dace, 00:10:05.460 --> 00:10:07.950 noticed the quality and intensity of his... critical 00:10:07.950 --> 00:10:10.289 letters and invited him to join the organization 00:10:10.289 --> 00:10:13.190 in 1914. And that's the moment Lovecraft marks 00:10:13.190 --> 00:10:15.750 as his return to life. Famously, he noted that 00:10:15.750 --> 00:10:18.490 joining the UAPA gave him a renewed will to live, 00:10:18.669 --> 00:10:21.070 a renewed sense of existence as other than a 00:10:21.070 --> 00:10:23.230 superfluous weight. He just threw himself into 00:10:23.230 --> 00:10:25.610 amateur journalism with incredible passion. And 00:10:25.610 --> 00:10:27.809 he used his position to embed his xenophobic 00:10:27.809 --> 00:10:30.429 and racist opinions, often criticizing Americanisms 00:10:30.429 --> 00:10:33.029 in slang, arguing that the national language 00:10:33.029 --> 00:10:35.110 is being negatively changed by what he perceived 00:10:35.110 --> 00:10:37.990 as uncultured immigrants. Hence, amateur activity 00:10:37.990 --> 00:10:40.710 coincided with a renewed tragedy concerning his 00:10:40.710 --> 00:10:44.870 mother, Susie. In the winter of 1918 -1919, she 00:10:44.870 --> 00:10:47.210 began exhibiting severe symptoms of a nervous 00:10:47.210 --> 00:10:49.570 breakdown. Neighbors recalled her describing 00:10:49.570 --> 00:10:52.509 weird and fantastic creatures that rushed out 00:10:52.509 --> 00:10:55.370 from behind buildings. The family cycle of trauma 00:10:55.370 --> 00:10:58.929 repeated. In March 1919, Susie was committed 00:10:58.929 --> 00:11:01.470 to Butler Hospital, the exact same place where 00:11:01.470 --> 00:11:04.250 her husband, Lovecraft's father, had died years 00:11:04.250 --> 00:11:07.399 earlier. That's horrifying. A direct symmetrical 00:11:07.399 --> 00:11:10.500 echo of his childhood trauma. Both parents committed 00:11:10.500 --> 00:11:13.389 to the same asylum. both having experienced vivid, 00:11:13.490 --> 00:11:16.230 fantastic visions, which Lovecraft would later 00:11:16.230 --> 00:11:19.250 transmute into literary horrors. And his immediate 00:11:19.250 --> 00:11:22.190 reaction was deep sadness, a renewed desire that 00:11:22.190 --> 00:11:24.629 his own life might terminate. But when she died 00:11:24.629 --> 00:11:26.529 from complications from a gallbladder operation 00:11:26.529 --> 00:11:30.190 in May 1921, his later response, curiously, was 00:11:30.190 --> 00:11:32.990 relief. Relief at achieving independence. Exactly. 00:11:33.070 --> 00:11:35.210 That relief allowed him to travel and engage 00:11:35.210 --> 00:11:37.190 more fully with the amateur writing community, 00:11:37.429 --> 00:11:39.549 which is how he met his future wife, Sonia Green. 00:11:39.970 --> 00:11:42.539 This early life... drenched in disease, hidden 00:11:42.539 --> 00:11:44.679 truth, financial collapse, and deep psychological 00:11:44.679 --> 00:11:47.320 withdrawal provided all the core material for 00:11:47.320 --> 00:11:49.940 his unique brand of existential horror. So let's 00:11:49.940 --> 00:11:52.720 move from his tragic personal life to his intellectual 00:11:52.720 --> 00:11:56.279 landscape, because we see those same deep contradictions 00:11:56.279 --> 00:11:58.940 reflected in his personal views, particularly 00:11:58.940 --> 00:12:01.460 his political and philosophical evolution. Right. 00:12:01.559 --> 00:12:03.740 He started out, as you mentioned, as a staunch 00:12:03.740 --> 00:12:06.700 conservative Tory and Anglophile. He admired 00:12:06.700 --> 00:12:09.360 the British monarchy, opposed democracy. His 00:12:09.360 --> 00:12:11.279 early viewpoints. which lasted until the late 00:12:11.279 --> 00:12:14.580 1920s, were purely based on tradition, aesthetic 00:12:14.580 --> 00:12:17.860 order, and heritage. He genuinely believed the 00:12:17.860 --> 00:12:20.080 U .S. should be governed by an aristocracy of 00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:22.659 the educated and well -bred. His Anglophilia 00:12:22.659 --> 00:12:25.620 was so strong that during World War I, he published 00:12:25.620 --> 00:12:27.759 multiple criticisms of the American government 00:12:27.759 --> 00:12:31.000 for not joining the war to protect England. He 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:33.440 saw tradition and aristocratic rule as the only 00:12:33.440 --> 00:12:36.399 bulwark against cultural chaos. But then reality 00:12:36.399 --> 00:12:38.659 and truths, the Great Depression forces a complete 00:12:38.659 --> 00:12:40.799 re -examination. of these conservative ideals. 00:12:41.120 --> 00:12:43.799 He initially expected the wealthy, the affluent 00:12:43.799 --> 00:12:46.779 to embody his ideal aristocracy and stabilize 00:12:46.779 --> 00:12:49.700 America. But when they failed to act and he observed 00:12:49.700 --> 00:12:52.659 the extensive societal harm, he underwent a dramatic 00:12:52.659 --> 00:12:55.240 ideological shift. He shifted towards a form 00:12:55.240 --> 00:12:58.240 of elitist socialism. Not rooted in Marxist economic 00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:00.919 theory. No, it was rooted in an opposition to 00:13:00.919 --> 00:13:03.399 cultural upheaval and a desire for an ordered 00:13:03.399 --> 00:13:06.259 society. He still hated the lack of order that 00:13:06.259 --> 00:13:09.840 democracy entailed, but he now saw that unchecked 00:13:09.840 --> 00:13:13.200 capitalism produced a worse, more chaotic disorder. 00:13:13.559 --> 00:13:16.080 And his ideal government. which he outlined in 00:13:16.080 --> 00:13:19.299 his 1933 essay, Some Repetitions on the Times, 00:13:19.500 --> 00:13:22.340 wasn't pure socialism though. It was socialism 00:13:22.340 --> 00:13:24.879 administered by an oligarchy. Exactly. He proposed 00:13:24.879 --> 00:13:26.879 governmental control of resource distribution, 00:13:27.240 --> 00:13:29.919 fewer working hours, higher wages, unemployment 00:13:29.919 --> 00:13:33.519 and old age pensions, all very socialistic ideas 00:13:33.519 --> 00:13:36.139 for the time. But the crucial caveat was that 00:13:36.139 --> 00:13:38.019 all of this should be controlled by a ruling 00:13:38.019 --> 00:13:40.399 oligarchy of highly intelligent and educated 00:13:40.399 --> 00:13:43.220 intellectuals. A kind of meritocratic, yet still 00:13:43.220 --> 00:13:46.279 rigid system. He was a huge supporter of Franklin 00:13:46.279 --> 00:13:48.779 D. Roosevelt, seeing him as someone who was at 00:13:48.779 --> 00:13:51.070 least attempting to steer a middle course. and 00:13:51.070 --> 00:13:53.710 restore order. Although characteristically, Lovecraft 00:13:53.710 --> 00:13:56.149 thought the New Deal wasn't leftist enough. Right. 00:13:56.669 --> 00:13:59.110 And then we have the troubling early political 00:13:59.110 --> 00:14:01.870 stance on Hitler. He initially expressed support, 00:14:02.129 --> 00:14:04.470 believing Hitler would preserve German culture 00:14:04.470 --> 00:14:07.389 from what he viewed as chaotic modernism. That's 00:14:07.389 --> 00:14:09.710 a complex and deeply concerning piece of context. 00:14:10.110 --> 00:14:12.529 But the source material indicates he opposed 00:14:12.529 --> 00:14:15.500 Hitler later, right? Absolutely. His support 00:14:15.500 --> 00:14:17.820 quickly dissolved into opposition, specifically 00:14:17.820 --> 00:14:20.559 after his neighbor witnessed Jews being beaten 00:14:20.559 --> 00:14:22.980 in Germany and related the incident to Lovecraft. 00:14:23.159 --> 00:14:26.559 The direct, tangible evidence of brutality. It 00:14:26.559 --> 00:14:28.679 seemed to shock him out of his intellectual, 00:14:28.820 --> 00:14:31.460 theoretical support for cultural preservation. 00:14:31.759 --> 00:14:34.539 And his discussions of Hitler just dropped off 00:14:34.539 --> 00:14:37.539 entirely. This political fluidity contrasts sharply 00:14:37.539 --> 00:14:40.139 with the rigidity of his path to atheism, which 00:14:40.139 --> 00:14:41.899 seems to have been set early in his life and 00:14:41.899 --> 00:14:43.950 never wavered. It formed the core philosophical 00:14:43.950 --> 00:14:46.990 bedrock of his fiction. His essay A Confession 00:14:46.990 --> 00:14:50.509 of Unfaith from 1922 details his shift away from 00:14:50.509 --> 00:14:52.490 the conservative Protestantism of his family. 00:14:52.690 --> 00:14:55.210 And the very first moment of skepticism occurred 00:14:55.210 --> 00:14:57.970 astonishingly early, before his fifth birthday. 00:14:58.149 --> 00:15:00.750 It did. After learning that Santa Claus was a 00:15:00.750 --> 00:15:03.370 myth, he reportedly asked his mother why God 00:15:03.370 --> 00:15:06.240 is not equally a myth. Which is a chillingly 00:15:06.240 --> 00:15:09.139 logical conclusion for a four -year -old. That 00:15:09.139 --> 00:15:11.519 early skepticism led to a brief but influential 00:15:11.519 --> 00:15:14.419 pagan phase. Right. For a short time, he accepted 00:15:14.419 --> 00:15:16.960 the Greco -Roman pantheon as genuine until about 00:15:16.960 --> 00:15:19.759 age seven when he discovered geology and began 00:15:19.759 --> 00:15:22.259 to intellectually reject the mythologies of the 00:15:22.259 --> 00:15:25.480 past. But the pivotal moment came in 1902 when 00:15:25.480 --> 00:15:28.240 he discovered space. Lovecraft later described 00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:30.299 this event as the most poignant and transformative 00:15:30.299 --> 00:15:33.340 of his life. He just devoured astronomy books. 00:15:33.559 --> 00:15:35.659 And that's the key connection. His dedication 00:15:35.659 --> 00:15:38.759 to astronomy solidified his conviction of humanity's 00:15:38.759 --> 00:15:41.340 impermanence. Staring up at the vast, indifferent 00:15:41.340 --> 00:15:44.399 cosmos shattered any lingering anthropocentric 00:15:44.399 --> 00:15:48.149 illusions. By age 17, he had fully developed 00:15:48.149 --> 00:15:51.330 his pessimistic cosmic philosophy. This scientific 00:15:51.330 --> 00:15:53.570 materialism led him to despise philosophical 00:15:53.570 --> 00:15:56.269 idealism and solidified his view of the universe 00:15:56.269 --> 00:15:59.129 as meaningless, mechanical, and uncaring. He 00:15:59.129 --> 00:16:01.029 was willing to cast aside any comfort or illusion, 00:16:01.289 --> 00:16:03.690 seeking only the cold, hard scientific truth. 00:16:03.909 --> 00:16:06.009 Which brings us to the most controversial and 00:16:06.009 --> 00:16:10.379 difficult aspect of Lovecraft's legacy. We absolutely 00:16:10.379 --> 00:16:13.840 must confront this. The source material is unequivocal 00:16:13.840 --> 00:16:16.879 that Lovecraft was a white supremacist who highly 00:16:16.879 --> 00:16:19.299 esteemed English people and those of English 00:16:19.299 --> 00:16:21.580 descent. His early works and letters contain 00:16:21.580 --> 00:16:24.379 strong disparaging remarks against non -Anglo 00:16:24.379 --> 00:16:27.519 -Saxon races, including explicitly racist poetry 00:16:27.519 --> 00:16:30.500 like on the creation of niggers. He rigorously 00:16:30.500 --> 00:16:34.000 argued for a strong color line to preserve race 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:36.899 and culture. And this manifests in his fiction 00:16:36.899 --> 00:16:39.789 through allegorizing. miscegenation. It wasn't 00:16:39.789 --> 00:16:42.070 just abstract hatred, it informed his narrative 00:16:42.070 --> 00:16:44.450 structures. Can you elaborate on how that manifests 00:16:44.450 --> 00:16:46.990 in the fiction? Well, in a story like The Shadow 00:16:46.990 --> 00:16:49.570 Over Innsmouth, the interbreeding of humans with 00:16:49.570 --> 00:16:52.169 the Deep Ones is explicitly framed as a type 00:16:52.169 --> 00:16:54.450 of miscegenation that physically and morally 00:16:54.450 --> 00:16:56.730 corrupts the town and the protagonist. But reflects 00:16:56.730 --> 00:16:59.649 his real -world anxieties about racial and cultural 00:16:59.649 --> 00:17:02.399 mixing. The fear that purity and tradition would 00:17:02.399 --> 00:17:05.039 be corrupted by alien elements. The horror is 00:17:05.039 --> 00:17:06.940 derived not just from the appearance of the monsters, 00:17:07.019 --> 00:17:08.880 but from the irreversible corruption of the human 00:17:08.880 --> 00:17:11.019 lineage. What's crucial for you to grasp, though, 00:17:11.119 --> 00:17:14.839 is that, like his politics, his views on race 00:17:14.839 --> 00:17:17.279 experience a degree of moderation, particularly 00:17:17.279 --> 00:17:20.539 by the 1930s. It never became modern tolerance, 00:17:20.740 --> 00:17:23.730 but it definitely evolved. That's right. His 00:17:23.730 --> 00:17:26.329 worldview became more intensely classist and 00:17:26.329 --> 00:17:28.950 elitist, allowing non -white members of the upper 00:17:28.950 --> 00:17:31.329 class to be seen as honorary members of the superior 00:17:31.329 --> 00:17:33.849 race, provided they aligned with the traditional 00:17:33.849 --> 00:17:36.549 Western aesthetic he admired. But the more significant 00:17:36.549 --> 00:17:39.029 shift was that his views turned toward cultural 00:17:39.029 --> 00:17:42.369 relativism. Yes. His later philosophy shifted 00:17:42.369 --> 00:17:44.470 to supporting ethnic groups preserving their 00:17:44.470 --> 00:17:46.930 native cultures, for instance, stating he wished 00:17:46.930 --> 00:17:49.369 merely to make the Germans more German, the French 00:17:49.369 --> 00:17:52.279 more French. This cultural elitism. while still 00:17:52.279 --> 00:17:55.079 rooted in xenophobia, replaced his previous support 00:17:55.079 --> 00:17:57.880 for forced assimilation or biological degradation. 00:17:58.240 --> 00:18:00.900 The goal shifted from enforcing Anglo supremacy 00:18:00.900 --> 00:18:04.220 to maintaining distinct, ordered cultural units 00:18:04.220 --> 00:18:06.960 worldwide. And this shift was partially driven 00:18:06.960 --> 00:18:09.740 by his wide circle of diverse friends, like Samuel 00:18:09.740 --> 00:18:12.059 Loveman, who was Jewish, and by his antiquarian 00:18:12.059 --> 00:18:14.779 travels. He wrote positively, for example, about 00:18:14.779 --> 00:18:16.960 Quebecois and First Nations cultural traditions. 00:18:17.279 --> 00:18:19.799 So these real -world experiences challenged his 00:18:19.799 --> 00:18:22.789 preconceived notions. While his racial prejudices 00:18:22.789 --> 00:18:25.609 weren't eliminated, they did moderate from outright 00:18:25.609 --> 00:18:28.309 biological hatred to a more complex, though still 00:18:28.309 --> 00:18:31.470 deeply problematic, cultural elitism. Okay, so 00:18:31.470 --> 00:18:34.509 when we turn to how he actually created the fiction 00:18:34.509 --> 00:18:36.490 that defined a genre, we have to look at his 00:18:36.490 --> 00:18:39.190 vast reading list. He was a voracious reader. 00:18:39.390 --> 00:18:42.069 His childhood home had a large library filled 00:18:42.069 --> 00:18:45.529 with classics, science, and early weird fiction. 00:18:45.829 --> 00:18:48.430 The foundational creative fuel, as we discussed, 00:18:48.650 --> 00:18:51.130 came early on from his grandfather's Gothic stories. 00:18:51.369 --> 00:18:53.970 But alongside that, he was deeply engrossed in 00:18:53.970 --> 00:18:58.230 high fantasy and mythology, 1001 Nights, Bolfinch's 00:18:58.230 --> 00:19:01.450 Age of Fable, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. The sense 00:19:01.450 --> 00:19:03.829 of ancient pre -human mythologies came directly 00:19:03.829 --> 00:19:06.349 from these sources. He also studied travel literature, 00:19:06.569 --> 00:19:08.309 which influenced his world building. Absolutely. 00:19:08.509 --> 00:19:10.990 The accounts of John Mandeville and Marco Polo 00:19:10.990 --> 00:19:13.210 influenced how he described characters and locations, 00:19:13.650 --> 00:19:17.349 lending an air of pseudoscience. But the single 00:19:17.349 --> 00:19:19.630 most significant early literary influence, though, 00:19:19.670 --> 00:19:22.690 was Edgar Allan Poe. He called him his god of 00:19:22.690 --> 00:19:25.329 fiction. And we see direct, profound homage. 00:19:25.990 --> 00:19:29.410 At the Mountains of Madness, Lovecraft directly 00:19:29.410 --> 00:19:32.509 quotes Poe, and the novella was heavily influenced 00:19:32.509 --> 00:19:35.210 by the narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. 00:19:35.349 --> 00:19:37.910 Both stories share the theme of exploring the 00:19:37.910 --> 00:19:40.970 unreliable nature of human language when confronted 00:19:40.970 --> 00:19:43.920 with the truly alien. That distrust of human 00:19:43.920 --> 00:19:46.720 language, the idea that certain horrors are simply 00:19:46.720 --> 00:19:50.099 unutterable, is a crucial hallmark of Lovecraftian 00:19:50.099 --> 00:19:52.960 horror. Following Poe, he discovered Lord Dunsany 00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:56.380 in 1919, which moved his writing in a new direction, 00:19:56.619 --> 00:19:59.619 initiating the dream cycle stories like The White 00:19:59.619 --> 00:20:02.400 Ship. But he later repudiated Dunsany's style. 00:20:02.809 --> 00:20:04.769 He found that writing in that overly elaborate, 00:20:04.930 --> 00:20:07.289 fantastical vein did not come naturally to him, 00:20:07.309 --> 00:20:09.309 and he eventually settled into the more rigid, 00:20:09.450 --> 00:20:11.789 research -based prose style that defined his 00:20:11.789 --> 00:20:14.150 great works. He had to shed the fantasy layer 00:20:14.150 --> 00:20:16.210 to get to the core terror. And if we connect 00:20:16.210 --> 00:20:18.369 this to the bigger picture of his overall philosophy, 00:20:18.690 --> 00:20:21.630 one scholar, Barton Levi St. Armand, described 00:20:21.630 --> 00:20:24.730 Lovecraft as a New England decadent. What exactly 00:20:24.730 --> 00:20:27.410 does that synthesis mean? That's a powerful insight. 00:20:27.809 --> 00:20:30.869 It's a synthesis of non -theological Puritan 00:20:30.869 --> 00:20:34.250 thought. So the inherent gloom, the fatalism, 00:20:34.289 --> 00:20:37.470 the fixation on decay, combined with the ascetic 00:20:37.470 --> 00:20:39.549 movement and the decadent worldview inherited 00:20:39.549 --> 00:20:42.670 from Poe, which prized cultural pessimism and 00:20:42.670 --> 00:20:45.049 civilizational decline. So he took the New England 00:20:45.049 --> 00:20:48.410 sense of gloom and moral judgment, stripped away 00:20:48.410 --> 00:20:50.589 the saving grace of God, and combined it with 00:20:50.589 --> 00:20:53.309 a European sense of cultural and aesthetic exhaustion. 00:20:53.930 --> 00:20:57.170 Precisely. This hybrid identity fixated him on 00:20:57.170 --> 00:20:59.309 the theme of collapse, both the collapse of human 00:20:59.309 --> 00:21:01.869 civilization and the terrifying indifference 00:21:01.869 --> 00:21:04.289 of the cosmos. This brings us directly to his 00:21:04.289 --> 00:21:07.609 core philosophy, cosmicism. Cosmicism argues 00:21:07.609 --> 00:21:10.890 that humanity is an entirely insignificant force 00:21:10.890 --> 00:21:13.670 in the universe. Lovecraft specifically described 00:21:13.670 --> 00:21:16.150 himself as a cosmic indifferentist. The cosmic 00:21:16.150 --> 00:21:18.549 forces are not actively malevolent towards humanity. 00:21:19.109 --> 00:21:20.950 They are simply indifferent. The universe is 00:21:20.950 --> 00:21:23.430 perceived as meaningless, mechanical and uncaring 00:21:23.430 --> 00:21:25.509 and fundamentally beyond human comprehension. 00:21:25.849 --> 00:21:28.269 He allowed no space for beliefs that could not 00:21:28.269 --> 00:21:31.009 be supported scientifically. But wait, if the 00:21:31.009 --> 00:21:33.990 universe is truly indifferent, why do his protagonists 00:21:33.990 --> 00:21:37.009 always feel overwhelming terror? Isn't terror 00:21:37.009 --> 00:21:39.750 a deeply human response that implies a judgment 00:21:39.750 --> 00:21:42.910 which counters pure indifference? That is the 00:21:42.910 --> 00:21:45.430 ultimate tension in Lovecraft's work. It highlights 00:21:45.430 --> 00:21:47.930 why the terror is psychological, not external. 00:21:48.210 --> 00:21:51.309 The Great Old Ones, Cthulhu, Yog -Sophoth, are 00:21:51.309 --> 00:21:53.750 not actively seeking to destroy us. They are 00:21:53.750 --> 00:21:56.849 simply immense, natural forces whose existence 00:21:56.849 --> 00:21:59.609 instantly nullifies the entire human enterprise. 00:22:00.029 --> 00:22:02.150 The terror comes from the protagonist's realization 00:22:02.150 --> 00:22:05.109 of this nullification. A truth too immense for 00:22:05.109 --> 00:22:07.430 the human mind to bear. The entity doesn't care. 00:22:07.630 --> 00:22:10.130 The human mind breaks because the mind demands 00:22:10.130 --> 00:22:12.579 meaning. And he didn't fully incorporate this 00:22:12.579 --> 00:22:15.609 into his fiction until around 1926. Right. The 00:22:15.609 --> 00:22:18.109 Call of Cthulhu represents the full intensification 00:22:18.109 --> 00:22:21.150 of this theme. What's fascinating about Cosmicism 00:22:21.150 --> 00:22:23.490 in his storytelling is that Lovecraftian protagonists 00:22:23.490 --> 00:22:25.710 don't discover their insignificance, they already 00:22:25.710 --> 00:22:28.630 dread it. The plot simply provides an inescapable 00:22:28.630 --> 00:22:31.009 confirmation of that pre -existing dread. Tied 00:22:31.009 --> 00:22:33.630 directly to this is the theme of forbidden knowledge, 00:22:33.769 --> 00:22:35.950 the engine of psychological collapse in his work. 00:22:36.190 --> 00:22:39.369 He clearly suggests that happiness is only achievable 00:22:39.369 --> 00:22:42.309 through blissful ignorance. Seeking knowledge 00:22:42.309 --> 00:22:45.809 that is not meant to be known, consistently leads 00:22:45.809 --> 00:22:48.750 to psychological danger and ruin. It forces the 00:22:48.750 --> 00:22:51.710 seeker to confront the horrific true reality 00:22:51.710 --> 00:22:55.250 that the visible, sane world conveniently masks. 00:22:55.670 --> 00:22:58.450 But the most profound element, as you mention, 00:22:58.650 --> 00:23:00.730 is that even self -knowledge can be ruinous. 00:23:00.890 --> 00:23:04.009 It's the realization of one's own utter insignificance, 00:23:04.009 --> 00:23:06.809 or worse, the realization of one's own corrupt 00:23:06.809 --> 00:23:09.630 heritage. A weight too heavy for the human mind 00:23:09.630 --> 00:23:12.440 to process. The horror, therefore, is not achieved 00:23:12.440 --> 00:23:15.319 solely through external phenomena. It's reached 00:23:15.319 --> 00:23:17.539 through the internalized psychological impact 00:23:17.539 --> 00:23:19.920 this terrifying knowledge has on the protagonist. 00:23:20.279 --> 00:23:22.119 We see that perfectly in the case of Charles 00:23:22.119 --> 00:23:24.579 Dexter Ward. The central theme is the danger 00:23:24.579 --> 00:23:26.779 of knowing too much about one's family history. 00:23:26.980 --> 00:23:29.299 This fusion of the philosophical and the psychological 00:23:29.299 --> 00:23:32.099 is where his love of science truly shines. He 00:23:32.099 --> 00:23:34.480 merged supernatural horror with science fiction, 00:23:34.779 --> 00:23:37.259 consciously shifting the focus from human issues 00:23:37.259 --> 00:23:40.359 to cosmic ones. He extensively referenced contemporary 00:23:40.359 --> 00:23:43.400 scientific trends, didn't he? Yes. He incorporated 00:23:43.400 --> 00:23:46.400 elements of Einsteinian science and his personal 00:23:46.400 --> 00:23:49.650 materialism. This peaked with The Color Out of 00:23:49.650 --> 00:23:52.829 Space, which portrays an alien life form whose 00:23:52.829 --> 00:23:55.170 absolute otherness prevents it from being defined 00:23:55.170 --> 00:23:58.069 by then contemporary science. And he used mathematics 00:23:58.069 --> 00:24:01.089 to enhance this sense of the alien, specifically 00:24:01.089 --> 00:24:04.859 non -Euclidean geometry. Exactly. Lovecraft's 00:24:04.859 --> 00:24:07.440 awareness of non -Euclidean geometry, the idea 00:24:07.440 --> 00:24:09.980 that space might not conform to the flat, rigid 00:24:09.980 --> 00:24:12.660 rules we take for granted, led to the repeated 00:24:12.660 --> 00:24:16.099 use of impossible angles and dimensions. Cthulhu's 00:24:16.099 --> 00:24:18.660 city of Arlaia is built on non -Euclidean principles. 00:24:19.180 --> 00:24:21.220 It serves to challenge the very trustability 00:24:21.220 --> 00:24:24.279 of human understanding and our senses. It converts 00:24:24.279 --> 00:24:26.160 what would otherwise be supernatural elements 00:24:26.160 --> 00:24:28.200 into things that have a scientific, mathematical 00:24:28.200 --> 00:24:30.400 explanation. And finally, we have to discuss 00:24:30.400 --> 00:24:32.829 setting. Lovecraft created a highly detailed, 00:24:33.029 --> 00:24:35.210 fictionalized geography based on New England, 00:24:35.430 --> 00:24:38.269 what commentators later dubbed Lovecraft Country. 00:24:38.509 --> 00:24:40.829 And it wasn't just decorative. No, it served 00:24:40.829 --> 00:24:43.730 a dual essential purpose. It exaggerated the 00:24:43.730 --> 00:24:46.009 region's history and folklore to instill fear, 00:24:46.230 --> 00:24:48.670 while simultaneously rooting the stories in a 00:24:48.670 --> 00:24:50.990 familiar, unsettling realism that his readers 00:24:50.990 --> 00:24:53.490 would recognize. The names were thinly veiled 00:24:53.490 --> 00:24:56.650 versions of real locations. Arkham was based 00:24:56.650 --> 00:25:00.069 on Oakham, Innsmouth on Newburyport, Dunwich. 00:25:00.569 --> 00:25:03.349 on Greenwich. These vaguely recognizable decaying 00:25:03.349 --> 00:25:06.029 locations played directly into Lovecraft's desire 00:25:06.029 --> 00:25:09.650 to evoke a powerful, regional and deeply unsettling 00:25:09.650 --> 00:25:12.650 mood of ancient inherited corruption. It's truly 00:25:12.650 --> 00:25:14.890 astonishing that this man who struggled financially 00:25:14.890 --> 00:25:17.339 his entire life. was virtually unknown during 00:25:17.339 --> 00:25:19.539 his own lifetime, published almost exclusively 00:25:19.539 --> 00:25:22.220 in pulp magazines. His critical reception shifted 00:25:22.220 --> 00:25:25.160 dramatically only after his death. The initial 00:25:25.160 --> 00:25:28.559 criticism was incredibly harsh. In 1945, the 00:25:28.559 --> 00:25:31.039 critic Edmund Wilson dismissed his work, sneering 00:25:31.039 --> 00:25:33.259 that the only real horror is the horror of bad 00:25:33.259 --> 00:25:35.740 taste and bad art. But the sources note that 00:25:35.740 --> 00:25:37.819 Wilson later softened his stance. What changed 00:25:37.819 --> 00:25:40.630 his mind? Reading Lovecraft's voluminous correspondence, 00:25:41.089 --> 00:25:43.930 when Wilson encountered Lovecraft the intellectual, 00:25:44.230 --> 00:25:47.130 the sophisticated debater on culture, science, 00:25:47.230 --> 00:25:50.089 and history, he realized the fiction was rooted 00:25:50.089 --> 00:25:52.569 in a far deeper philosophy than he had assumed. 00:25:52.890 --> 00:25:56.750 That slow scholarly revival began in the 1970s, 00:25:56.750 --> 00:25:59.549 but modern literary figures sing his praises. 00:26:00.029 --> 00:26:02.829 Joyce Carol Oates cites him as a massive influence. 00:26:03.089 --> 00:26:05.289 And Stephen King famously called Lovecraft the 00:26:05.289 --> 00:26:07.910 20th century's greatest practitioner of the classic 00:26:07.910 --> 00:26:10.809 horror tale. The moment that truly cemented his 00:26:10.809 --> 00:26:13.650 place in the literary consciousness was the inclusion 00:26:13.650 --> 00:26:15.829 of his works in prestigious classic publishing 00:26:15.829 --> 00:26:19.349 series. The Library of America volume in 2005 00:26:19.349 --> 00:26:22.289 sold 25 ,000 copies in a single month. Which 00:26:22.289 --> 00:26:24.730 surprised the publishing world. This, alongside 00:26:24.730 --> 00:26:27.009 Penguin Classics volumes, essentially reversed 00:26:27.009 --> 00:26:29.170 the traditional judgment, sparking a massive 00:26:29.170 --> 00:26:31.589 surge in both mainstream and academic interest. 00:26:31.910 --> 00:26:34.369 Let's discuss the engine of that legacy, the 00:26:34.369 --> 00:26:37.150 Cthulhu mythos and the Lovecraft circle. Lovecraft 00:26:37.150 --> 00:26:39.210 fostered a massive community through correspondence, 00:26:39.509 --> 00:26:41.609 encouraging writers like Clark Ashton Smith and 00:26:41.609 --> 00:26:44.869 August Derliff to share ideas. After Lovecraft's 00:26:44.869 --> 00:26:47.589 death, that circle was instrumental in preserving 00:26:47.589 --> 00:26:51.329 his work. August, Derleth co -founded Arkham 00:26:51.329 --> 00:26:54.369 House with Donald Wondray specifically to keep 00:26:54.369 --> 00:26:57.349 his writings in print. However, Derleth also 00:26:57.349 --> 00:27:00.230 imposed an extensive and controversial cosmology 00:27:00.230 --> 00:27:03.150 onto the mythos. And this is a crucial distinction. 00:27:03.470 --> 00:27:06.910 How exactly did Derleth change the core philosophy? 00:27:07.719 --> 00:27:10.400 Lovecraft viewed his pantheon as mere indifferent 00:27:10.400 --> 00:27:14.200 plot devices. They existed, but they didn't care 00:27:14.200 --> 00:27:17.299 about human good or evil. Durlith, who came from 00:27:17.299 --> 00:27:19.319 a more traditional Christian background, could 00:27:19.319 --> 00:27:21.980 not tolerate this cosmic indifference. So he 00:27:21.980 --> 00:27:24.720 created a structured cosmic war. A battle between 00:27:24.720 --> 00:27:27.559 good elder gods and evil outer gods, imposing 00:27:27.559 --> 00:27:30.319 a moral framework onto the universe. He even 00:27:30.319 --> 00:27:32.440 associated these gods with the traditional four 00:27:32.440 --> 00:27:34.559 elements. So he essentially took Lovecraft's 00:27:34.559 --> 00:27:37.960 amoral, atheistic terror and retrofitted it with 00:27:37.960 --> 00:27:40.160 a familiar dualistic struggle between good and 00:27:40.160 --> 00:27:42.619 evil. That's exactly right. This revisionist, 00:27:42.640 --> 00:27:45.079 somewhat simplified view dominated Lovecraft. 00:27:45.259 --> 00:27:47.740 for decades until scholars and writers in the 00:27:47.740 --> 00:27:50.660 1970s pushed back, successfully arguing that 00:27:50.660 --> 00:27:53.180 Lovecraft's original indifferent chaotic vision 00:27:53.180 --> 00:27:55.160 was the one that held the true philosophical 00:27:55.160 --> 00:27:57.799 power. The cultural influence stretches across 00:27:57.799 --> 00:28:01.140 all modern media. Lovecraft's mythos is hugely 00:28:01.140 --> 00:28:03.519 influential in music, especially rock and heavy 00:28:03.519 --> 00:28:06.839 metal. The connection is intense. Black Sabbath's 00:28:06.839 --> 00:28:09.900 1970 debut album featured Behind the Wall of 00:28:09.900 --> 00:28:12.599 Sleep. Later, Metallica recorded The Call of 00:28:12.599 --> 00:28:15.819 Cthulhu and The Thing That Should Not Be, which 00:28:15.819 --> 00:28:18.539 is based on the shadow over Innsmouth. There's 00:28:18.539 --> 00:28:21.299 even a deep thematic commonality between Lovecraft's 00:28:21.299 --> 00:28:24.190 aesthetic and the black metal genre. The focus 00:28:24.190 --> 00:28:26.829 on creating a strong, negative, isolating mood. 00:28:27.069 --> 00:28:29.769 Moving to games, the irony persists. Lovecraft 00:28:29.769 --> 00:28:32.450 disliked games, but his influence is immense. 00:28:32.849 --> 00:28:35.829 The 1981 Call of Cthulhu tabletop role -playing 00:28:35.829 --> 00:28:38.390 game introduced the insanity mechanic. Where 00:28:38.390 --> 00:28:40.549 player characters accumulate stress and eventually 00:28:40.549 --> 00:28:43.549 go insane from contact with cosmic horrors. A 00:28:43.549 --> 00:28:45.849 direct, elegant transposition of Lovecraft's 00:28:45.849 --> 00:28:48.549 psychological horror into a game format. This 00:28:48.549 --> 00:28:50.710 spread to board games like Arkham Horror and 00:28:50.710 --> 00:28:53.029 video games like Bloodborne. But this mass game... 00:28:53.130 --> 00:28:55.869 often represents a break from Lovecraft's core 00:28:55.869 --> 00:28:58.809 philosophy. Completely. Games typically focus 00:28:58.809 --> 00:29:01.730 heavily on fighting the monsters. You have hit 00:29:01.730 --> 00:29:04.890 points, you have goals. This tends to focus far 00:29:04.890 --> 00:29:07.369 more on the monsters than on Lovecraft's central 00:29:07.369 --> 00:29:10.009 theme of human insignificance, where the true 00:29:10.009 --> 00:29:13.230 horror is the impossibility of victory. But the 00:29:13.230 --> 00:29:15.829 influence doesn't stop at pop culture. It reaches 00:29:15.829 --> 00:29:18.480 into high philosophy. His works have inspired 00:29:18.480 --> 00:29:21.380 the 21st century speculative realist philosophical 00:29:21.380 --> 00:29:24.799 movement. Figures like Graham Harman wrote Weird 00:29:24.799 --> 00:29:28.140 Realism, Lovecraft, and Philosophy, arguing that 00:29:28.140 --> 00:29:30.440 Lovecraft was obsessed with the gaps in human 00:29:30.440 --> 00:29:32.940 knowledge. His philosophy is seen as fundamentally 00:29:32.940 --> 00:29:35.730 anti -anthropocentric. It rejects the idea that 00:29:35.730 --> 00:29:38.289 humanity is central or capable of understanding 00:29:38.289 --> 00:29:41.650 reality. And on the more esoteric side, occultism 00:29:41.650 --> 00:29:44.130 has adopted the mythos, blurring the lines between 00:29:44.130 --> 00:29:47.190 fiction and supposed reality. Occult groups incorporate 00:29:47.190 --> 00:29:49.809 Lovecraftian entities into their ritual systems. 00:29:50.109 --> 00:29:52.789 And there's been a massive proliferation of fraudulent 00:29:52.789 --> 00:29:54.950 books claiming to be authentic editions of his 00:29:54.950 --> 00:29:57.730 fictional grimoire, the Necronomicon. Finally, 00:29:57.869 --> 00:30:01.160 the legacy remains perpetually contested. The 00:30:01.160 --> 00:30:03.539 World Fantasy Awards presented winners with a 00:30:03.539 --> 00:30:06.759 bust of Lovecraft until 2015, when it was dropped 00:30:06.759 --> 00:30:09.720 due to his views on race. Yet his literary standing 00:30:09.720 --> 00:30:12.660 continues to rise. He was inducted into the Science 00:30:12.660 --> 00:30:15.500 Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2016 and 00:30:15.500 --> 00:30:19.500 won a Retro Hugo Award in 2019. The sheer endurance 00:30:19.500 --> 00:30:22.819 of Cthulhu as a cultural icon confirms his lasting 00:30:22.819 --> 00:30:24.859 impact. For someone who struggled financially 00:30:24.859 --> 00:30:27.980 his whole life, the sheer quantity of his writing 00:30:27.980 --> 00:30:31.250 output particularly outside of fiction, is astounding. 00:30:31.289 --> 00:30:33.789 It's truly staggering. Lovecraft is estimated 00:30:33.789 --> 00:30:37.009 to have written 100 ,000 letters during his lifetime, 00:30:37.289 --> 00:30:39.910 one fifth of which are believed to survive. And 00:30:39.910 --> 00:30:41.569 these weren't just social notes. They were full 00:30:41.569 --> 00:30:44.019 -fledged scholarly essays. Covering everything 00:30:44.019 --> 00:30:47.099 from art criticism to political debates, he maintained 00:30:47.099 --> 00:30:49.480 voluminous correspondence with amateur press 00:30:49.480 --> 00:30:51.400 colleagues and fellow writers. The correspondence 00:30:51.400 --> 00:30:53.839 with James F. Morton is specifically called the 00:30:53.839 --> 00:30:55.920 single greatest correspondence Lovecraft ever 00:30:55.920 --> 00:30:58.140 wrote by scholars. But while his literary footprint 00:30:58.140 --> 00:31:00.799 is huge, his legal footprint, specifically regarding 00:31:00.799 --> 00:31:03.480 copyrights, is one of the messiest quagmires 00:31:03.480 --> 00:31:06.119 in 20th century literature. The Lovecraftian 00:31:06.119 --> 00:31:08.980 copyright conundrum. It's fascinating because 00:31:08.980 --> 00:31:12.160 despite claims by various groups, most scholars 00:31:12.160 --> 00:31:14.759 now accept that the majority of his works have 00:31:14.759 --> 00:31:17.119 passed into the public domain. And this stems 00:31:17.119 --> 00:31:19.539 from monumental confusion and possible manipulation 00:31:19.539 --> 00:31:22.980 following his death. Lovecraft designated R .H. 00:31:22.980 --> 00:31:26.000 Barlow as his literary executor, but he failed 00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:28.140 to incorporate this instruction into his official 00:31:28.140 --> 00:31:30.720 will. His surviving aunt still carried out his 00:31:30.720 --> 00:31:32.980 wishes, and Barlow initially took control of 00:31:32.980 --> 00:31:35.900 the estate. But this was the first legal complication. 00:31:36.490 --> 00:31:39.150 relying on verbal instructions. And the situation 00:31:39.150 --> 00:31:42.490 darkened significantly. Two key figures, August 00:31:42.490 --> 00:31:45.269 Derlith and Donald Wondray, who were co -owners 00:31:45.269 --> 00:31:47.950 of Arkham House, falsely claimed that Derlith 00:31:47.950 --> 00:31:50.789 was the true literary executor. And this is where 00:31:50.789 --> 00:31:53.049 the controversy sharpens. Derlith and Wondray 00:31:53.049 --> 00:31:56.369 leveraged their position. Barlow eventually capitulated 00:31:56.369 --> 00:31:58.650 to them, effectively handing over control of 00:31:58.650 --> 00:32:01.049 the corpus. Tragically, Barlow later committed 00:32:01.049 --> 00:32:04.670 suicide in 1951, leaving them in complete unchallenged 00:32:04.670 --> 00:32:07.569 control. And this legal mess continued when Derliff 00:32:07.569 --> 00:32:09.869 purchased the rights to Lovecraft's stories published 00:32:09.869 --> 00:32:12.210 in Weird Tales. But even that was complicated. 00:32:12.549 --> 00:32:15.250 It was because evidence suggests that since at 00:32:15.250 --> 00:32:18.630 least 1926, Lovecraft had reserved all second 00:32:18.630 --> 00:32:21.369 printing rights for himself. So Weird Tales only 00:32:21.369 --> 00:32:24.509 owned the rights to, at most, six stories. And 00:32:24.509 --> 00:32:27.109 even if Derleth legally obtained those copyrights, 00:32:27.109 --> 00:32:29.690 here is the core of the problem. Under the law 00:32:29.690 --> 00:32:32.809 at the time, copyrights lasted for 28 years and 00:32:32.809 --> 00:32:34.910 then required a formal renewal. And the renewal 00:32:34.910 --> 00:32:37.890 failed. It failed. Searches of the Library of 00:32:37.890 --> 00:32:40.190 Congress have consistently failed to find any 00:32:40.190 --> 00:32:42.349 evidence that these copyrights were renewed after 00:32:42.349 --> 00:32:45.309 the initial 28 -year period expired. This led 00:32:45.309 --> 00:32:47.910 most scholars, including S .T. Joshi, to conclude 00:32:47.910 --> 00:32:50.109 that the majority of Lovecraft's works are now 00:32:50.109 --> 00:32:52.890 in the public domain. Once a copyright lapses, 00:32:52.890 --> 00:32:55.450 it is lost forever. But despite this general 00:32:55.450 --> 00:32:58.369 scholarly consensus, the Lovecraft Literary Estate 00:32:58.369 --> 00:33:01.089 continues to claim ownership and grants rights 00:33:01.089 --> 00:33:03.650 to various publishers. Yes, they operate under 00:33:03.650 --> 00:33:06.569 a disputed legal standing. This continuous claim 00:33:06.569 --> 00:33:08.450 of ownership means that while scholars believe 00:33:08.450 --> 00:33:11.150 the core texts are freely usable, publishers 00:33:11.150 --> 00:33:14.410 often pay license fees just to avoid complicated, 00:33:14.730 --> 00:33:17.549 costly legal battles. So what does this all mean? 00:33:18.059 --> 00:33:20.640 We've looked closely at a man defined by a sheltered 00:33:20.640 --> 00:33:23.460 tragic childhood that instilled in him a profound 00:33:23.460 --> 00:33:26.420 need for order and tradition, yet whose intellectual 00:33:26.420 --> 00:33:29.359 curiosity, fueled by astronomy and scientific 00:33:29.359 --> 00:33:32.700 materialism, forced him into a radical, atheistic 00:33:32.700 --> 00:33:35.940 view of the universe. His true genius lay not 00:33:35.940 --> 00:33:37.960 in designing the monsters themselves, but in 00:33:37.960 --> 00:33:40.559 leveraging that cosmicism to induce a specific 00:33:40.559 --> 00:33:43.700 psychological terror. The power of Lovecraft 00:33:43.700 --> 00:33:46.240 is the internalized horror induced by knowledge. 00:33:46.480 --> 00:33:50.059 The awful recognition of humanity's total irrelevance 00:33:50.059 --> 00:33:52.920 in the vast, cold and utterly indifferent cosmos. 00:33:53.319 --> 00:33:56.099 His life was a constant tension between his desire 00:33:56.099 --> 00:33:58.680 for ancient order and his scientific realization 00:33:58.680 --> 00:34:01.640 of modern chaos. And that leads to a final deep 00:34:01.640 --> 00:34:03.980 irony when we consider the man behind the philosophy. 00:34:04.730 --> 00:34:07.250 The sources note that Lovecraft's effective fictional 00:34:07.250 --> 00:34:09.690 career was essentially ended by the hostile reception 00:34:09.690 --> 00:34:12.210 of At the Mountains of Madness. So if a writer 00:34:12.210 --> 00:34:14.170 whose entire philosophy centered on the chilling 00:34:14.170 --> 00:34:16.530 cosmic insignificance of all human endeavors 00:34:16.530 --> 00:34:19.289 was defeated, not by the revelation of Cthulhu, 00:34:19.309 --> 00:34:22.769 but by simple localized human criticism, the 00:34:22.769 --> 00:34:25.250 rejection from an editor. Does that not reveal 00:34:25.250 --> 00:34:28.369 a final, profound contradiction about the man 00:34:28.369 --> 00:34:32.150 who fear humanity's irrelevance? The cold, uncaring 00:34:32.150 --> 00:34:35.050 cosmos couldn't silence him, but human taste 00:34:35.050 --> 00:34:36.869 and judgment did. What stands out to you?