There’s a new article from Roger Lockhurst at the Oxford Dictionaries, ahead of the Oxford University Press edition of Lovecraft, on “H.P. Lovecraft and the Northern Gothic Tongue”…
“There is a very specific language of Gothic and horror literature that has its roots buried deep in the history of English: doom has been around since Old English; dread carries over from Middle English; eerie, that sense of vague superstitious uneasiness, enters Middle English through Scottish. The adjectives are harsh and guttural: moons are always gibbous, the trees eldritch.”
It’s funny but the words Lovecraft used were almost comforting in a literary sense. They reminded you that you were entering the realm of weird fiction. In particular, you were entering Lovecraft’s realm.