{"id":64451,"date":"2024-06-17T02:53:35","date_gmt":"2024-06-17T02:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/?p=64451"},"modified":"2024-06-17T21:50:18","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T21:50:18","slug":"some-points-from-tolkien-e-lovecraft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2024\/06\/17\/some-points-from-tolkien-e-lovecraft\/","title":{"rendered":"Some points from Tolkien e Lovecraft"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve now had a chance to read through the auto-translation of the Italian book Tolkien e Lovecraft<\/em> (2023), mentioned at the end of my recent Tolkien and Lovecraft<\/a> post. I’ve noted down the book’s various additional points of comparison, beyond those which Honneger made or which I added in my earlier post. <\/p>\n

* Tolkien e Lovecraft<\/em> discusses, for most of its short length, the fantasy reading that both writers shared in their youth. Dunsany (early work), Edgar Rice Burroughs (early work), E.R. Eddison (Ouroboros<\/em>). With other writers being less certain. William Morris certainly for Tolkien, but only read in passing by Lovecraft. Poe certainly for Lovecraft, but only very much a ‘maybe, we don’t really know’ for Tolkien. <\/p>\n

* Both had a vast knowledge of the past, but often a somewhat idealised past. A past in which they often spent long periods of time. I would add that idealisation of the past was partly made possible by the patchy coverage of the scholarship and archaeology before the Second World War and before modern genetics. <\/p>\n

* Both had a strong love for a cultivated, crafted and tamed landscape. Implicitly an English landscape, well stewarded for future generations. This love overlapped with their disdain for modern ugliness and befoulment. <\/p>\n

* Both drew on an essentially 18th century gothic conception of horror and terror. <\/p>\n

* Both were drawn to obsolete or arcane languages.<\/p>\n

* Both upheld what might be termed a ‘civalric’ attitude in their personality and personal dealings.<\/p>\n

* Both were averse to allegory in literature.<\/p>\n

* They saw fantastical escapist literature as positive, something “authentically creative” and not a lesser or debased form of literature. <\/p>\n

* Both devised a fantastic pantheon and lore from scratch. And highly believable ones.<\/p>\n

* The book also reminded me that Lovecraft had an interest in faery lore, albeit a passing one, evidenced by his essay \u201cSome Backgrounds to Fairyland\u201d<\/a> (1932). In my view this (even if deemed erroneous now) valuably encapsulated the secondary understanding of such things that could be had from a large library circa 1922-32.<\/p>\n

I would add, finally, that…<\/p>\n

* Both had an open ’21st century approach’, by the standards of the 20th century, to sharing what they made with others. Tolkien expected “other minds and hands” to expand and fill in his Legendarium after his death. While Lovecraft fairly freely shared his Mythos before his death, and then Derleth and public-domain did the rest. <\/p>\n

* For both, horrific creatures are the result of unnatural cross-breeding (orcs by wizards \/ hybrids by cult leaders).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve now had a chance to read through the auto-translation of the Italian book Tolkien e Lovecraft (2023), mentioned at …<\/p>\n

Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-books","category-scholarly-works"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64451"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64494,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64451\/revisions\/64494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}