From the Sea and Beyond: Lovecraft's Sea Monsters. Issue 2 (1st November 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Alcalá González, Antonio
• Is Part Of: Gothic studies. Volume 19:Issue 2(2017)
• Page Start: 85
• Page End: 97
• Publication Date: 2017-11-01
• Subjects: H. P. Lovecraft -- nautical Gothic -- sublime -- monster; Gothic revival (Literature) -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Gothic fiction (Literary genre) -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Goth culture (Subculture) -- Periodicals; 809.38729
• DOI: 10.7227/GS.0031
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1362-7937

Abstract

Abstract : This article proposes a nautical perspective as a new branch for Lovecraft studies. To achieve this, I analyse the irruption of monsters from sublime ocean depths in three sea stories of the author: 'Dagon', 'The Call of Cthulhu' and 'The Shadow over Innsmouth'. Lovecraft's particular method draws on the legacy left by Edgar Allan Poe in relation to horrors at the sea and by Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood in terms of presenting nature as the origin of undefeatable horrors. His style results in what I propose to call Lovecraft's nautical Gothic. In it, the arrival of monstrous sea entities horrifies his protagonists who, because of their encounters, must accept the minor role of humanity in the vastness of the natural order.