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"Supernatural Horror in Literature" is a long essay by the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft surveying the topic of horror fiction. It was written between November 1925 and May 1927 and revised during 1933–1934. Lovecraft examines the beginnings of weird fiction in the gothic novel (relying greatly on Edith Birkhead's 1921 survey The Tale of Terror) and traces its development through such writers as Ambrose Bierce, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe (who merits his own chapter). Lovecraft names as the four "modern masters" of horror: Algernon Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, M. R. James, and Arthur Machen.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
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Introduction
The Dawn of the Horror Tale
The Early Gothic Novel
The Apex of Gothic Romance
The Aftermath of Gothic Fiction
Spectral Literature on the Continent
Edgar Allan Poe
The Weird Tradition in America
The Weird Tradition in the British Isles
The Modern Masters
THE OLDEST and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. These facts few psychologists will dispute, and their admitted truth must establish for all time the genuineness and dignity of the weirdly horrible tale as a literary form. Against it are discharged all the shafts of a materialistic sophistication which clings to frequently felt emotions and external events, and of a naïvely insipid idealism which deprecates the æsthetic motive and calls for a didactic literature to “uplift” the reader toward a suitable degree of smirking optimism. But in spite of all this opposition the weird tale has survived, developed, and attained remarkable heights of perfection; founded as it is on a profound and elementary principle whose appeal, if not always universal, must necessarily be poignant and permanent to minds of the requisite sensitiveness.