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H. P. Lovecraft

Midnight Studies

by Jan B. W. Pedersen (Author)
Monographs XIV, 158 Pages

Summary

«This is not the H. P. Lovecraft we thought we knew. Lovecraft is a great writer and a famously difficult thinker, and Pedersen’s provocative and highly original argument is that he is fundamentally a figure in the European Romantic tradition, with close affiliations to Wordsworth and Coleridge, Byron and (especially) Keats. This is a fascinating book about which serious readers of Lovecraft will be arguing for years.»
(Professor Darryl Jones, Trinity College, Dublin)
This book offers a fresh perspective on the twentieth-century American weird fiction author H. P. Lovecraft and argues that the gentleman of Providence was a Romantic at heart. The book takes a philosophical approach and draws on Lovecraft’s essays, fiction and letters as well as poetry. Along the way, the reader is introduced to Lovecraft’s relationship with wonder, his aversion towards the cold light of reason, his teetotalism and his love of gardens, contemplation, joy, the dramatic, the strange, the foreign and the beautiful. Also, the reader is privy to an exploration of Lovecraft’s wonder-evoking tropes, the idea of dark wonder and what he called the Dunsanian Conjuration.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Contents
  • List of Figures
  • S. T. Joshi Foreword
  • Acknowledgements
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1 On Lovecraft’s Lifelong Relationship with Wonder
  • Chapter 2 Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Romantic on the Nightside
  • Chapter 3 ‘Now Will You Be Good?’: Lovecraft, Teetotalism and Philosophy
  • Chapter 4 Lovecraft’s Garden: Heart’s Blood at the Root
  • Chapter 5 Weird Fiction: A Catalyst for Wonder
  • Chapter 6 H. P. Lovecraft and the Dunsanian Conjuration
  • Afterword
  • Bibliography
  • Index

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. The German
National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography; detailed bibliographic
data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Names: Pedersen, Jan B. W., author. | Joshi, S. T., 1958- writer of
foreword.

Title: H. P. Lovecraft: midnight studies / Jan B. W. Pedersen.

Description: Oxford; New York: Peter Lang, [2024] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2024010093 (print) | LCCN 2024010094 (ebook) | ISBN
9781803743073 (hardback) | ISBN 9781803743134 (ebook) | ISBN
9781803743141 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips), 1890-1937--Criticism
and interpretation. | Wonder in literature. | Romanticism. | American
literature--19th century--History and criticism. | Authors,
American--20th century--Biography.

Classification: LCC PS3523.O833 Z834 2024 (print) | LCC PS3523.O833
(ebook) | DDC 813.5/2--dc23/eng/20240521

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024010093

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024010094

Cover image: Harry Evans, Dunsanian, 2023. Courtesy of Harry Evans.
Cover design by Peter Lang Group AG

About the author

Philosopher Jan B. W. Pedersen is the author of Balanced Wonder: Experiential Sources of Imagination, Virtue, and Human Flourishing (2019). He teaches at University College Diakonissestiftelsen, Frederiksberg, Denmark and at Folkeuniversitetet, Aalborg, Denmark.

About the book

‘This is not the H. P. Lovecraft we thought we knew. Lovecraft is a great writer and a famously difficult thinker, and Pedersen’s provocative and highly original argument is that he is fundamentally a figure in the European Romantic tradition, with close affiliations to Wordsworth and Coleridge, Byron and (especially) Keats. This is a fascinating book about which serious readers of Lovecraft will be arguing for years.’

– Professor Darryl Jones, Trinity College, Dublin

This book offers a fresh perspective on the twentieth-century American weird fiction author H. P. Lovecraft and argues that the gentleman of Providence was a Romantic at heart. The book takes a philosophical approach and draws on Lovecraft’s essays, fiction and letters as well as poetry. Along the way, the reader is introduced to Lovecraft’s relationship with wonder, his aversion towards the cold light of reason, his teetotalism and his love of gardens, contemplation, joy, the dramatic, the strange, the foreign and the beautiful. Also, the reader is privy to an exploration of Lovecraft’s wonderevoking tropes, the idea of dark wonder and what he called the Dunsanian Conjuration.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Contents

Figures

Details

Pages
XIV, 158
ISBN (PDF)
9781803743134
ISBN (ePUB)
9781803743141
ISBN (Hardcover)
9781803743073
DOI
10.3726/b21241
Language
English
Publication date
2024 (June)
Keywords
H. P. Lovecraft Romanticism wonder dark wonder beauty the strange the foreign weird fiction dreamlands Lord Dunsany joy ugliness drama traveling Dunsanian Conjuration 20th century horror garden poetry philosophy contemplation teetotalism wonder-evoking tropes
Published
Oxford, Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, Lausanne, New York, 2024. XIV, 158 pp., 16 fig. b/w.

Biographical notes

Jan B. W. Pedersen (Author)

Philosopher Jan B. W. Pedersen is the author of Balanced Wonder: Experiential Sources of Imagination, Virtue, and Human Flourishing (2019). He teaches at University College Diakonissestiftelsen, Frederiksberg, Denmark and at Folkeuniversitetet, Aalborg, Denmark.

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Title: H. P. Lovecraft