Lovecraftian horror, also called cosmic horror or eldritch horror, is a subgenre of horror, fantasy and weird fiction originating in the United States that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named after the twentieth century American author H. P. Lovecraft, whose work emphasizes strange and eldritch phenomena, with themes of cosmic dread, forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks of scientific discovery, all now associated with the subgenre. Its cosmic themes also appear in horror films, horror games and comics.
Facts
Notable Example Defining Trait Connections
Features Author
Source H. P. Lovecraft (Wikipedia)
Form Of Genre
In the Other Atlases
Originated In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.
Sources
1. Lovecraftian horror - Wikipedia
Image caption
The Call of Cthulhu, first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928
Introduction, hallmark
The hallmark of Lovecraft's work is cosmicism, the sense that ordinary life is a thin shell over a reality that is so alien and abstract in comparison that merely contemplating it would damage the sanity of the ordinary person.
View the SourceH. P. Lovecraft (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)Features Author: H. P. Lovecraft, Infobox, genre fieldQuote, Features Author: H. P. Lovecraft, Infobox, genre field
Genre: Lovecraftian horror, dark fantasy, weird fiction, horror fiction, mythopoeia, science fiction, fantasy
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