Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction that originated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, distinguished by its move away from, or substantial reimagining of, conventional supernatural horror antagonists such as ghosts, vampires and werewolves. Pioneering authors of the form include William Hope Hodgson, M. R. James, Clark Ashton Smith and H. P. Lovecraft, and scholars such as China Mieville have pointed to the recurring image of the tentacle, absent from traditional European gothic monsters, as symbolic of the tradition.
Facts
Place of OriginUnited States, where Edgar Allan Poe is regarded as the pioneering author of the form. 1 Notable ExampleH. P. Lovecraft, whose stories for the pulp magazine Weird Tales made him the writer most closely identified with the subgenre. 1 Defining TraitFiction evoking an atmosphere of dread toward unknown outer forces suspending nature's fixed laws, per H. P. Lovecraft's own definition of the true weird tale. 1 Connections
Encompasses Form
Form Of Genre
Sources
1. Weird Fiction (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationHistory section, quoting Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature
The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain-a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.
History section, on the pulp magazine Weird Tales
The writers who wrote for the magazine Weird Tales are thus closely identified with the weird fiction subgenre, especially H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber and Robert Bloch.
History section, first sentence
Edgar Allan Poe is often regarded as the pioneering author of weird fiction.
View the Source Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.