Cthulhu Mythos
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Cthulhu Mythos
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Cthulhu in the lost city of R'lyeh
The Cthulhu Mythos encompasses the shared elements, characters, settings, and themes found in the works of H. P. Lovecraft and associated horror fiction writers. Together, they form the mythos that authors writing in the Lovecraftian milieu have used — and continue to use — to craft their stories.[1] The term itself was coined by the writer August Derleth. Although this legendarium is also sometimes called the Lovecraft Mythos, most notably by the Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi,[2] it has long since moved beyond Lovecraft's original conception.
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[edit] Development
Robert M. Price, in his essay "H. P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos", sees two stages in the development of the Cthulhu Mythos. The first stage, or "Cthulhu Mythos proper" as Price calls it, took shape during Lovecraft's lifetime and was subject to his guidance. The second stage occurred under August Derleth who attempted to categorize and expand the Mythos after Lovecraft's death.[3]
[edit] First stage (the Mythos proper)
- Main article: Lovecraft Mythos
During the latter part of Lovecraft's life, there was much borrowing of story elements among the authors of the "Lovecraft Circle", and many many others, a clique of writers with whom Lovecraft corresponded. This group included Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch, Frank Belknap Long, Henry Kuttner, and others.
Lovecraft recognized that each writer had his own story-cycle and that an element from one cycle would not necessarily become part of another simply because a writer used it in one of his stories. For example, although Smith might mention "Kthulhut" (Cthulhu) or Iog-Sotôt (Yog-Sothoth) in one of his Hyperborean tales, this does not mean that Cthulhu is part of the Hyperborean cycle. A notable exception, however, is Smith's Tsathoggua, which Lovecraft appropriated for his revision of Zelia Bishop's "The Mound" (1940). Lovecraft effectively connected Smith's creation to his story-cycle by placing Tsathoggua alongside such entities as Tulu (Cthulhu), Yig, Shub-Niggurath, and Nug and Yeb in subterranean K'n-yan.
Most of the elements of Lovecraft's Mythos were not a cross-pollination of the various story-cycles of the Lovecraft Circle, but were instead deliberately created by each writer to become part of the Mythos — the most notable example being the various arcane grimoires of forbidden lore. So, for example, Robert E. Howard has his character Friedrich Von Junzt reading Lovecraft's Necronomicon in "The Children of the Night" (1931), and Lovecraft in turn mentions Howard's Unaussprechlichen Kulten in both "Out of the Aeons" (1935) and "The Shadow Out of Time (1936).[4] Howard frequently corresponded with H. P. Lovecraft, and the two would sometimes insert references or elements of each others' settings in their works. Later editors reworked many of the original Conan stories by Howard; thus, diluting this connection. Nevertheless, many of Howard's unedited Conan stories are arguably part of the Cthulhu Mythos.[5]
[edit] The Mythos as a background element
According to David E. Schultz, Lovecraft never meant to create a canonical Mythos but rather intended his imaginary pantheon to serve merely as a background element. Thus, Lovecraft's "pseudomythology" — a term used by Lovecraft himself and others to describe the beings appearing in his stories — is the backdrop for his tales but is not the primary focus. Indeed, the cornerstone of his stories seems to be the town of Arkham and not beings like Cthulhu.[6][7]
Furthermore, Lovecraft may not have been serious when he spoke of developing a "myth-cycle" and probably would have had no need to give it a name anyway. Since he used his Mythos simply as background material, he probably had this in mind when he allowed other writers to use it in their own stories. It could be said that Lovecraft's Mythos was a kind of elaborate inside joke propagating among the writers of his circle. However, August Derleth's understanding of the Mythos appears to have been that Lovecraft wanted other authors to actively write about the myth-cycle rather than to simply allude to it in their stories.[8]
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