Re-mapping H.P. Lovecraft: Geographies of the Weird and Absent
Keywords:
Re-mapping, H. P. Lovecraft, chronotope, weird geographies.Abstract
This paper offers a re-mapping of H.P. Lovecraft’s writing as an example of one possible way into exploring the idea of mapping in literary geographies. Re-mapping involves taking another look at those elements that are included in any geographical encounter with Lovecraft, as well as a consideration of those that have been left out: what is missing from other critical mappings of his Lovecraft’s life and literary work? Examining this question of absence is of course appropriate for an author famous for his fictions of ‘cosmic terror,’ but the paper argues that it also allows us to explore the ways that Lovecraft wrote about place. The body of the paper explores two possible re-mappings of Lovecraft. The first takes its cue from recent fictional and critical responses to Lovecraft’s racism, particularly Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country (2016). These revisions open up his work to new interpretations by adding in relations to places and people that are otherwise absent or muted. The second considers Lovecraft’s ‘sunset cities’—Providence, Boston, and others—as waypoints on narrated itineraries. Drawing on Bakhtin’s discussion of the chronotope, the paper suggests that we can see these cities as places of transformation, and that this also holds true for biographies of Lovecraft and perhaps for his own understanding of himself.References
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