Short Story Criticism | Lovecraft, H. P. - Winfred S. Emmons, Jr. (essay date 1960)

Winfred S. Emmons, Jr. (essay date 1960)

SOURCE: Emmons, Winfred S., Jr. “H. P. Lovecraft as a Mythmaker.” Extrapolation 1, no. 2 (May 1960): 35–37.

[In the following essay, Emmons discusses the “Cthulhu Mythos” stories as the creation of a mythology appropriate to the twentieth century, calling it “a myth for our time.”]

Myth is supposed to grow out of a current pattern of life, taking form in stories which crystalize beliefs that are a part of that life. The twentieth century is not notoriously an age of beliefs, and its approach to myth has tended rather to autopsy and analysis than to mythic creation. H. P. Lovecraft, however, has achieved a certain fame as the creator of the “Cthulhu Mythos,” which in some sense may be considered a myth for our time. Three current beliefs are incorporated into the stories of the Cthulhu mythos, and it is the purpose of this paper to present a skeletal account of their use in...

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