A Dreamer & A Visionary; H.P. Lovecraft in His Time

According to various catalogues of works found at the rear of Lovecraft’s juvenile writings, Lovecraft wrote similar paraphrases of the Iliad and Aeneid, as well as items called ‘Mythology for the Young’ (perhaps a paraphrase of some of Bulfinch) and ‘An Old Egyptian Myth Prepared Specially for Small Children’ (again possibly drawn from Bulfinch, as chapter 34 of The Age of Fable discusses some Egyptian myths, especially that of Isis and Osiris).

Classical antiquity was, however, more than a literary experience for Lovecraft; it was both a personal and even a quasi-religious one. In 1897–99 he pored over the classical relics of the museum of the Rhode Island School of Design (the college situated at the foot of College Hill, mostly along Benefit Street), and shortly afterward became familiar with other classical art museums in Providence and Boston. The result was an infatuation with the classical world and then a kind of religious epiphany. Let Lovecraft tell it in his own inimitable way:

When about seven or eight I was a genuine pagan, so intoxicated with the beauty of Greece that I acquired a halfsincere belief in the old gods and Nature-spirits. I have in literal truth built altars to Pan, Apollo, Diana, and Athena, and have watched for dryads and satyrs in the woods and fields at dusk. Once I firmly thought I beheld some of these sylvan creatures dancing under autumnal oaks; a kind of ‘religious experience’ as true in its way as the subjective ecstasies of any Christian. If a Christian tell me he has felt the reality of his Jesus or Jahveh, I can reply that I have seen the hoofed Pan and the sisters of the Hesperian Phaëthusa. (‘A Confession of Unfaith’)

This certainly puts the lie to Bulfinch, who solemnly declared at the very beginning of The Age of Fable: ‘The religions of ancient Greece and Rome are extinct. The so-called divinities of Olympus have not a single worshipper among living men.’

In writing the above passage Lovecraft was clearly wishing to show that his scepticism and anticlericalism were of very early origin; but he may be guilty of some exaggeration. Earlier in this essay he reports that ‘I was instructed in the legends of the Bible and of Saint Nicholas at the age of about two, and gave to both a passive acceptance not especially distinguished either for its critical keenness or its enthusiastic comprehension’. He then declares that just before the age of five he was told that Santa Claus does not exist, and that he thereupon countered with the query as to ‘why God is not equally a myth’. ‘Not long afterwards’, he continues, he was placed in a Sunday school at the First Baptist Church, but became so pestiferous an iconoclast that he was allowed to discontinue attendance. Elsewhere, however, he declares that this incident occurred at the age of twelve. When we examine Lovecraft’s philosophical development, the likelihood is that the Sunday school incident indeed took place at the age of twelve, and not at five.

By the age of seven Lovecraft had already begun to read, begun to write poetry and prose nonfiction, and gained what would prove to be a lifelong love of England and of the past. But his imaginative appetite was not complete; for he claims that in the winter of 1896 yet another interest emerged: the theatre. The first play he saw was ’one of Denman Thompson’s minor efforts’,³⁴ The Sunshine of Paradise Alley, which featured a slum scene that fascinated him. Shortly thereafter he was enjoying the ‘well-made’ plays of Henry Arthur Jones and Arthur Wing Pinero; but the next year his taste was improved by seeing his first Shakespearian play, Cymbeline, at the Providence Opera House. He set up a little toy theatre in his room, hand-painted the scenery, and played Cymbeline for weeks. Lovecraft’s interest in drama continued sporadically for at least the next fifteen to twenty years; around 1910 he saw Robert Mantell’s company perform King John in Providence, with the young Fritz Leiber, Sr, as Faulconbridge. Lovecraft was also a very early enthusiast of film, and throughout his life we will find selected films influencing some of his most significant writing.