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

This is an intensely interesting statement. First, when Lovecraft says that he did not wait for ‘oral information’, he is suggesting (perhaps without even knowing it) that his mother would certainly not have told him the ‘facts of life’—at least not at the age of eight, and perhaps not at any age. Even his grandfather might not have done so. It is remarkable to note that Lovecraft was already so keenly aware of the ‘strange reticences & embarrassments of adult speech’ at this time that he sensed something was not being told him; at least up to the age of eight, and perhaps beyond, he was a solitary child who largely spent time in the company of adults. And as one who was already a prolific reader (and a reader of material rarely given to the very young), he may have become early aware of anomalies in some of his books also. And as for his declaration that his knowledge of the matter killed his interest in sex: this is certainly the impression Lovecraft consistently conveyed to his friends, correspondents, and even his wife. He does not seem to have had any romantic involvements in high school or at any time prior to about 1918 (and even this one is a matter of inference). It took three years for Sonia Greene to convince Lovecraft to marry her; the impetus was clearly on her side. There has been much speculation on Lovecraft’s sex life, but I do not believe there are sufficient grounds for much of an opinion beyond the testimony given by Lovecraft himself—and his wife.

In any event, Lovecraft’s initial enthusiasm for chemistry and physiology would lead to further interests in geography, geology, astronomy, anthropology, psychology, and other sciences that he would study over a lifetime. He may have remained a layman in all these branches of knowledge, but his absorption of many of them—especially astronomy—was prodigious for a literary man; and they helped to lay strong foundations for his philosophical thought, and would provide the backbone for some of his most powerful works of fiction.

Lovecraft reports that he began learning Latin around 1898.¹⁰

Elsewhere he says that ‘My grandfather had previously [i.e., previous to his entering school] taught me a great deal of Latin’,¹¹

which suggests that he had begun the study of Latin prior to his attendance at the Slater Avenue School in the fall of 1898. It was natural for a boy so enthralled with the classical world to learn Latin, although to have begun it so early—and, evidently, to have mastered it in a few years, without much formal instruction—was a notable feat even at a time when knowledge of Latin was far commoner than it is now.

We will find that the poetry of Virgil, Horace, and Juvenal left a lasting impression upon Lovecraft, and that the Epicurean philosophy embodied in Lucretius was a central influence in his early thought. One remarkable instance of the classical influence on Lovecraft’s juvenile writing is the piece entitled ‘Ovid’s Metamorphoses’.

This 116-line work is nothing less than a literal pentameter verse translation of the first eighty-eight lines of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The date of composition of this piece is, unfortunately, in doubt; but, by consulting the various catalogues of works found in his other juvenile works, one may infer that it dates to the period 1900–02.

The first thing to note about this translation is how different it is from Dryden’s (he translated the first book of the Metamorphoses in ‘Garth’s Ovid’). Lovecraft attempts a far more literal, line-for-line translation, adhering as closely to the Latin as he can. Lovecraft has two subdivisions in his essay, with the headings ‘The Creation of the World’ (ll. 5–84) and ‘The Creation of Man’ (ll. 85–116). There are, admittedly, similar divisions and headings in Dryden, but his first one (‘The Golden Age’) appears just where Lovecraft’s poem leaves off.

There is one more remarkable thing about ‘Ovid’s Metamorphoses’, and that is the possibility that it may be a fragment. The autograph manuscript covers five sheets, and the text proceeds to the very bottom of the fifth sheet. Could Lovecraft have translated more of Ovid’s text, and could this portion have been lost? I think the probability is strong: this item, priced at 25 cents, is currently not much longer than ‘The Poem of Ulysses’, priced at 5 cents. Perhaps it is not unreasonable to think that Lovecraft might have translated the entire first book of Ovid (779 lines in Latin). The translation as it stands admittedly ends at a clear break in the Latin text, as at line 89 Ovid is about to begin the account of the four ages of man; but I still believe there was once more to this work than we have.