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MIDDLE-EARTH, NARNIA AND

LOVECRAFT'S DREAM WORLD:


COMPARATIVE WORLD-VIEWS IN
FANTASY

By Leigh Blackmore

"Science fiction is an ideal medium for the writer who wishes to give vent to
his own thoughts and views on religious beliefs or doctrines. One way to
consider religion is to trace parallels with other worlds, or follow trend into
the future." (1) Three major writers of fantasy expressed many of their
feelings about religion in their writings by creating alternative worlds -
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) and H.P. Lovecraft
(1890-1937). These worlds, respectively, are Middle-Earth (in THE HOBBIT,
the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy and THE SILMARILLION); Narnia (in a series
of seven novels for children); and Dream World (in the short novel THE
DREAM QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH).

There are a number of parallels between these works of fantasy which


illuminate for us the beliefs of their writers. Let us first consider Lewis and
Tolkien, who were closely associated both as friends and writers, especially
through their membership in the Inklings, the Oxford literary group which
met Thursday nights during and after World War II in Lewis' Magdalen
College rooms.

C.S. Lewis as an adolescent was a staunch, though dissatisfied atheist.


Tolkien was influential in his conversion to Christianity, as Lewis eventually
moved from the view that Christian 'myth' conveys as much truth as most
men can comprehend, to belief in the truth of the resurrection of Christ.
Tolkien was able to help Lewis over a number of mental stumbling-blocks
about Christianity; in particular, a long conversation in September 1931
between the two writers, later commemorated in Tolkien's poem
"Mythopoeia", was instrumental in Lewis' decision to embrace Christianity.

Lewis and Tolkien gradually came to share the view that man, as a creation
of God, is not creating anything new in writing fiction, but is embodying in
his own art a reflection of God's eternal truth. Man is not a creator, but a
'sub-creator', since his imaginative inventions originate with God. They
both had the feeling that "all stories are waiting somewhere, and are
slowly being recovered in fragments by different human minds", (2) and
that the practice of mythopoeia (myth-making) was a process of "reflecting
a splintered fragment of the true light." Some parts of their stories, they
felt, may be more 'invented' (and thus ring less 'true') than other parts,
which seemed to have sprung ready-made into their minds. These views
are expressed in Lewis' article "Christianity and Literature" (1939) and in
Tolkien's lecture "On Fairy-Stories".(3)

Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, although his Christianity was hard-
won and it was not until late in life that he came to commit himself to a
belief in God. He was disappointed when Lewis returned to membership of
the Church of England, to which he was unsympathetic. Nevertheless, this
disagreement did not prevent the Christian beliefs of both writers from
exerting a powerful influence on their fiction.

Between 1938 and 1945, Lewis had produced the three metaphysical
fantasies known as the Space Trilogy: OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET,
PERELANDRA, and THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH. (There is also an unfinished
fourth Ransom novel, THE DARK TOWER). In the series, Mars (Malacandra),
is an unfallen, innocent world; Earth (Thulcandra) is fallen and sinful. Venus
(Perelandra), depicted as a world of floating islands, is unfallen but is ripe
for the attempt on Satan's part to defeat Faith. Lewis in the Space trilogy
lucidly uses Christian imagery, much of it drawn from medieval and
Renaissance symbolism and cosmology. He was to become, of course, a
leading Christian apologist, and his novels reflect his deep faith in Christ as
clearly as his popular nonfiction works.

When he came to write the Narnia series, Lewis adopted a slightly different
approach. Narnia itself was largely inspired by the Christian writer of
fantasy George Macdonald, particularly by his PHANTASTES and LILITH.
Narnia again, is a "world of primal innocence." According to Lewis, his
marvellous invented world was an answer to the question "What might
Christ be like if there really were a world like Narnia he chose to be
incarnate and die and rise again in that world as he actually has done in
ours?" (4) God appears in Narnia in the guise of two characters: the Great-
Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea, and Aslan, his son, a lion of great strength,
beauty and gentleness. The correspondences between these characters
and the Christian God and his son Jesus Christ are easily discerned.

The Narnia stories are not primarily didactic, though they sometimes verge
on being so. Lewis said of them: "Everything began with images: a faun
carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there
wasn't even anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of
its own accord. It was part of the bubbling." (5) The tales are not purely
allegorical, but rather a "re-imagining" of the Christian story. At heart,
Lewis was more a writer than a teacher. The effect for which he strove
above all was the vividly imaginative.

Tolkien's Middle-Earth forms the setting for probably the most popular
fantasy of the century, THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Tolkien, an Oxford
professor, had published THE HOBBIT in 1937. The tale was invented as a
fairy story for his children, as was the work he spent the next fourteen
years writing - LORD OF THE RINGS (hereinafter referred to as LOTR). The
trilogy of novels tells a tale of epic proportions, whose characters are
provided with richly detailed histories, languages and customs. A major
element of LOTR is the web of imaginary languages devised by Tolkien -
Quenya, Black Speech, Westron, and others. To a large extent, the tale was
built around the framework of the languages and alphabets to give
substance to what would otherwise have been a complex but rather dry
and uninteresting philology.

Tolkien always maintained that the tales were written just for his own
amusement. (Indeed, both Lewis and Lovecraft made similar disclaimers
about their own tales). He also made many denials of allegorical content in
the writing. When asked by a BBC interviewer in 1964 whether LOTR was to
be considered an allegory, he replied "No, I dislike allegory whenever I
smell it." When it was pointed out that in the book, Evil is personified in
Sauron, but that Good is not personified or ascribed godship, he stated "No,
it's not a dualistic mythology it's based on, certainly not." Sprague de Camp
read LOTR three times and even met the author without suspecting his
faith. (6) Nevertheless, although Tolkien's Christianity is revealed in a
subtle manner through LOTR, it is there and plays a significant part in the
development of the book's themes.

Disclaimers such as those mentioned above are not really convincing, for in
his lecture "On Fairy Stories," Tolkien clearly expressed his attitude towards
fantasy, which he saw as a rational endeavour valuable for helping to
perceive truth. "The Christian may now perceive that all his bents and
faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. So great is the bounty
with which he has been treated that he may now. perhaps, fairly dare to
guess that in Fantasy he may actually assist in the effoliation and
enrichment of creation." (7)

In the above-mentioned BBC interview, Tolkien did speak of God being


"mentioned once or twice" in LOTR, identifying him with "the Ultimate
One," or "the One Only" and describing him as "supreme, the Creator,
outside, transcendent." When the interviewer ventured to suggest that the
whole question of the human fall had been left "off-stage," Tolkien pointed
out that the men in his Numenor legend were given a ban, which was that
they were not to sail west from Numenor. They did exactly what had been
forbidden, thereby incurring disaster. He compared this to the Biblical story
of Adam and Eve's eating of the fruit of the Tree of Evil, commenting that
Lewis used the same thing in his PERELANDRA. One does not have to
probe deeply to see that LOTR is a black-and-white depiction of the conflict
between Good and Evil (represented by the elves, men, dwarves and the
White Council on the one hand, and by the forces of darkness ruled by
Morgoth, Sauron and the Rings of Power on the other).

Especially noticeable is the parallel between the Biblical story of creation


and Tolkien's account of the creation of Middle-Earth during its first age.
Middle-Earth was created by Eru, or Iluvatar, the source of all creation and
the mightiest of beings. Eru is "the One," and is a benevolent, caring deity.
Opposed to him right from the very act of creation was Melkor (later called
Morgoth) who evidently corresponds to Lucifer or Satan. He is the
rebellious chief of the beings known as the Ainur. The Ainur serve Eru, and
created the lower beings - men and elves. They have the same place in
Tolkien's LOTR pantheon as angels in the Bible - God's servants who are
higher than men (sometimes being mistakenly revered by them as gods)
but who are in fact subservient to the will of their one Lord and Creator. In
the same 1964 BBC interview already mentioned, Tolkien compared this
handing over of power to the angelic spirits created by God to a "more
elaborate, well-thought-out version of OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET." (Lewis'
book features the Hnau - rational beings with souls - and a Mars ruled by
the Oyarsa, a sub-deity). Here are clear examples of Lewis' and Tolkien's
"sub-creator" theory showing itself in their writings.

It is instructive to consider the opinions of Lewis and Tolkien on each


other's work. Lewis liked both THE HOBBIT and LOTR, and praised them
highly in reviews when they were published. Tolkien liked Lewis' Space
Trilogy, particularly PERELANDRA, whose chief character, the philologist
Ransom, is simultaneously a portrait of Tolkien and a symbol of Everyman.
However, he totally rejected Lewis' Narnia stories, saying he "disliked them
intensely." There were a number of reasons for this hostile reaction. The
Narnia tales contained numerous inconsistencies, in contrast to Middle-
Earth, which was as consistent and plausible as Tolkien could make it. They
were hastily-written and somewhat uneven in quality, although the series
improves as it continues. Tolkien felt that the necessary suspension of
disbelief was made more difficult, if not impossible, by the hotchpotch of
mythologies from which Lewis borrowed. Moreover, he found them
didactically too explicit, which is a comment probably more revealing of
Tolkien’s literary approach than on Lewis' writing.

It has also been suggested that Tolkien felt Lewis had "stolen his thunder"
to some extent by rushing into print with the Narnia tales, which were
written between 1949 and 1953 - three of them within a year in 1950.
(LOTR was not published until 1954 and 1955, after fourteen years' work.)
"Undoubtedly he felt that Lewis had in some ways drawn on Tolkien's ideas
and stories in the books...he was perhaps irritated by the fact that the
friend and critic who had listened to the tales of Middle-Earth had as it were
got up from his armchair, gone to the desk, picked up a pen, and 'had a go'
himself. Moreover, the sheer number of Lewis' books for children and the
almost indecent haste with which they produced undoubtedly annoyed
him." (8)

Their shared world-view is perhaps the principal similarity between Lewis'


writings and Tolkien's. There is not the extensive commonality of ideas
which might be expected from their close literary association, although a
few of Lewis' ideas show the influence of the other Inklings. Tolkien was
working on LOTR long before the Inklings existed. He drew much from
Lewis' comments and encouragement - for instance, Lewis in 1944 urged
Tolkien back to work on LOTR after a hiatus - but did not borrow directly
from Lewis' ideas. Lewis once said "No one ever influenced Tolkien - you
might as well try to influence a bandersnatch." (9) Lewis, however, only did
most of his writing after becoming acquainted with the Inklings. Several
names in the Space Trilogy are obvious borrowings from Tolkien: 'Numinor',
'Elwin', 'Tor', 'Tinidril'; and the Nairne stories are in some ways like a
lightweight version of LOTR. (Lewis escaped the criticism of "fairy-tale
childishness" sometimes levelled at LOTR since the Narnia novels are
intentionally juvenile, though nonetheless beguiling.) A further parallel is
noticeable between the creation story of Middle-Earth, mentioned above,
and Narnia, which was created from nothing by Aslan singing.

Let us now examine Lovecraft's invented world before we go on to discover


some of the features that all three settings have in common.

Lovecraft's DREAM-QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH (hereinafter referred to


simply as DQ) is the story of Randolph Carter, a dreamer of Earth, who
thrice glimpses a fabulous terraced city but suspects that "dream's
tyrannous gods" have conspired to prevent his access to it. Carter's
solution is to embark on a mission foreshadowing that of the Starship
Enterprise in STAR TREK: he resolves "to go with bold entreaty whither no
man has gone before." His aim is to seek out the Great Ones in their onyx
castle atop Kadath in the Cold Waste, and to present his personal plea for
entry into the marvellous dream city.

DQ was written between Autumn 1926 and January 22, 1927, just after
Lovecraft's return to Providence from his 'New York exile.' It expresses
much of Lovecraft’s own anguish at being separated from long-familiar
places and the longing for their recapture. However, from the tale's
conception, Lovecraft was dissatisfied with it. he wrote disparagingly of it to
several of his correspondents: "I don't think much of it...and I certainly
dread the job of retyping it..." (10). "...As for my novel...it is a picaresque
chronicle of impossible adventures in dreamland, and is composed under
no illusion of professional acceptance...Actually, it isn't much good; but
forms useful practice for later and more authentic attempts in the novel
form." (12). Some years later, he wrote to Clark Ashton Smith, dismissing
the tale with these words: "I did a whole novel 110 closely-written pages -
in that style during the winter of 1926-27, and fancy that may have been
my swan-song as a Dunsanoid fantaisiste. I like to spin that kind of cob-web
- letting my imagination build cosmic Odysseys without restraint - but as
soon as they are done they begin to look a bit puerile to me. They need the
glamorous perspective of the creative process to conceal their flimsiness
and enhance their vitality. I have never had the fortitude to type that final
piece of Plunkettism.(13) Wandrei read it in manuscript and didn't think
much of it." (14)

In fact, Lovecraft never did type or even submit the tale. It remained in his
files for years, untouched. At approximately 38,000 words, it is one of the
most ambitious and lengthy pieces attempted by Lovecraft, and its
imaginative potency is all the more remarkable considering it is a first
draft, never revised. Eventually, the manuscript was typed by R.H. Barlow.
(15) According to Kenneth Faig, THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD
(1928) and THE DREAM-QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH...would also likely
have actually perished had not Barlow coaxed the manuscripts out of a
dubious Lovecraft in 1934." (16) Despite Barlow's fortunate rescue of the
tale, Lovecraft had washed his hands of it to all intents and purposes. He
referred to it two years later as "my repudiated fantasy," (17) and it did not
see print until its appearance in the 1943 Arkham House collection,
BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP, six years after Lovecraft's death.

Many of Lovecraft's writings were directly inspired by dreams, for example:


"Celephais", "The Statement of Randolph Carter", "The Green Meadow",
"The Music of Erich Zann", "The Thing in the Moonlight", "The Nameless
City", "Polaris", the prose-poem "Nyarlathotep" and many of the stanzas of
the "Fungi from Yuggoth" sonnet sequence. DQ, however, belongs to that
smaller group of tales (including "Dreams in the Witch House", "Beyond the
Wall of Sleep" and the two Randolph Carter Silver key stories) which are
primarily about dreaming. That is, despite the admittedly dream-like
structure of its loosely-connected plot episodes, and such characters as the
bat-winged, faceless night-gaunts which derive directly from Lovecraft's
childhood nightmares. DQ as a whole was not inspired by a real-life dream
of Lovecraft's. Rather, its whole atmosphere is a distillation of Lovecraft's
cumulative experience of dreaming and exploring the strange alien worlds
of his own subsconscious. It is aptly named a quest, for it is the writer's
quest as well as Carter's. Elsewhere, Lovecraft wrote: "Space and time
become vitalised with literary significance when they begin to make us
subtly homesick for something 'out of space and out of time'...To find those
other lives, other worlds, and other dreamlands is the true author's task.
(18)

DQ contains elements derived from a number of notable literacy sources


which influenced the widely-read Lovecraft. These include Burton's ARABIA
DESERTA; Beckford's VATHEK (an influence noted by Lin Carter (19) and
explored in detail by Peter Cannon (20)); and the ARABIAN NIGHTS, which
Lovecraft loved as a child. Dream World has also been identified by some
writers with the Greek Hell, (21) a feasible suggestion since Lovecraft's love
of Greek mythology is well known and influenced many of his other tales.
The principal literary influence upon DQ, of course, is found in the tales of
Lord Dunsany. Dunsany's influence upon Lovecraft has, again, been
explored in depth elsewhere. (22) Lovecraft was, during his time in New
York, a member of an informal group of friends and fellow writers much like
the Inklings. This group, the Kalem Club, may well have played some part
in the development of DQ, or at least have heard Lovecraft's plans for the
novel at one of the regular reading sessions. It would be interesting to see
further research on this point.

The character of Carter corresponds closely to Lovecraft himself. he has


previously appeared in "The Statement of Randolph Carter" as an
individual attracted to the bizarre and the forbidden; presumably he
escaped the confinement or execution threatened at that story's opening.
Carter is a dreamer of long standing, a lover of cats (whose speech he
knows), and a devotee of architectural and natural beauty. Lovecraft wrote:
"All genuine art, I think, is local and rooted in the soil; for even when one
sings of far incredible twilight lands he is merely singing of his homeland in
some gorgeous and exotic mantle. It is this point which I seek to emphasise
in my 110-page effort THE DREAM QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH. Take a
man away from the fields and groves which bred him - or which moulded
the lives of his forefathers - and you cut off the sources of his power
altogether." (23) Carter's love of the vistas afforded by such glimpses of
the beyond as his glittering sunset city is also Lovecraft's own, and once
again is a recurring theme in Lovecraftian stories. (24) In the later Silver
Key stories, Lovecraft goes on to express his views through Carter even
more explicitly.

Carter's attitude to the gods of earth, the Great Ones, is ambivalent. he


prays to them for aid in his quest several times, yet earlier has
contemplated capturing one of them and forcing the god to aid him. That
this is even possible demonstrates the weak nature of the Great Ones who,
despite their name, are often described as 'feeble'. Their resemblance to
the Greek mythological gods is also notable. They have mortal passions,
one of their favourite pastimes being to espouse the daughters of men.
Their wisdom, too, is far from infinite, for Carter knows that they may
sometimes be surpassed by a wise mortal. The Great Ones are
continuously described as 'testy' and 'capricious', which recalls the
whimsical behaviour of the Greek gods, who were wont to treat humans
with favour one moment and disdain the next.

The actual geography of Dream World is never completely clear and


definable. Dream World is part of a much larger world known as the Six
Kingdoms. It is also supposed to surround the waking Earth, and voyages
from it to the dream worlds surrounding other planets are possible, though
dangerous. Some parts of it are closer to the waking world than others,
even physically joining it at some points. (For example, graveyards,
whereby the ghouls have access to the waking world). Some parts of it
seem to be an objective reality, so that Carter can travel about, even to the
moon, in lands that exist independent of his dreaming.

Yet, Carter's sunset city has been brought into existence within Dream
World at large by dreams and memories specifically attributed to Carter.
Says Nyarlathotep near the climax of the story: "These, Randolph Carter,
are your city; for they are yourself. New England bore you, and into your
soul she poured a liquid loveliness which cannot die. This loveliness,
moulded, crystallised, and polished by years of memory and dreaming, is
your terraced wonder of elusive sunsets..."(25) According to Gilles
Menegaldo, "This city emerges as the sum of the experience and memories
of his youth: in creating it the dreamer has become a demiurge, and the
dream bestows on him a power which not only provides access to another
universe, but actually fashions it...At this level the dream-city attests the
power of man: through his creation he rivals the Gods..." (26) Similarly,
Kuranes has dreamed into reality a small area of Dream World which
recreates the countryside of his English home in the waking world. Thus, he
and Carter are "sub-creators," though in a far different sense from those in
Lewis' and Tolkien's work. Their creation is a paean to their achievements
as men, and they owe their power to create to no superior being, but to
their own wills.

Another link between Dream World and the waking world is that two
important subsidiary characters, Kuranes and Pickman, were both known
by Carter in the waking world before he met them in their Dream World
existence, where they live on in a sort of reincarnation, both of them
having died in the waking world.

The nature of reality in Dream World is disruptive and chaotic. Carter


several times dreams with his Dream. Various characters are unsure
whether Mt. Ngranek 'real' or 'dream', or whether the night-gaunts are
'real' or 'fabulous'. The city of Zar lies in the 'land of forgotten dreams' - a
sort of dream world within Dream World. This creates a Chinese-box effect,
with multiple levels of fantasy and reality. The ambiguity is reminiscent of
Lovecraft's note "dream and waking worlds confused" (listed in his NOTES
AND COMMONPLACE BOOK) as a 'basic and underlying horror' for use in
weird fiction); and of Lovecraft's own dreams, which he felt might almost
have been fragments of past lives, so vivid and realistically detailed were
they.

Dreaming in DQ is a learned skill rather than a random happening. Carter is


well-versed, in fact 'very expert', in this skill. This is a further extension of
the idea that he is largely in control of his own destiny. He is aware that he
is dreaming and is reluctant to awake lest he forget all he has learned. It is
a curious inversion of Lovecraft's later stories, where the Old Ones control
men by communicating with them through their dreams. In DQ, Carter
seeks out the gods by the same means, but his is the motivating force.

We may now examine a few of the many parallels between Dream World,
Narnia and Middle-Earth not so far mentioned. As entities, Narnia and
Dream World are perhaps more akin to each other than Middle-Earth is to
either. Both of them are alternative, but not necessarily 'ideal' worlds.
Middle-Earth seems to strive more for an ordered scheme of things than do
the others. One can imagine Tolkien wishing to live in his created world,
because it was designed as an escape from the debasing effects of
mechanisation and industrialisation. As de Camp points out, "like Morris,
Lovecraft and C.S. Lewis, Tolkien was an unabashed rurophile." (27) Middle-
Earth is a land of simple rustic beauty invaded by barbaric philistine forces.
Tolkien obviously has deep feelings about his native countryside and the
influence of modern technological society in stripping it of its untamed
splendour. Naturally this played a part in Lovecraft's motivation for creating
Dream World, for he too was all against the urbanisation and
mechanisation of modern life. But Dream World is more sheerly fantastic,
more incredible than the carefully-portrayed Middle-Earth; so, too, is Narnia
for all that its geography is as carefully delineated as Middle-Earth's.

Entry to Narnia may be gained from the world of men, through the back of
a wardrobe and also by way of the Wood Between the Worlds, which is
strikingly similar to Lovecraft's Enchanted Wood, wherein is the Gate of
Deeper Slumber allowing access to Dream World. Middle-Earth is not
connected with other worlds; it is entirely self-contained and self-
referential. The only men in LOTR are just as much part of Middle-Earth's
environment as the other races that live there.

The flow of time in Narnia is different from that in the world of men. Years
may elapse there while on Earth hours or days pass; thus with Dream
World, where Carter's adventures take months of Dream World time but
only a single night of Earth time. Again, Middle-Earth's time is self-
referential. Although the various races have different calendars, different
ways of measuring time, it is implicit that the flow of time is objectively the
same for all Middle-Earth's inhabitants.

Perhaps in the array of flora and fauna with which they populate their
invented worlds, Lovecraft and Tolkien have more in common with each
other than with Lewis' Narnia. It is full of mythological beasts; although
familiar creatures like dogs and rabbits also appear. There are fauns,
satyrs, dwarves, nymphs, dryads, unicorns, mermen and mermaids,
centaurs and a few original inventions such as marsh-wiggles. Dream World
certainly has flora and fauna familiar from the waking world: flowers from
asphodels to orchids, and creatures such as cats, sheep, grouse, quail,
pheasants, condors, bats, ravens, yaks, elephants and zebras. It also has
unheard-of and sometimes sinister creatures such as Gugs, ghasts,
Shantaks, night-gaunts, dholes, zoogs, wamps, magah-birds, urhags,
carnivorous fish, buopoths, and vooniths; not to mention some unpleasant
beings designated only as the "nameless larvae of the Other Gods."

The inhabitants of Middle-Earth are mainly more anthropomorphic beings,


but the history and classification of these races is so complex that no brief
summary can do it justice. Most of the races inhabiting Middle-Earth,
including individual characters, have more than one name. (For example,
the Nazgul/Ringwraiths, the Valaraukar/Balrogs, the Ainur/Valar). These
variations in nomenclature reflect both the diversity of Middle-Earth's
language groups, and changes over time since the world was created.
Middle-Earth is peopled by men, but they are just one race among many,
and of them all the most fallible and subject to corruption. There are also
the various groups of elves (the Eldar, Avari, Vanyar, Noldor, Teleri, and so
on); the tree-like ents; the gnome-like hobbits; giant spiders (including
Ungoliant and Shelob); wizards (the Istari); dwarves; trolls; the goblin-like
orcs; and various other groups of being with greater or lesser degrees of
mortality (for instance, the Maiar, helpers to the Valar).

The religious aspect of the three alternative worlds under discussion is


undoubtedly the aspect which unites them in purpose. This is not to say
that the purposes of the three writers were the same, for Tolkien and Lewis
as Christians stand diametrically opposed in their philosophy to Lovecraft,
who was a thoroughgoing atheist and mechanistic materialist. Lovecraft did
share some of the theist's wonder at the created order of the universe:
"Emotionally I stand breathless at the awe and loveliness and mystery of
space with its ordered suns and worlds. In that mood I endorse religion, and
people the fields and streams and groves with the Grecian deities and local
spirits of old - for at heart I am a pantheistic pagan..." (28) In DQ, he indeed
peopled the countryside with gods. The Dream World is dotted with shrines
to the amiable gods of nature, for example, the river-god of Oukranos.
Ruined temples and shrines to less wholesome gods are found wherever
Carter goes, even on the moon and under the ocean.

There is nothing contradictory in Lovecraft's liberal use of gods in which he


did not believe. De Camp perceptively states "Some of the most effective
writers of prehistoric or other-world fantasy, like Dunsany, Lovecraft,
Howard and Leiber, have been unbelievers. Such sceptics could freely
invent all the gods whatever qualities their stories required. A devout
Christian or other monotheist, however, has a problem. He cannot make his
people good Christians, Muslims, or Jews back in the Pleistocene or in a
parallel world. If they worship 'pagan' gods, he must make it plain that
these gods are either demons in disguise or nonexistent..." (29) This
explains why LOTR is minimal in its use of tribal gods; and why Lewis chose
to re-imagine the Christian story in Narnia. Both are methods used with
considerable success) to get around the theistic problem. As for Lovecraft,
the more powerful gods in DQ represent the forces of nihilism and chaos:
the daemon-sultan Azathoth, who gnaws hungrily in the chaos of the
formless central void; the blind, mindless, terrible Other Gods of the 'outer
hells' who protect the weak gods of Earth; and Nyarlathotep, constantly
referred to as "the crawling chaos."

Lovecraft, Tolkien, and Lewis have all achieved immense popularity


through their fantasy writings, and possibly this is due to the strength of
vision underlying their different, but tremendously imaginative portrayals
of worlds like ours - worlds in which we may identify our own dreams,
desires, hopes or beliefs and if we are sufficiently inspire, bring something
of those beliefs to reality in our own world.

NOTES

1: Ash, VISUAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION. NY: Harmony Books,


1977, p. 224.

2: Quoted in H. Carpenter, THE INKLINGS. London: Allen and Unwin, 1978,


p. 138.

3: Published in TREE AND LEAF. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965.

4: Quoted in Carpenter, THE INKLINGS, p. 223.

5: Quoted in F. Rottensteiner, THE FANTASY BOOK. London: Thames and


Hudson, 1978, p. 126.

6: L. S. de Camp, LITERARY SWORDSMEN AND SORCERORS; THE MAKERS


OF HEROIC FANTASY. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1976, p. 243.
7: Quoted in H. Carpenter, J.R.R. TOLKIEN: A BIOGRAPHY. London: Allen and
Unwin, 1977, p. 191.

8: Ibid., p. 201.

9: Quoted in L.S. de Camp, op. cit., p. 232.

10: H.P. Lovecraft, AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS AND OTHER NOVELS.


Sauk City: Arkham House, 1964, p. 291.

11: HPL to Clark Ashton Smith, 21 January 1927, SELECTED LETTERS II.
Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1968, p. 99.

12: HPL to Wilfred Blanch Talman, 19 December 1926, SELECTED LETTERS


II, P. 95.

13: 'Plunkettism' is a reference to Lord Dunsany's real name, Edward John


Moreton Drax Plunkett.

14: HPL to Clark Ashton Smith, 17 October 1930, SELECTED LETTERS III.
Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1971, p. 192.

15: Robert H. Barlow, Lovecraft's youthful friend, correspondent, fellow


writer and later his literary executor, saved a number of HPL's manuscripts
by offering to type them.

16: Kenneth Faig, "R.H. Barlow," Journal of the H.P. Lovecraft Society, Vol 1,
No. 2, October 1979.

17: HPL to Fritz Lieber, 19 December 1936, SELECTED LETTERS V. Sauk


City, WI: Arkham House, 1976. p. 376.

18: HPL to Zealia Brown Reed (Bishop), 5 June 1927, SELECTED LETTERS II,
P. 143. Italics are Lovecraft's.

19: Lin Carter, LOVECRAFT: A LOOK BEHIND THE CTHULHU MYTHOS.


Frogmore, UK: Panther Books, 1972, p. 61.

20: See P. Cannon, "The Influence of VATHEK on H.P. Lovecraft's THE


DREAM-QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH" in S.T. Joshi (ed), H.P. LOVECRAFT:
FOUR DECADES OF CRITICISM. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1980.

21: See D. Schweitzer, DREAM QUEST OF H.P. LOVECRAFT, p. 19; and


George T. Wetzel's "The Cthulhu Mythos: A Study" in S.T. Joshi (ed), H.P.
LOVECRAFT: FOUR DECADES OF CRITICISM and "Genesis of the Cthulhu
Mythos" in D. Schweitzer (ed), ESSAYS LOVECRAFTIAN. Baltimore: T-K
Graphics, 1976.

22. See especially T.E.D. Klein's SOME NOTES OF THE FANTASY TALES OF
H.P. LOVECRAFT AND LORD DUNSANY (Honors thesis, Brown University,
1969; unpublished) and D. Schweitzer's "Lovecraft and Lord Dunsany" in
his self-edited ESSAYS LOVECRAFTIAN (also, slightly revised, in his DREAM
QUEST OF H.P. LOVECRAFT. Reference may also be made to Lawrence R.
Lynn's THE CTHULHU MYTHOS IN THE WRITINGS OF H.P. LOVECRAFT (MA
thesis, University of Rhode Island, 1971; unpublished). Lovecraft's own
essay "Lord Dunsany and His Work" is revealing.

23: HPL to Bernard Austin Dwyer, June 1927, SELECTED LETTERS II, P. 131.

24: See P. Cannon, "Sunset Terrace Imagery in Lovecraft". Lovecraft


Studies #5, Fall 1981.

25: Lovecraft, AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS, P. 180.

26: See G. Menegaldo, "The City in H.P. Lovecraft

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