Cosmic Horror
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Cosmic Horror
Lovecraftian horror, sometimes used interchangeably with "cosmic horror", is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named after American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). His work emphasizes themes of cosmic dread, forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks associated with scientific discoveries, which are now associated with Lovecraftian horror as a subgenre. The cosmic themes of Lovecraftian horror can also be found in other media, notably horror films, horror games, and comics. Origin American author H. P. Lovecraft refined this style of storytelling into his own mythos that involved a set of supernatural, pre-human, and extraterrestrial elements. His work was influenced by authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Algernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce, Arthu ...
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Gothic Fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of early Gothic novels. The first work to call itself Gothic was Horace Walpole's 1764 novel ''The Castle of Otranto'', later subtitled "A Gothic Story". Subsequent 18th century contributors included Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Beckford (novelist), William Thomas Beckford, and Matthew Gregory Lewis, Matthew Lewis. The Gothic influence continued into the early 19th century, works by the Romantic poetry, Romantic poets, and novelists such as Mary Shelley, Charles Maturin, Walter Scott and E. T. A. Hoffmann frequently drew upon gothic motifs in their works. The early Victorian literature, Victorian period continued the use of gothic, in novels by Charles Dickens and the Brontë family, Brontë sisters, as well as works by the American ...
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Psycho (novel)
''Psycho'' is a 1959 horror novel by American writer Robert Bloch. The novel tells the story of Norman Bates, a caretaker at an isolated motel who struggles under his domineering mother and becomes embroiled in a series of murders. The novel is considered Bloch's most enduring work and one of the most influential horror books of the 20th century. The story was famously adapted into Alfred Hitchcock's seminal 1960 film of the same name, and also loosely adapted into the '' Bates Motel'' television series (2013–2017). Bloch later wrote three sequels, which are unrelated to any of the film sequels. Plot Norman Bates, a middle-aged bachelor, is dominated by his mother, a mean-tempered, puritanical old woman who forbids him to have a life outside of her. They run a small motel together in the town of Fairvale, but business has suffered since the state relocated the highway. In the middle of a heated argument between them, a customer arrives, a young woman named Mary Crane. Mar ...
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Robert Bloch
Robert Albert Bloch (; April 5, 1917September 23, 1994) was an American fiction writer, primarily of crime, psychological horror and fantasy, much of which has been dramatized for radio, cinema and television. He also wrote a relatively small amount of science fiction. His writing career lasted 60 years, including more than 30 years in television and film. He began his professional writing career immediately after graduation, aged 17. Best known as the writer of '' Psycho'' (1959), the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock, Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over 30 novels. He was a protégé of H. P. Lovecraft, who was the first to seriously encourage his talent. However, while he started emulating Lovecraft and his brand of ''cosmic horror'', he later specialized in crime and horror stories working with a more psychological approach. Bloch was a contributor to pulp magazines such as ''Weird Tales'' in his early career, and was also a prolific scree ...
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Visceral
In biology, an organ is a collection of tissues joined in a structural unit to serve a common function. In the hierarchy of life, an organ lies between tissue and an organ system. Tissues are formed from same type cells to act together in a function. Tissues of different types combine to form an organ which has a specific function. The intestinal wall for example is formed by epithelial tissue and smooth muscle tissue. Two or more organs working together in the execution of a specific body function form an organ system, also called a biological system or body system. An organ's tissues can be broadly categorized as parenchyma, the functional tissue, and stroma, the structural tissue with supportive, connective, or ancillary functions. For example, the gland's tissue that makes the hormones is the parenchyma, whereas the stroma includes the nerves that innervate the parenchyma, the blood vessels that oxygenate and nourish it and carry away its metabolic wastes, and the conne ...
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Weird Fiction
Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Weird fiction either eschews or radically reinterprets ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and other traditional antagonists of supernatural horror fiction. Writers on the subject of weird fiction, such as China Miéville, sometimes use "the tentacle" to represent this type of writing. The tentacle is a limb-type absent from most of the monsters of European folklore and gothic fiction, but often attached to the monstrous creatures created by weird fiction writers, such as William Hope Hodgson, M. R. James, Clark Ashton Smith, and H. P. Lovecraft. Weird fiction often attempts to inspire awe as well as fear in response to its fictional creations, causing commentators like Miéville to paraphrase Goethe in saying that weird fiction evokes a sense of the numinous. Although "weird fiction" has been chiefly used as a historical description for works through the 1930s, it experienced a re ...
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Against The World, Against Life
Against may refer to: * ''Against'' (album), 1998 album by Brazilian metal band Sepultura ** "Against" (song) the title track song from the Sepultura album * Against (American band), 2006 American thrash band * Against (Australian band), Australian hardcore punk band {{disambig ...
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Michel Houellebecq
Michel Houellebecq (; born Michel Thomas, 26 February 1956 or 1958) is a French author, known for his novels, poems and essays, as well as an occasional actor, filmmaker and singer. His first book was a biographical essay on the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Houellebecq published his first novel, '' Whatever'', in 1994. His next novel, ''Atomised'', published in 1998, brought him international fame as well as controversy. ''Platform'' followed in 2001. He has published several books of poetry, including '' The Art of Struggle'' in 1996. An offhand remark about Islam during a publicity tour for his 2001 novel ''Platform'' led to Houellebecq being taken to court for inciting racial hatred (he was eventually cleared of all charges). He subsequently moved to Ireland for several years, before moving back to France, where he currently resides. He was described in 2015 as "France’s biggest literary export and, some say, greatest living writer." In a 2017 DW article he is dubbed ...
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Supernatural Horror In Literature
"Supernatural Horror in Literature" is a 28,000 word essay by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, surveying the development and achievements of horror fiction as the field stood in the 1920s and 30s. The essay was researched and written between November 1925 and May 1927, first published in August 1927, and then revised and expanded during 1933–1934. The essay Lovecraft's essay ranges widely, but he first examines the beginnings of weird fiction in the early gothic novel. As a guide for what to read in the early gothic he relied partly on Edith Birkhead's 1921 historical survey ''The Tale of Terror'', and he was also able to draw on the expertise of the great many experts and collectors in his circle. The bulk of the essay was written in New York City giving Lovecraft easy access to the resources of the city's great public libraries and also to the collections of his friends, and thus he was able to read widely and obtain obscure and rare works. His survey then proceeds to outline ...
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New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick to the northeast and Quebec to the north. The Atlantic Ocean is to the east and southeast, and Long Island Sound is to the southwest. Boston is New England's largest city, as well as the capital of Massachusetts. Greater Boston is the largest metropolitan area, with nearly a third of New England's population; this area includes Worcester, Massachusetts (the second-largest city in New England), Manchester, New Hampshire (the largest city in New Hampshire), and Providence, Rhode Island (the capital of and largest city in Rhode Island). In 1620, the Pilgrims, Puritan Separatists from England, established Plymouth Colony, the second successful English settlement in America, following the Jamestown Settlement in Virginia foun ...
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China Miéville
China Tom Miéville ( ; born 6 September 1972) is a British speculative fiction writer and literary critic. He often describes his work as ''weird fiction'' and is allied to the loosely associated movement of writers called '' New Weird''. Miéville has won numerous awards for his fiction, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award, British Fantasy Award, BSFA Award, Hugo Award, Locus Award and World Fantasy Awards. He holds the record for the most Arthur C Clarke Award wins (three). His novel ''Perdido Street Station'' was ranked by ''Locus'' as the 6th all-time best fantasy novel published in the 20th century. During 2012–13, he was writer-in-residence at Roosevelt University in Chicago. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2015. Miéville is active in anti-capitalist politics in the United Kingdom and has previously been a member of the International Socialist Organization (US) and the short-lived International Socialist Network (UK). He was formerly a mem ...
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Sanity
Sanity (from la, sāntā) refers to the soundness, rationality, and health of the human mind, as opposed to insanity. A person is sane if they are rational. In modern society, the term has become exclusively synonymous with ''compos mentis'' ( la, compos, having mastery of, and la, mentis, mind), in contrast with ''non compos mentis'', or insanity, meaning troubled conscience. A sane mind is nowadays considered healthy both from its analytical - once called ''rational'' - and emotional aspects. According to the writer G. K. Chesterton, sanity involves wholeness, whereas insanity implies narrowness and brokenness. Psychiatry and psychology Alfred Korzybski proposed a theory of sanity in his general semantics. He believed sanity was tied to the logical reasoning about and comprehension of what is going on in the world. He imposed this notion in a map-territory analogy: "A map ''is not'' the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a 'similar structure' to the territory ...
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