Expository Essay

Diego Alejandro Cabrera Zúñiga.

A01375114.

Why is Lovecraft an Important Writer and How Does Translation Affect his works?

Expository Essay

Fifth Entry

H.P Lovecraft is not considered one of the greatest writers of his times, the 1930´s. There were other writers that wrote in the same genres as Lovecraft and they were better in any aspect than him. Such as Smith, or Blackwood, or Fritz Leiber, were considered better writers. Roger Luckhurst wrote an essay analyzing Lovecraft´s biography, style, and the genre he belongs to. Luckhurst attempts to answer in his introduction to The Classic Horror Stories, why has Lovecraft survived? When there was Smith, or Blackwood, or Fritz Leiber, or many other, better writers of that time. When Luckhurts discusses Lovercaft biography he highlights that “Lovecraft’s racism is typical of its age, but driven towards pathological intensity by Lovecraft’s perception of himself as the last scion of New England civilization” (Jess Nevins, 2). He tries to uncover one of Lovecraft´s problem with one historical event of that time which regards England civilization and those ideas around the world of 1930´s that concern the racism. Also, Luckhurst made Lovecraft look good as a writer when he remarked that he is actually worthy of a critical edition and removing him from the traditions of science fiction and horror, and instead, he placing him as part of the Weird category, which made Lovecraft became a shaper and establisher of the subgenre. As a result of all of this, Roger Luckhurts didn´t answer literally the question, but did gave a lot of background information that inferred that Lovecraft is such a great writer and that can be compared to the best of those times as well.

One of the problems in translating Lovecraft´s works is to convey that fear that is found in his original works, so translators must be very careful with elements such as culture and language that are important while translating. It´s important to know that Lovecraft´s scientific knowledge and attention to detail allowed him to create situations, set in the real world, where unnatural and disturbing situations take place. As part of Lovecraft style, it was predominant the: frequent use of adjectives, particularly at the end of a text; his style was not archaic, but rather dense and compressed; the first person narration; the use of words relating to various senses; and the intentional repetition of the phrase or its part. These stylistics are important because he was aware that all readers are equally affected by horror fiction.

To prove that Lovecraft´s translations were not that accurate there is one example through the translations by Robert P. Lipski, he is the author of Polish translations. When he translated “The Statement of Randolph Carter” by Lovecraft into Polish, there were some mistakes that might misinterpret what Lovecraft wanted to convey. This was because the inversion of the original sentence was not preserved. Lipski used the expression “dalibóg”, which suggests that one character of the story is a religious person, which he was no way religious. The final words of the original statement were also changed, and he changed the character reaction towards a situation while in the original work he was eloquent.

This shows that the author´s style is intimately related to the purpose and the feelings conveyed in a work. Since the translation made into another language may affect either the sensations or the logical events in that story. And this can be appreciated in Lovecraft´s stories, since he was used to write science fiction, horror or Weird category, where fear was the main feeling in those works.