j d worthington
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Below are some notes I wrote up for myself a while back, when I was thinking of doing a piece on some of the "influences" on Lovecraft's early tale, "Polaris". I am now at work on a first draft of the full piece, and thought, if anyone would be interested, I'd post the original notes here, either for the reader's enjoyment or to spark discussion, as the case may be:
"Polaris" is an interesting piece in Lovecraft's oeuvre for several reasons. First, because it strikes an almost quasi-Biblical cadence and archaic rhythm and word-choice, all bearing striking similarity to the work of Lord Dunsany, with which Lovecraft was not yet acquainted; yet when he did encounter it slightly over a year later, this common chord wold resonate so strongly that, for some time, the Irish fantaisiste would almost dominate Lovecraft's own work. Secondly, it begins that series of tales that has come to be called the "Dreamlands" stories (though Lovecraft himself never so designated the tales and indeed vacillated between them taking place in dream or in a prehistoric past). And thirdly because, in this tale Lovecraft would pull together very disparate threads from his letters, poems, and philosophical views as well as personal experiences, and make of them a story that -- at least on the surface -- is logically flawed but nonetheless haunting.
As has been noted, the dream of the city was described in the letter to Maurice Winter Moe of 15 May 1918 (included in Selected Letters I, pp. 60-68); but Lovecraft was also inspired to take a fictional position directly opposed to that in his letter by here arguing -- or at least making plausible -- that the dream-state (both disembodied spirit and later inhabitant of the city) was as real as the modern man who has the dream; that, in fact, the dream is a memory of something from an unknown prehistoric past in which the dreamer, in a previous incarnation, played a part; a point discussed at some length by S. T. Joshi (see, e.g., A Subtler Magick, pp. 72-75). It is this nagging sense of pseudo-memory, and the tension between the poles of it being a true memory or an obsessive dream, that gives the tale much of its power.
But Lovecraft brought together other things as well, sometimes in reversed or distorted form, from his own experiences. That the narrator is "denied a warrior's part" because he is "feeble and given to strange fantings when subjected to stress and hardships" is an obvious reference to his rejection by the R.I.N.G. (and subsequently during the draft), and his feelings of bitterness resulting from that (possibly revived by the publishing of a verse entitled "Only a Volunteer" by one Sgt. Hayes B. Miller, to which Lovecraft wrote a response, "The Volunteer", a possibility strengthened by Lovecraft's comments written on the tearsheets for the issue of The Tryout in which his response also appeared -- see A Winter Wish, pp. 119-121, 171,n.76). But some of Lovecraft is also reflected in Alos as well, whose speech was that "of a true man and patriot", not of a peace-advocate such as Lovecraft constantly castigated at this point; and when he (Alos) "spoke of the perils to be faced, and exhorted the men ... to sustain the traditions of their ancestors" (who bear considerable resemblance to Lovecraft's version of the ancient Teutonic warriors -- note his description of their descent from the north and how they swept more primitive peoples aside, and compare it with numerous similar passages in his letters), as opposed to the Inutos, who "were mighty in the arts of war, and knew not the scruples of honour" which held back the Lomarians from "ruthless conquest", it rings uncannily close to such Lovecraftian exhortations as "Ad Britannos". There is also the common notion or feeling that Lovecraft had of the modern day being a mad dream and the "rational" eighteenth centyry being the reality (see, for example, De Camp's Lovecraft: A Biography, p. 22), which he here gives an especially poignant and chilling form.
Yet it is Lovecraft's artistry, even in such a minor tale as this, that allows for that "willing suspension of disbelief" that enables the tale to work. His careful choice of what details to include and what words and rhythms to use are immeasurably important to conveying a convincing atmosphere. He had not read Poe or the Gothics or Hawthorne (though it was only later he learned his major lessons from Hawthorne) in vain. Use of such terms as "uncanny light" for the Pole Star; or north winds that "curse and whine"; Coma Berenices shimmering "weirdly" -- all from the first few lines of the story -- may indeed be "meaningless" in a literal sense (though, with Lovecraft's penchant for imbuing the setting of a tale with a form of sentience, even this is debatable), but as descriptions of an emotional state or response to a thing they add a texture and color that incrementally slips the reader from everyday reality to a particular nightmarish vision; giving, upon finishing the tale, a new layer of perception to reality itself.
Choice of such details as how "the red-leaved trees of the swamp mutter things to one another in the small hours of the morning under the horned waning moon" or "the night of the great Aurora, when over the swamp played the shocking coruscations of the daemon-light"; the creation of the Pnakotic Manuscripts; or even the "damnable rhythmical promise" (altered in wording after considering the criticism of his fellow amateur poet John Ravenor Bullen; see In Defence of Dagon, p.32,n.3) are indeed very carefully made, and hint of things beyond the view of the reader, giving the tale a depth not only historically (the Pnakotic Manuscripts, the cyclical curse uttered by the Pole Star), but in allusion to mysteries never explained but rich in possibilities. For example: Why call the Aurora a "daemon-light"? Is it a portent of what is to come, perhaps even a breaking-through of the past into the present, a rupture in the fabric of those "laws of nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space"? Note that, in the sequence of events given in the tale, it is after the night of the aurora that the city appears and the protagonist's dream/memory begins, and recall that Aurora is the goddess of the dawn....
Even with such a brief and relatively minor piece, Lovecraft is extremely careful to choose that which will enhance the effect, blur the lines between reality and dream, and bestow an emotional plausibility that is the hallmark of a consummate craftsman.
"Polaris" is an interesting piece in Lovecraft's oeuvre for several reasons. First, because it strikes an almost quasi-Biblical cadence and archaic rhythm and word-choice, all bearing striking similarity to the work of Lord Dunsany, with which Lovecraft was not yet acquainted; yet when he did encounter it slightly over a year later, this common chord wold resonate so strongly that, for some time, the Irish fantaisiste would almost dominate Lovecraft's own work. Secondly, it begins that series of tales that has come to be called the "Dreamlands" stories (though Lovecraft himself never so designated the tales and indeed vacillated between them taking place in dream or in a prehistoric past). And thirdly because, in this tale Lovecraft would pull together very disparate threads from his letters, poems, and philosophical views as well as personal experiences, and make of them a story that -- at least on the surface -- is logically flawed but nonetheless haunting.
As has been noted, the dream of the city was described in the letter to Maurice Winter Moe of 15 May 1918 (included in Selected Letters I, pp. 60-68); but Lovecraft was also inspired to take a fictional position directly opposed to that in his letter by here arguing -- or at least making plausible -- that the dream-state (both disembodied spirit and later inhabitant of the city) was as real as the modern man who has the dream; that, in fact, the dream is a memory of something from an unknown prehistoric past in which the dreamer, in a previous incarnation, played a part; a point discussed at some length by S. T. Joshi (see, e.g., A Subtler Magick, pp. 72-75). It is this nagging sense of pseudo-memory, and the tension between the poles of it being a true memory or an obsessive dream, that gives the tale much of its power.
But Lovecraft brought together other things as well, sometimes in reversed or distorted form, from his own experiences. That the narrator is "denied a warrior's part" because he is "feeble and given to strange fantings when subjected to stress and hardships" is an obvious reference to his rejection by the R.I.N.G. (and subsequently during the draft), and his feelings of bitterness resulting from that (possibly revived by the publishing of a verse entitled "Only a Volunteer" by one Sgt. Hayes B. Miller, to which Lovecraft wrote a response, "The Volunteer", a possibility strengthened by Lovecraft's comments written on the tearsheets for the issue of The Tryout in which his response also appeared -- see A Winter Wish, pp. 119-121, 171,n.76). But some of Lovecraft is also reflected in Alos as well, whose speech was that "of a true man and patriot", not of a peace-advocate such as Lovecraft constantly castigated at this point; and when he (Alos) "spoke of the perils to be faced, and exhorted the men ... to sustain the traditions of their ancestors" (who bear considerable resemblance to Lovecraft's version of the ancient Teutonic warriors -- note his description of their descent from the north and how they swept more primitive peoples aside, and compare it with numerous similar passages in his letters), as opposed to the Inutos, who "were mighty in the arts of war, and knew not the scruples of honour" which held back the Lomarians from "ruthless conquest", it rings uncannily close to such Lovecraftian exhortations as "Ad Britannos". There is also the common notion or feeling that Lovecraft had of the modern day being a mad dream and the "rational" eighteenth centyry being the reality (see, for example, De Camp's Lovecraft: A Biography, p. 22), which he here gives an especially poignant and chilling form.
Yet it is Lovecraft's artistry, even in such a minor tale as this, that allows for that "willing suspension of disbelief" that enables the tale to work. His careful choice of what details to include and what words and rhythms to use are immeasurably important to conveying a convincing atmosphere. He had not read Poe or the Gothics or Hawthorne (though it was only later he learned his major lessons from Hawthorne) in vain. Use of such terms as "uncanny light" for the Pole Star; or north winds that "curse and whine"; Coma Berenices shimmering "weirdly" -- all from the first few lines of the story -- may indeed be "meaningless" in a literal sense (though, with Lovecraft's penchant for imbuing the setting of a tale with a form of sentience, even this is debatable), but as descriptions of an emotional state or response to a thing they add a texture and color that incrementally slips the reader from everyday reality to a particular nightmarish vision; giving, upon finishing the tale, a new layer of perception to reality itself.
Choice of such details as how "the red-leaved trees of the swamp mutter things to one another in the small hours of the morning under the horned waning moon" or "the night of the great Aurora, when over the swamp played the shocking coruscations of the daemon-light"; the creation of the Pnakotic Manuscripts; or even the "damnable rhythmical promise" (altered in wording after considering the criticism of his fellow amateur poet John Ravenor Bullen; see In Defence of Dagon, p.32,n.3) are indeed very carefully made, and hint of things beyond the view of the reader, giving the tale a depth not only historically (the Pnakotic Manuscripts, the cyclical curse uttered by the Pole Star), but in allusion to mysteries never explained but rich in possibilities. For example: Why call the Aurora a "daemon-light"? Is it a portent of what is to come, perhaps even a breaking-through of the past into the present, a rupture in the fabric of those "laws of nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space"? Note that, in the sequence of events given in the tale, it is after the night of the aurora that the city appears and the protagonist's dream/memory begins, and recall that Aurora is the goddess of the dawn....
Even with such a brief and relatively minor piece, Lovecraft is extremely careful to choose that which will enhance the effect, blur the lines between reality and dream, and bestow an emotional plausibility that is the hallmark of a consummate craftsman.
