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Fantasy Fan, v. 2, issue 4, whole no. 16, December 1934

Page 55

December, 1934, THE FANTASY FAN     55

ulative force and the unerring accuracy in linkage of parts which make for faultless unity throughout and thunderous effectiveness at the climactic moment, the delicate nuances of scenic and landscape value to select in establishing and sustaining the desired mood and vitalising the desired illusion-- principles of this kind, and dozens of obscurer ones too elusive to be described or even fully comprehended by any ordinary commentator. Melodrama and unsophistication there may be --we are told of one fastidious Frenchmen who could not bear to read Poe except in Baudelaire's urbane and Gallically modulated translation--but all traces of such things are wholly over-shadowed by a potent and inborn sense of the spectra, the morbid, and the horrible which gushed forth from every cell of the artist's creative mentality and stamped his macabre work with the ineffaceable mark of supreme genius. Poe's weird tales are alive in a manner that few others can ever hope to be.

Like most fantaisistes, Poe excels in incidents and broad narrative effects rather than in character drawing. His typical protagonist is generally a dark, handsome, proud, melancholy, intellectual, highly sensitive, capricious, introspective, isolated, and sometimes slightly mad gentleman of ancient family and opulent circumstances; usually deeply learned in strange lore, and darkly ambitious of penetrating to forbidden secrets of the universe. Aside from a high-sounding name, this character obviously derives little from the early Gothic novel; for he is 

THE FAVORITE WEIRD
STORIES OF
CLARK ASHTON SMITH

(Courtesy of H. Koenig)

"The Yellow Sign" by Chambers
"The House of Sounds" by Shiel
"The Willows" by Blackwood
"A View from a Hill" by James
"The Death of Halpin Frayser" by Bierce
"The House of Usher" Poe
"The Masque of Red Death" Poe
"The White Powder" by Machen
"The Call of Cthulu" by Lovecraft
"The Colour out of Space" "

clearly neither the wooden hero nor the diabolical villain of Radcliffian or Ludovician romance. Indirectly, however, the does possess a sort of genealogical connexion; since his gloomy, ambition and anti-social qualities savour strongly of the typical Byronic hero, who in turn is definitely an offspring of the Gothic Manfreds, Montonis, and Ambrosios. More particular qualities appear to be derived from the psychology of Poe himself, who certainly possessed much of the depression, sensitiveness, mad aspiration, loneliness, and extravagant freakishness which he attributes to his haughty and solitary victims of Fate.

(Part Sixteen next month deals with the eighth section of this article, "The Weird Tradition in America," dealing mostly with Nathaniel Hawthorne and his comparison with Poe. Don't miss it.)

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December, 1934, THE FANTASY FAN 55 ulative force and the unerring accuracy in linkage of parts which make for faultless unity throughout and thunderous effectiveness at the climactic moment, the delicate nuances of scenic and landscape value to select in establishing and sustaining the desired mood and vitalising the desired illusion-- principles of this kind, and dozens of obscurer ones too elusive to be described or even fully comprehended by any ordinary commentator. Melodrama and unsophistication there may be --we are told of one fastidious Frenchmen who could not bear to read Poe except in Baudelaire's urbane and Gallically modulated translation--but all traces of such things are wholly over-shadowed by a potent and inborn sense of the spectra, the morbid, and the horrible which gushed forth from every cell of the artist's creative mentality and stamped his macabre work with the ineffaceable mark of supreme genius. Poe's weird tales are alive in a manner that few others can ever hope to be. Like most fantaisistes, Poe excels in incidents and broad narrative effects rather than in character drawing. His typical protagonist is generally a dark, handsome, proud, melancholy, intellectual, highly sensitive, capricious, introspective, isolated, and sometimes slightly mad gentleman of ancient family and opulent circumstances; usually deeply learned in strange lore, and darkly ambitious of penetrating to forbidden secrets of the universe. Aside from a high-sounding name, this character obviously derives little from the early Gothic novel; for he is THE FAVORITE WEIRD STORIES OF CLARK ASHTON SMITH (Courtesy of H. Koenig) "The Yellow Sign" by Chambers "The House of Sounds" by Shiel "The Willows" by Blackwood "A View from a Hill" by James "The Death of Halpin Frayser" by Bierce "The House of Usher" Poe "The Masque of Red Death" Poe "The White Powder" by Machen "The Call of Cthulu" by Lovecraft "The Colour out of Space" " clearly neither the wooden hero nor the diabolical villain of Radcliffian or Ludovician romance. Indirectly, however, the does possess a sort of genealogical connexion; since his gloomy, ambition and anti-social qualities savour strongly of the typical Byronic hero, who in turn is definitely an offspring of the Gothic Manfreds, Montonis, and Ambrosios. More particular qualities appear to be derived from the psychology of Poe himself, who certainly possessed much of the depression, sensitiveness, mad aspiration, loneliness, and extravagant freakishness which he attributes to his haughty and solitary victims of Fate. (Part Sixteen next month deals with the eighth section of this article, "The Weird Tradition in America," dealing mostly with Nathaniel Hawthorne and his comparison with Poe. Don't miss it.)