The myth of Cthulhu: from fantastic literature of the early 20th century to a pop-culture phenomenon

The myth of Cthulhu, which was created by the author H.P Lovecraft, has grown in popularity during the recent years. If the universe and its ramifications are not known by everyone, Cthulhu, gigantic titan sleeping in the depths of the Pacific and recognizable by his cuttle or octopus head, became an icon of pop-culture , and countless adaptations of this universe had emerged. I am going to talk here about the origins of the myth and its influences, its development through letters, then through all aspects of the culture nowadays.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft is an American writer during the first half of the 20th century. He focused early on writing short stories, mainly horrifying and fantastic. This genre was criticized at the time in the USA, and he only got his writings published in pulp magazines like ''Weird Tales'', which are considered as subculture like the French station novels. Lovecraft will evolve gradually, and we generally divide his work into three literary cycles, which sometimes intersect: the macabre tales, dreamlands stories under the influence of Dunsany, and finally : the myth of Cthulhu.

This universe develops around the fictional city of Arkham, and various characters who will reveal the existence of a whole bestiary of alien and creatures, remaining in the shadows of Great Old Ones. These dark deities constitute some kind of distortion of the mythological pantheons and are all nearly impossible to represent or describe : Shub-Niggurath the black goat with a thousand young, Yog-Sothoth who resides beyond time and space, and Nyarlathotep, emissary of the nuclear chaos Azathoth and who has a thousand masks or avatars around the world, each avatar being an entity adored in the past, like pharaohs …

Known as the father of cosmic horror, Lovecraft watches the rapid evolution of science with a frightened eye, as shown in the parallel made between Nyarlathotep and Newton. He reveals through his writings his anxiety that the transgression of limits will eventually reveal to us truths that we would not want to know. The Old ones who are often only seen in the form of a sinister influence, are manifestations of these things that we are trying to master: the unknown spaces of the world like the depths and the poles, space and time …

He build up a commentary of the fragility of human civilization and its insignificance. This concern is summed up in this quote from "The call of cthulhu": « We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far [...] but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. »

Despite his death, the author had disciples and friends who helped to introduce the myth into their own stories: Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, ext ... These different authors have extended the universe to make of it a participative creation which evolves over the writings, moreover the universe have gained its name of “Myth of Cthulhu” post-mortem, through the writings of the disciple August Derleth. If this project could have ended early, he didn't, and successful authors like Geiman and Stephen King themselves refer to the myth. Having never known success in his life, Lovecraft will first be rediscovered in France thanks to surrealists, or poets like Baudelaire and Mallarmé, who will allow us to discover the genius of authors like Lovecraft or Edgar Allan Poe. Jacques Bergier will be in charge of the edition, all this attention allowing him to rehabilitate Lovecraft, to the point that he appears today among the requests made to the prestigious collection of the Pleiade.

In America, its reappearance will first involve the development of a new form of entertainment, role-playing. The role-playing game "The Call of Cthulhu" will experience significant success, and many editions, while the range of specialized games will grow up to board games and recent card games published by FFG, a success which is explained by a unique and very rich universe easy to adapt ...

However, this is a niche market. On a more global scale, participation to the universe of the myth of Cthulhu was not limited to a circle of enthusiasts, and the impregnation of this universe in culture was done gradually, but deeply: The Necronomicon, one of the cursed books of the myth, has become a cult object of pop culture appearing in various films and the city of Arkham gave its name to the asylum of the city of Batman. Likewise, in recent years, numerous adaptations have been made, or are planned: manga, a successful video game, the Bloodborn saga which is linked, a film have been made with Nicolas Cage and will have sequels, and a serie is planned by the realisators of Game of Thrones. The popularity of pop culture icons such as superheroes helping widely. Despite the fact that Lovecraft is still unknown, the universe he created has never been more popular, and the fears and thematics of Lovecraft are today more realistic than before. A vast reissue of Lovecraft's novels has recently been made in France, a sign that the time has come to re-discover him.