Stephen King Ars Poetica on Horror
Stephen King's 'Ars Poetica' on Horror
In Stephen King's non-fictional book, Danse Macabre, he views Lovecraft as a major impact in the field of dark horror fiction writing and also acknowledges the fact that King himself considered him as a major source of inspiration, which was embedded in his style of writing. When he reminisces about how he got introduced to the genre, he states that his first pick of the countless texts happened to be one of Lovecraft's short stories. King mentions, that although many consider this writer as a hack, what could be clearly seen from his writings is that "the man himself took his work seriously" (Danse Macabre 117). Based on the excellent horror works that Lovecraft produced, Stephen King shares the belief, that the most powerful horrors could only work, if the reader felt the weight of the size of the universe and the contradictory size of one individual, and these works implied such not mentioned forces so powerful, that they could "destroy us all if they so much as grunted in their sleep" (Danse Macabre 80). This, as a matter of fact, is the basis for all xenophobic tales and serves as a basis for creating the scary atmosphere and which Lovecraft refers to as 'cosmic fear'.
We have established that a working piece of macabre is one that has the ability to create a connection with our feeling of fear. However, this cannot stand by itself and it is the writer's responsibility to portray these embodiments.
A great amount of imagination is essential from the reader's part for the piece of horror to work, King however looks at imagination both as a blessing and a curse (Danse Macabre x), since people with a massive imagination are the sanest, most down-to-earth people, they are clear on the dangers posed on our everyday life from almost any direction. King refers to this phenomenon as 'seeing in darker spectrums' (Danse Macabre x), which is a healthy outlook on the world, healthier than the so-called 'ostrich policy', where
In Stephen King's non-fictional book, Danse Macabre, he views Lovecraft as a major impact in the field of dark horror fiction writing and also acknowledges the fact that King himself considered him as a major source of inspiration, which was embedded in his style of writing. When he reminisces about how he got introduced to the genre, he states that his first pick of the countless texts happened to be one of Lovecraft's short stories. King mentions, that although many consider this writer as a hack, what could be clearly seen from his writings is that "the man himself took his work seriously" (Danse Macabre 117). Based on the excellent horror works that Lovecraft produced, Stephen King shares the belief, that the most powerful horrors could only work, if the reader felt the weight of the size of the universe and the contradictory size of one individual, and these works implied such not mentioned forces so powerful, that they could "destroy us all if they so much as grunted in their sleep" (Danse Macabre 80). This, as a matter of fact, is the basis for all xenophobic tales and serves as a basis for creating the scary atmosphere and which Lovecraft refers to as 'cosmic fear'.
We have established that a working piece of macabre is one that has the ability to create a connection with our feeling of fear. However, this cannot stand by itself and it is the writer's responsibility to portray these embodiments.
A great amount of imagination is essential from the reader's part for the piece of horror to work, King however looks at imagination both as a blessing and a curse (Danse Macabre x), since people with a massive imagination are the sanest, most down-to-earth people, they are clear on the dangers posed on our everyday life from almost any direction. King refers to this phenomenon as 'seeing in darker spectrums' (Danse Macabre x), which is a healthy outlook on the world, healthier than the so-called 'ostrich policy', where