Conveying the Ineffable: The Communication Techniques of H.P. Lovecraft

Abstract

One of the more profound limitations of language lies in the conveyance of the ineffable, namely concepts that have few analogues for comparison and that defy traditional means of explanation. After noting the ongoing issue of conveying the ineffable in several fields, particularly in philosophy and the practice of science communication, this paper examines the methods of gesturing towards ineffability that were employed by H.P. Lovecraft, a prominent and provocative horror author of the early 20th century who frequently wielded complex and abstract descriptions as tools to evoke sensations of existential dread. The primary texts examined are two of Lovecraft's canonical short stories, "The Call of Cthulhu" (1928) and "At the Mountains of Madness" (1936). Using Immanuel Kant and Martin Heidegger, whose works concern the accumulation and examination of knowledge through the medium of language, three categories of basic descriptive concepts in Lovecraft's texts are identified and examined: geometry, scale, and sensation. Lovecraft frequently calls attention to their limits and presents entities that exist beyond them, such as the Old Ones, beings "that lurk ceaselessly behind life in time and in space" ("The Call of Cthulhu" 216).