|
Stephanie ChildressPh.D. Student in American Studies,
The University of Texas at Austin |
Pulp Sonnets: American Fantasy and Escape
As America entered the Great Depression, the pulp magazine Weird Tales gave its readers a sense of escape through the fantastic worlds promised in its contents. Texas writer Robert E. Howard (1906-1936), most well-known for fictional hero Conan the Cimmerian, is also the author of hundreds of poems, including sonnets which touch on themes of fantasy, horror, exoticism, and wizardry that can be read as allegories for ideological changes occurring in the 20th century. The magazine’s editor at the time, Farnsworth Wright, attempted to build the popular magazine's literary reputation to reflect the attitudes of its readers by including many fantasy sonnets from his best writers, especially Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft. The publication of these sonnets in a pulp magazine builds on the literary traditions of the sonnet, allowing readers to escape reality and create a new world through the reading of the fantasy sonnet.
“Pulp Sonnets: American Fantasy and Escape” examines the ways in which the sonnet tradition and the allegorized social realities ground the readers while allowing them to imagine new possibilities in fantasy worlds. By focusing primarily on the sonnets of Robert E. Howard in comparison to the sonnets of Smith and Lovecraft, this paper will be foregrounded in discussion of the early English fantasy and allegorical sonnet tradition as well as highlight the increase in fantasy poem and fiction readership during social crises across historical periods. The paper will critically analyze the themes of pulp fantasy sonnets in the 1920’s as well as the allusions to the social impact of the Great Depression. Extant letters written between the three authors will also be used to inform the poetic language that alludes to cultural conditions and realities that were present at the pulp sonnet’s time of production.
“Pulp Sonnets: American Fantasy and Escape” examines the ways in which the sonnet tradition and the allegorized social realities ground the readers while allowing them to imagine new possibilities in fantasy worlds. By focusing primarily on the sonnets of Robert E. Howard in comparison to the sonnets of Smith and Lovecraft, this paper will be foregrounded in discussion of the early English fantasy and allegorical sonnet tradition as well as highlight the increase in fantasy poem and fiction readership during social crises across historical periods. The paper will critically analyze the themes of pulp fantasy sonnets in the 1920’s as well as the allusions to the social impact of the Great Depression. Extant letters written between the three authors will also be used to inform the poetic language that alludes to cultural conditions and realities that were present at the pulp sonnet’s time of production.
Stephanie Childress (she/her/hers) is a first-year Ph.D. student in the American Studies program at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her B.A. in English Literature at the University of North Texas in Denton and her M.A. in Literature from Texas State University in San Marcos.