"I must confess that my estimate of Lovecraft would not have pleased his most ardent admirers. The view I expressed in that book [i.e., The Strength to Dream: Literature and the Imagination (1961)] was that, while Lovecraft was distinctly a creative genius in his own way, his pessimism should not be taken too seriously: that it was the pessimism of a sick recluse and had about an element of ressentiment, a kind of desire to take revenge on a world that rejected him. In short, Lovecraft was a 19th century romantic, born in the wrong time. Most men of genius dislike their own age, but the really great ones impose their own vision on the age. The weak ones turn away into a world of gloomy fantasy."
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Horror authorsAbsurdistsNovelists from the United StatesCritics of religionAgnostics from the United States
Original Language: English
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Sources
Colin Wilson, preface to his Lovecraftian novel The Mind Parasites, p. 2 (1967)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft
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