Cartografando a fantasia: a identidade regional da Nova Inglaterra representada nas cartografias literárias de H. P. Lovecraft (1912-1926)

Abstract

Monsters and fantastic creatures that escape from human understanding are remarkable literary elements in Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s (1890 - 1937) narratives. He is also known as the author of the uncanny fiction genre. His fantasies writings point up to a reconstruction of American identity in the first decades of the 20th century. To cause fear and disgust with distorted views about the Other – non anglo-saxons peoples - whether through letters, newspaper articles or the monsters in fictional narratives, Lovecraft reveals a xenophobic feeling, of a racist nature, against the migratory flow of diverse people who came to inhabit New England - a region idealized by the author as the holder of the true essence of the United States. Through the geographical concepts of place and landscape of fear, Yi-Fu Tuan (2005; 2013) demonstrates how individuals appropriate and recreate spaces from experience. This research uses the method of literary cartography by Robert Tally (2020). This theory demonstrates how the writer, just like the cartographer, uses several imaginary mechanisms, based on the perceptions of his own experience, to create symbolic maps that represent reality. Thus, it is observed that Lovecraft reconstructed the meaning of the region in which he lived from his own sensory and affective experiences; just like occurred in several writings - fictional, epistolary narratives, poetry and articles in periodicals - using the historical imaginary to reframe the American cultural identity.