Supernatural Horror in Literature by H.P. Lovecraft
Published 1927 · 38,000 words · about 3 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is Supernatural Horror in Literature to read?
Supernatural Horror in Literature scores 51 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 70 out of 100
- Lovecraft's prose is ornate and archaic; his critical vocabulary is elevated and sometimes eccentric.
- Sentence structure: 65 out of 100
- Abstraction: 76 out of 100
- Aesthetic argument about the nature of dread intertwined with historical survey.
- Information density: 72 out of 100
- Survey covers vast historical territory in compressed form.
- Narrative indirection: 16 out of 100
- Argument proceeds partly by atmospheric accumulation rather than pure logic.
- Symbolic density: 20 out of 100
- Highly attentive to the symbolic and atmospheric dimensions of horror.
- Ironic distance: 100 out of 100
- Earnest; Lovecraft is entirely sincere about the primacy of cosmic dread.
- Resolution withholding: 100 out of 100
- Aesthetic judgments are stated with characteristic confidence.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- Chronological survey organized by historical period and individual authors.
How Supernatural Horror in Literature is regarded
Supernatural Horror in Literature holds a literary regard score of 82 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.