Cosmicism in H.P. Lovecraft's and Thomas Ligotti's short fiction

This study focuses on Howard Phillips Lovecraft's cosmicism, which aims to tackle the widely accepted notion that preaches the superiority of the human being by showing the reader that there are worlds and types of knowledge that they are not made aware of because of the fragility of their minds. While cosmicism is widely regarded as a subgenre of weird fiction, as it tackles so many important topics through a combination of different philosophies, views and movements, it should be regarded as a genre on its own since the characteristics it carries are extremely unique and distinctive. This paper aims to delve into the notion that is cosmicism in order to prove that it should be a genre of its own and analyzes it thoroughly through examining Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu and The Shadow Out of Time, and Ligotti's The Dream of a Manikin, Alice's Last Adventure and The Sect of the Idiot, as well as analyzing movements and notions like determinism, nihilism, the sublime, etc. Through analyzing two different authors, with one of them being the founder of cosmicism, the way cosmicism can be expanded has been proven as a result of its dynamic nature. And because of this dynamic nature, combined with the fact that it is completely different from any genre that was ever created before, it has been established that cosmicism should be its own distinct genre. A comparative approach was taken in order to convey the true potential of cosmicism and how two different authors, from two different times contributed to it.