“A Reminiscence of Doctor Samuel Johnson”
Fun fact: Lovecraft came to The United Amateur's attention after the editor read a letter Lovecraft had written to another fiction magazine, complaining about how empty and insipid their romance stories were. Lovecraft's letter provoked a storm of responses from both defenders of those stories, and those who agreed with him, and apparently United Amateur's head honcho thought Lovecraft showed promise as a writer based on his critique. UA reached out to him, and "The Alchemist" received its first printing.
In other words, Lovecraft first got published by starting a flame war in the comments section.
"Samuel Johnson" is another story I'd never heard of until now, so this will be another blind readthrough. It was published in 1917, in the next fall issue of The United Amateur. Unlike "The Alchemist" this one was written in the months leading up to publication, and was intended for United Amateur from the beginning.
Apparently someone told Lovecraft they didn't like the pseudo-archaic prose of his last story, and this is how he dealt with criticism.
I have to wonder who the object of satire is, though. Is Lovecraft taking the piss out of himself, or out of his critics? It could be read as "yup, I'm terrible, just roll with it lol" or as "no, THIS is what archaic English reads like, you stupid peasant."
Dr. Samuel Johnson was a real person, incidentally. A well known linguist and poet in 1700's England. I guess that would make this a very sarcastic historical fiction piece.
And now we're talking about petty, jealous critics. I think this is too over-the-top to be an actual case of butthurt. This is self-deprecating humor, and its good at that.
There's a lot of snark here, and I feel like its being directed at real people, most likely including the author on a meta-level.
Oh Lovecraft, you card.
That last line is "A man of passionate temperament is Literature, and of the few." Apparently a real quote from Dr. Johnson, who was indeed a contemporary of Voltaire.
I feel like the funetik aksented German is supposed to be a historical figure too, but I'm not sure who that would be.
You know, I wonder how Lovecraft would have done in the information age. This reminds me of blogosphere humor for many reasons.
Even Voltaire's contemporaries find Lovecraft's prose too old fashioned and opaque.
And that's the end.
What I learned? Lovecraft had a sense of humor, and wasn't too proud to turn it against himself on occasion. I enjoyed this piece.
Next up is "The Beast in the Cave" published in another periodial called The Vagrant in the summer of 1918.